Final years of Fatimid control of Cairo
Towards the end of Fatimid control of Cairo and Egypt there were some bold and dramatic movies for control of the ever-weakening state. I have come to enjoy these examples for their values as stories and human strife. The first part of a condensed (and possibly quite overly summarized) version of one particularly dramatic example follows.
Part I
At the age of seventeen a young man was placed in the seat of power and took the name al-Zafir bi-Amr Allah. Though he was officially the Fatimid caliph he did not much like governing and instead appointed a man by the name of Ibn Masal to be the vizier and the effective leader of the state. For a few months things went well for Ibn Masal. He was able to stop the fighting that was taking place between the blacks and the rayhamis in the army and restore relative order.
I will post the next two parts of this particular story up here in the next few days.