Jawdhar

'the Master'), was a eunuch slave who served the Fatimid caliphs al-Qa'im, al-Mansur, and al-Mu'izz as chamberlain and de facto chief minister until his death.

His collected documents and letters were published after his death by his secretary as the Sirat al-Ustadh Jawdhar, and form one of the main historical sources for the governance of the Fatimid state in the period.

[1][2] Saqaliba eunuchs were highly prized at the Aghlabid court: far removed from their homelands—usually the Balkans—and without any family in Ifriqiya, they were entirely dependent on their masters, and correspondingly displayed great loyalty to them.

Jawdhar insists in his memoirs that he was the trustee of al-Mansur's undisclosed nomination as his father's heir already at the time of al-Qa'im's own accession in 934, but modern historians of the Fatimid period, such as Heinz Halm and Michael Brett, suspect that al-Mansur's unheralded rise to power was the result of a palace intrigue headed by none other than Jawdhar, with the participation of other figures from al-Qa'im's harem.

[9] When al-Mansur managed to break the siege of al-Mahdiya and pursued the retreating rebels inland, Jawdhar remained behind in charge of the capital and the government.

[13] Apart from robes of honour and other gifts and tokens of esteem, al-Mansur also gave Jawdhar the honorific title mawla amir al-muminin (lit.

[14][15] Jawdhar had close relations with the Kalbids, serving as foster parent to two of the sons of Ali ibn Abi'l-Husayn al-Kalbi, Ja'far and al-Hasan, when their father was killed in 938.

[26][27] He also provided al-Mu'izz with 122,000 gold dinars from his own purse to support the Fatimids' takeover of Egypt, possibly when reinforcements under Hasan ibn Ammar were sent into the country in 971 to confront a Qarmatian invasion.

[29][30][31] Although the chief aide of three successive caliphs,[15] and the "most eminent statesman of the early Fatimid period",[2] Jawdhar lacked popularity and political allies in Ifriqiya.

[15] This ruled him out as candidate for the position of Fatimid viceroy of Ifriqiya following the court's departure,[15] although in his own memoirs, Jawdhar insists that he begged al-Mu'izz to not appoint him, since "his happiness lay in being at the side of the imam".

[37] After his death, his private secretary, Abu Ali Mansur al-Azizi al-Jawdhari, compiled his papers and recollections into the Sirat al-Ustadh Jawdhar.