Timeline Explorer · Cairo · Stop 1 of 5
c. 1010 CE · c. 400 AH† approximate debated before the Hijra
The Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim summoned Ibn al-Haytham from Basra to Egypt to devise a regulation of the Nile flood; seeing the task impossible he feigned madness until al-Ḥākim's death in 1021 .
Ibn al-Haytham summoned to Cairo — c. 1010 CE · c. 400 AH†
The Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim summoned Ibn al-Haytham from Basra to Egypt to devise a regulation of the Nile flood; seeing the task impossible he feigned madness until al-Ḥākim's death in 1021 .
Kitāb al-Manāẓir composed — c. 1028 CE · c. 419 AH†
In Cairo Ibn al-Haytham composed the Book of Optics, his greatest work — built on experiment rather than conjecture, and it remade the science of vision into the seventeenth century .
death of Asad al-Dīn Shīrkūh — Saladin chosen vizier in his place — c. 1168 CE · 564 AH
Shīrkūh died days into his vizierate — said to have choked on the rich marrow he loved. Al-ʿĀḍid invested his nephew Saladin Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, the youngest of the emirs, because the Nūrid commanders had written recommending him: they saw his humility, his good conduct, his kindness to his companions .
Shirkuh enters Egypt, Shawar is killed, and Shirkuh takes the vizierate — c. 1168 CE · 564 AH
In Rabīʿ I Shirkuh entered Egypt with the Nūrid armies and took it. The Franks had stormed Bilbays — killing and enslaving — then besieged Cairo while Shawar burned Fusṭāṭ (the fire ran fifty-four days) and bought their withdrawal for a promised million dinars; al-ʿĀḍid had sent his womenfolk's hair to Nūr al-Dīn begging rescue. When Shirkuh arrived Shawar was killed — as commonly told, Saladin's hand at his uncle's order — and Shirkuh took the vizierate, dealt justly with the people, then died days later, choked, it was said, on a feast of rich food .
The battle of the Sudan between the two palaces — c. August 1169 CE · c. 1 Dhu al-Qa'da 564 AH
Dhu al-Qa'da 564 (1169): after Saladin executed Mu'tamin al-Khilafa — the Fatimid palace eunuch caught corresponding with the Franks — and set Baha al-Din Qaraqush over the palace, the Sudanese troops of Cairo, over fifty thousand strong out of solidarity, rose against the Salahiyya regiments and fought them between the two palaces; Saladin had their Mansura quarter burned over their families, they broke, took safe-conduct out of Egypt, and Turanshah destroyed the remnant at Giza — the end of the Fatimid army .
