al-Adid li-Din Allah, last Ubaydid caliph

Al-Adid, the last of the Fatimid caliphs, whom the source calls the "Ubaydid" state. He succeeded al-Fa'iz and died on Ashura, after the Abbasid khutba had been given in Egypt in 567 AH. ²

He appointed Asad al-Din Shirkuh vizier in 564 AH, and Saladin after him. In 567 AH Saladin cut off his khutba and gave the khutba for the Abbasid caliph al-Mustadi, while al-Adid was gravely ill. Saladin took possession of the palace with its treasures, and its sale continued for ten years. ²

Shadharat al-Dhahab says he was born at the beginning of 546 AH and lived twenty-one years, and that Saladin showed grief for him and sat for condolences. The causes of his death are given in several accounts: that he died of grief, that he died of excessive diarrhoea, or that a poisoned ring was slipped to him. ³

Ibn al-Athir says that his household hid the cutting of the khutba from him until he died. In his severe illness he summoned Saladin, who suspected a trick and did not go, and when he died Saladin regretted it. Ibn al-Athir describes him as generous and gentle. ⁴

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), unsigned, calls al-Adid li-Din Allah the eleventh and last Fatimid caliph of Egypt. He was Abu Muhammad 'Abd Allah b. Yusuf, a grandson of al-Hafiz, whose father had been killed by the vizier 'Abbas on the very day that his cousin al-Fa'iz was enthroned. Al-Fa'iz, a sickly child, died at eleven and a half, and al-Adid was chosen by the all-powerful minister Salih Tala'i', who had governed Egypt for more than six years, because of his tender age. He was enthroned in Rajab 555 (23 July 1160). He was born on 20 Muharram 546 (9 May 1151). The article stresses that his reign was not one of personal action, and that the Arab writers attribute only stray and unsuccessful impulses of revolt to him. ⁵

Tala'i' made him his son-in-law, but was assassinated on 19 Ramadan 556 (11 September 1161), and the caliph was compelled to make Ruzzik, the dead man's son, vizier. Ruzzik would not give up his prerogatives, and the caliph called on Shawar, prefect of Upper Egypt, to rid him of Ruzzik. Shawar took Cairo in Rabi' I 558 (February 1163), but the new minister secluded the caliph as his predecessors had done. Shawar was in turn betrayed by Dirgham in Ramadan 558 (August 1163) and fled to Nur al-Din at Aleppo, who sent Shirkuh, with his nephew Salah al-Din, to restore him. Shirkuh's third invasion was decisive: he had Shawar assassinated on 17 Rabi' I 564 (18 January 1169) and took the vizierate, which he held for only two months. ⁵

Salah al-Din energetically suppressed the internal disorders, including street fighting in the capital in which the remnants of the Fatimid army were exterminated. Then the name of the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad was proclaimed in Cairo in an atmosphere of indifference, by the Persian-born theologian al-Khabushani, whom Salah al-Din rewarded three years later with a college, whose dedicatory inscription praises Shafi'ism. Al-Adid died on 10 Muharram 567 (13 September 1171), a few days after the Abbasid proclamation, not yet twenty-one. The article also describes a Frankish embassy led by Shawar, received in a hall divided by a silk and gold curtain, where the caliph appeared on a jewelled throne with a veiled face. ⁶