HAKIM BI-AMR-ILLAH ABU ‘ALI MANSUR, AL-. This son of Caliph
al-‘Aziz came to the throne on the last day of Ramadan
386/October 996. At first, one of his brothers, Muhammad, had
been chosen as heir, but he died before his father. Since the
new caliph was so young (born in 986), the Berber Kutamah chief,
al-Hasan ibn ‘Ammar, acted as regent. But the Turks, who
represented an equally strong section of the army, were
dissatisfied with the preferment given to the Berbers. Hence
fighting broke out between the different factions, which
resulted in the removal of Ibn ‘Ammar and his replacement by the
Turk Barjawan in 997. From the year 1000 onward, al-Hakim
himself exercised power, inaugurating his government by killing
Ibn ‘Ammar and, a few months later, Barjawan. For the next
twenty years, his immediate collaborators, outstanding
personalities of the kingdom, and the Egyptian people in general
were at the mercy of al-Hakim's changing moods. A series of
orders and unexpected, often contradictory, prohibitions came f