Mufarrij ibn Daghfal ibn al-Jarrah
Although he was several times defeated and forced into exile, by the 990s Mufarrij managed to establish himself and his tribe as the de facto autonomous masters of much of Palestine around Ramlah (the district of Jund Filastin) with Fatimid acquiescence.
Mufarrij was the son of Daghfal ibn al-Jarrah, a member of the Banu Tayy who was the first of the Jarrahid family to rise to prominence, as an ally of the Qarmatians in their wars with the Fatimids in the early 970s.
Mufarrij rescued Alptekin and brought him to his home, but while his guest rested, he went to al-Aziz and betrayed Alptakin in exchange for the 100,000 gold dinars the Caliph had promised as a reward for his capture.
[3][4] Mufarrij next appears in 979, when the Hamdanid emir Abu Taghlib arrived in Palestine fleeing from the Buyid conquest of his domains in the Jazira, and became embroiled in the complex power struggles between the Fatimid government and local elites.
[5][6] Abu Taghlib with his followers established himself in Jawlan and endeavoured to gain recognition by the Fatimids as governor of Damascus, but the rebel general al-Qassam, who held the city, repulsed him.
The latter fled south into the Hejaz, where they attacked a caravan of Hajj pilgrims returning from Mecca in June 982, before in turn destroying a pursuing Fatimid army under Muflih al-Wahbani at Ayla.
[7][10] After this success Mufarrij and his men returned to Palestine where they confronted Rashiq, but were again defeated and forced to flee across the desert to Homs, where Bakjur, the local governor on behalf of the Hamdanid emir of Aleppo, Sa'd al-Dawla, took them in and catered for them, probably in winter 982.
Emperor Basil II accepted their request, and a few months later, in autumn 983, the Tayy fought alongside the Byzantines under the doux of Antioch, Bardas Phokas, when he went to relieve Aleppo from an attack by Bakjur, who had rebelled against Sa'd al-Dawla.
Munis recruited the other Arab tribes, rivals of the Tayy, in his ranks, and in a battle at Dariya, near Damascus, his forces defeated the troops of Bakjur and Mufarrij.
[7] Al-Aziz died in October 996 and was succeeded by his under-age son, al-Hakim, whereupon a fierce factional struggle erupted between the Turkish troops, led by Manjutakin, on the one hand, and the Kutama Berbers, who under al-Hasan ibn 'Ammar moved to seize control of the caliphal government.
In response, al-Hakim charged the Turkish governor of Ramlah, Yarukh, with assembling an army to bring Abu'l-Qasim and his Jarrahid protectors to heel.
[7][17] Upon Abu'l-Qasim's suggestion, the Jarrahids now raised all the tribesmen of the Jund Filastin to open revolt and recruited them for an attack on Ramlah, the provincial capital.
[7][18] Learning of these events, al-Hakim wrote to Mufarrij and reproached him, demanding the safe return of Yarukh to Egypt, while at the same time offering the sum of 50,000 dinars if the Jarrahids would again submit.
The Jarrahids followed this open act of rebellion by recognizing an anti-caliph in the person of the Alid Sharif of Mecca, Abu'l-Futuh al-Hasan ibn Ja'far, in July 1012.
[7][19] Mufarrij also tried to win support among the Christians, and possibly curry the favour of the Byzantine Empire as well, by sponsoring restorations of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which had recently been demolished on the orders of al-Hakim, and by arranging the re-appointment of a patriarch, Theophilus I, to the vacant see.
[21] This period marked the apogee of the Bedouin power in Palestine: as the contemporary historian Yahya of Antioch writes, the entire interior of the land, "from al-Farama to Tiberias", was under their control, with only the coastal cities resisting the siege attempts, and coins were minted in Abu'l-Futuh's name.
Al-Hakim sent large sums and gifts to Mufarrij and his sons, with Hassan in return sending back the grandsons of Jawhar al-Siqilli, who had been entrusted to his care, to be executed.
