Called the Mad Caliph by enemies, al-Hakim is revered by millions today
Al-Hakim became ruler of the Fatimid empire at eleven, crowned with a jewelled turban after being called down from a sycamore tree. Critics later dubbed him the Nero of Egypt; the Druze came to regard him as a manifestation of God. Few medieval rulers have left such opposite reputations.
Born in Cairo on 13 August 985, Abu Ali al-Mansur was the first Fatimid ruler born in Egypt, and was said to have blue eyes flecked with reddish gold. In 996 his father, Caliph al-Aziz, fell fatally ill on the road to Syria. Al-Hakim later remembered his father embracing him and sending him off to play; soon the treasurer Barjawan found the boy up a tree, placed the turban on his head and hailed him as Commander of the Faithful. His regnal name means the Ruler by the Order of God.
The first years belonged to others. Kutama Berber troops forced out the Christian vizier and installed their own leader, whose faction stripped the treasury until Barjawan organised a revolt in 997 and took charge, balancing Berber and Turkish interests. After Barjawan was murdered in 1000, al-Hakim took power himself, purged the old elites and kept officials on a short leash, running through more than 15 chief ministers in 20 years.
Abroad he did better than the unrest at home suggests. He held North Africa, extended Fatimid influence over Aleppo, managed a wary peace with Byzantium, and in 1008 a Fatimid sea captain carried his gifts to Song dynasty China, restoring ties broken since the Tang collapse. The rival Abbasid caliph in Baghdad answered Fatimid expansion in 1011 with a manifesto denying their descent from the Prophet's family.
The 1009 destruction of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre is part of his reputation, and a Crusader chronicler blamed it on taunts about a Christian mother, a claim most historians reject. Near the end of his reign the Druze movement took shape around him. He died on 13 February 1021, perhaps at the instigation of his half-sister Sitt al-Mulk. Nizari and Musta'li Ismailis, along with some 2 million Druze, still honour him.
Source: Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
