Saladin's dethronement of the Fatimid imam-caliph and his occupation of power in Egypt in 567/1171 were declared a historic Sunni victory over the Shiʿa. It was followed by a quick and heavy-handed abolishment of Ismaʿili customs and celebrations (see Chapter One), entailing a rupture in Egyptian court culture and religious life. In the words of the later al- Qalqashandi, ‘when the Ayyubid overcame the Fatimid and succeeded them in ruling Egypt, it altered much of the state regulation and changed most of its features’. Still, Ibn Taymiyya, writing more than a century after the demise of the Fatimids, laments what he regards as the lingering effect of Shiʿism in Egypt (see p. 113, above). Yaacov Lev and Devin Stewart similarly argue that Shiʿi customs and Fatimid traditions were preserved by the masses, implying that the Fatimids had left a lasting mark on local culture after all. Marion Katz also suggests that continuities can be discerned in post-Fatimid popular, possibly Sufi forms of devotion.

Having consolidated the empire by wresting control over Fatimid Egypt, establishing rule over most of Syria and the Jazira, and eliminating the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Saladin bequeathed it to seventeen of his sons, brothers and nephews. Upon his death in 589/1193, these successors became princes in a confederation made up of autonomous principalities of varied size and importance. In the process, Cairo lost some of its prestige as the exclusive ruling centre, although the sultan residing in Cairo usually had some control over his kin. In contrast to the imam-caliphs of the late Fatimid period, who concealed themselves from their subjects behind the walls of their elegant abodes, legions of attendants and highly formalised ceremonial procedures, Ayyubid princes had much less of a royal establishment and cursus honorum. They lacked any inherent religious authority, although some of them were quite accomplished in religious studies, and they had no pretensions to royal charisma or baraka. While the Fatimid court fulfilled a conspicuous role in promoting the special status of Rajab, I have found no evidence of the involvement of the Ayyubid (or earlier Zangid) court in the organisation or funding of festivities during that month. Throughout the decades of Zangid and Ayyubid rule in Syria, Egypt and the Hijaz, Rajab seems to have been mostly venerated informally.