Talai' ibn Ruzzik

Abu'l-Gharat Tala'i' ibn Ruzzik, styled al-Malik al-Salih, vizier of Egypt, had been governor of the Banu Khasib district in Upper Egypt. When al-Zafir Isma'il, ruler of Egypt, was killed, the palace people went to al-Salih and sought his help against 'Abbas and his son Nasr; he marched on Cairo, 'Abbas and his son fled with their followers, and he took the vizierate under al-Fa'iz, holding sole power on 19 Rabi' I 549. He was accomplished, generous in giving, pleasant in company, and composed verse — Ibn Khallikan examined his diwan in two parts. Among the wonders: he took the vizierate on the nineteenth and was killed on the nineteenth. ¹

Yeomans writes that al-Salih Tala'i was summoned to Cairo to restore order in the turmoil after the assassination of the caliph al-Zafir, and that he was an able vizier, a distinguished poet and a great patron of the arts. ² He asked to house the head of al-Husayn, brought from Ascalon, in his mosque outside Bab Zuwayla, but the child caliph al-Fa'iz refused after the women of the court opposed it, and a shrine was built for the relic in the palace precincts. ³ Yeomans counts him the last to hold the crumbling Fatimid state together: despite the loss of Jerusalem and Ascalon he fought the Crusaders with some success at Gaza and Hebron (1158), and he sought an alliance with Nur al-Din uniting Sunnis and Shi'is, without success; he was then poisoned by the caliph's aunt, who resented his power. ^{4 5}