Al-Adil ibn al-Sallar

During this tenure, Ibn al-Sallar restored order in the army and strove to halt Crusader attacks on Egypt, but with limited success.

Ibn al-Sallar distinguished himself in battle against the Crusaders, beginning a career that led him to the governorships of Upper Egypt, al-Buhayra, and Alexandria.

When al-Zafir learned of this plot, he called upon assistance from the grandees of the realm in support of Ibn Masal, but they proved unwilling to.

[1] For the moment al-Zafir was forced to submit to the new strongman, appointing him vizier and conferring him the honorific titles al-Malik al-ʿĀdil ("righteous ruler"), al-Sayyid al-ʿAjal ("most noble master"), Amīr al-Juyūsh ("commander of the armies"), Sharaf al-Islām ("glory of Islam"), Kafī Quḍāt al-Muslimīn ("protector of the Muslims' qāḍīs"), and Hādī Duʿāt al-Muʾminīn ("guide of the believers' missionaries").

In retaliation, in January 1150 Ibn al-Sallar gathered the caliphal guard (ṣibyān al-khāṣṣ), an elite corps of cadets comprising the sons of high dignitaries and officials, and executed most of them, sending the rest to serve on the empire's frontiers.

[2] Ibn al-Sallar entertained the notion of an alliance and joint action with the Zengid ruler of Aleppo, Nur al-Din, but this did not come to pass, as the latter was focused on capturing Damascus at the time.

[1] Nevertheless, following the sack of Farama by the Crusaders, in 1151/2 Ibn al-Sallar mobilized the Fatimid navy to raid Christian shipping along the coasts of the Levant from Jaffa to Tripoli, Lebanon.

[7] Abbas sent his son Nasr, a favourite of the Caliph, back to in Cairo to stay with his grandmother in the palace of Ibn al-Sallar, ostensibly to spare him from the dangers of war.

He then sent a message by carrier pigeon to his father, who quickly returned to Cairo to claim the vizierate for himself, showing Ibn al-Sallar's severed head to the populace assembled before the Bab al-Dhahab gate.

[9] Ibn al-Sallar was also active in promoting Sunni Islam in Egypt, against the Isma'ili doctrine espoused by the Fatimids: he ordered the construction of a Shafi'i madrasa in Alexandria, known as al-Adiliyya and completed in 1151/2, and may have been responsible for the appointment of the Shafi'i Abu'l-Ma'ali ibn Jumay al-Arsufi as chief qāḍī of Egypt.

[2] His rise to power and downfall mark the beginning of the end for the Fatimid state: from al-Zafir on the caliphs were underage youths, sidelined and mere puppets at the hands of the strongmen who vied for the vizierate.