red pretensions of the new
imams, whom he contemptuously designated as the spawn of the quacks,
charlatans, and the enemies of Islam. He tried to enlist the support of
the Abbasside Caliph, but El-Muti replied that Fatimis and Karmatis were
all one to him, and he would have nothing to do with either. The
Buweyhid prince of Irak, however, supplied Hasan with arms and money;
Abu-Taghlib, the Hamdanide ruler of Rahba on the Euphrates, contributed
men; and, supported by the Arab tribes of Okeyl, Tavy, and others, Hasan
marched upon Damascus, where the Fatimites were routed, and their
general, Giafar, killed. Moizz was forthwith publicly cursed from the
pulpit in the Syrian capital, to the qualified satisfaction of the
inhabitants, who had to pay handsomely for the pleasure.

Hasan next marched to Ramla, and thence, leaving the Fatimite army of
eleven thousand men shut up in Jaffa, invaded Egypt. His troops
surprised Kulzum at the head of the Red Sea, and Farama (Pelusium), near
the Mediterranean, at the two ends of the Egyptian frontier. Tinnis
declared against the Fatimites, and Hasan appeared at Heliopolis in
October, 971. Gawhar had already intrenched the new capital with a deep
ditch, leaving but one entrance, which he closed with an iron gate. He
armed the Egyptians as well as the African troops, and a spy was set to
watch the wazir Ibn-Furat, lest he should be guilty of treachery. The
sherifs of the family of Ali were summoned to the camp, as hostages for
the good behavior of the inhabitants. Meanwhile, the officers of the
enemy were liberally tempted with bribes. Two months they lay before
Cairo, and then, after an indecisive engagement, Hasan stormed the gate,
forced his way across the ditch, and attacked the Egyptians on their own
ground. The result was a severe repulse, and Hasan retreated, under
cover of night, to Kulzum, leaving his camp and baggage to be plundered
by the Fatimites, who were only balked of a sanguinary pursuit by the
intervention of night. The Egyptian volunteers displayed unexpected
valor in the fight, and many of the partisans of the late dynasty, who
were with the enemy, were made prisoners.

Thus the serious danger, which went near to cutting short the Fatimite
occupation of Egypt, was not only resolutely met, but even turned into
an advantage. There was no more intriguing on behalf of the Ikshidids;
Tinnis was recovered from its temporary defection and occupied by the
reinforcements which