essions
threatened by Mo'izz addaula, tried without success to wrest Bagdad from
him, and was obliged to submit to the payment of tribute. He died in 358
(A.D. 969), and ten years later the power of this branch of the
Hamdanids came to an end. The representative of the other branch, Saif
addaula, the prince of Haleb (Aleppo), conducted the war against the
Byzantines with great valour till his death in 356 (A.D. 967), but could
not stop the progress of the enemy. His descendants maintained
themselves, but with very limited power, till A.H. 413 (A.D. 1022).

Mo'izz addaula died in the same year as Saif addaula, leaving his power
to his son Bakhtiyar 'Izz addaula, who lacked his father's energy and
loved pleasure more than business.

While the Abbasid dynasty was thus dying out in shame and degradation,
the Fatimites, in the person of Mo'izz li-din-allah (or Mo'izz Abu Tamin
Ma'add) ("he who makes God's religion victorious"), were reaching the
highest degree of power and glory in spite of the opposition of the
Carmathians, who left their old allegiance and entered into negotiations
with the court of Bagdad, offering to drive back the Fatimites, on
condition of being assisted with money and troops, and of being rewarded
with the government of Syria and Egypt. The former condition was
granted, but the caliph emphatically refused the latter demand, saying:
"Both parties are Carmathians, they profess the same religion and are
enemies of Islam." The Carmathians drove the Fatimites out of Syria, and
threatened Egypt, but, notwithstanding their intrepidity, they were not
able to cope with their powerful rival, who, however, in his turn could
not bring them to submission. In 978-979 peace was made on condition
that the Carmathians should evacuate Syria for an annual payment of
70,000 dinars. But the losses sustained by the Carmathians during that
struggle had been enormous. Their power henceforward declined, and came
to an end in A.H. 474 (A.D. 1081).

Mo'izz addaula, as we have seen, professed a great veneration for the
house of Ali. He not only caused the mourning for the death of Hosain
and other Shi'ite festivals to be celebrated at Bagdad, but also allowed
imprecations against Moawiya and even against Mahomet's wife Ayesha and
the caliphs Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman, to be posted up at the doors of
the mosques. These steps annoyed the people and the Turkish soldiery,
who were Sunnites, and led at last to an insurrection. Moti