The Mamlūk historical tradition's depiction of al-Ḥākimbi-Amr Allah (386-411/996-1021), the fifth Caliph ofthe Fāṭimid dynasty of Egypt (296-556/909-1171), isa contradictory amalgamation of awe, confusion, andhorror. Al-Ḥākim assumes effective political powerby murdering Barjawān, his guardian and tutor, whowas pivotal to securing the young Caliph'ssuccession in the face of powerful militaryopposition. Then we are witness to al-Ḥākim's steadydecline into a kind of psychosis or madness. He sitsalone in the candlelight or darkness for years andorders the sūqs (markets) to remainopen throughout the night. His policies range fromthe patently absurd (e.g. banning cobblers frommaking women's shoes to keep them indoors or thekilling of all dogs) to the outright tyrannical(e.g. forcing Jews and Christian to wear ten poundweights around their necks). The sources expresshorror when recounting al-Ḥākim's sudden killingsprees, but even his greatest critics acknowledgehis selfless generosity. Most compilers assert thathe proclaimed his own divinity and authorisedmissionaries to spread this message, while othersdeny this allegation, pointing towards hispersecution of the early Druze. In the end, we areshown al-Ḥākim riding into the hills surroundingCairo in solitary contemplation only to vanish intothin air.

In the pages of the Islamic chronicles which tell ofthe deeds of the crusaders, one figure stands apart.A man who not only is said to have attacked pilgrimcaravans in a time of truce and insulted Muhammadhimself, but who also, it is reported, had theaudacity, temerity, and insanity (or possiblegenius) to threaten the very heart of the Islamicworld – the cities of Mecca and Medina, and the‘Islamic’ Red Sea. This man was Reynald ofChâtillon, lord of Oultrejourdain, erstwhile Princeof Antioch, and he is described, amongst otherthings, as “one of the most devilish of the Franks,and one of the most demonic, and he had thestrongest hostility to the Muslims”. The raid on theRed Sea and purported attempts to attack Mecca andMedina are believed to be one of the main reasonswhy Reynald is so despised in the Arabic chronicles.The intention of this article, therefore, is toexamine the raid anew, using the Arabic materialavailable, in order to try to contribute to anunderstanding of the raid, and to establish whether,indeed, Reynald even did try to attack the holycities of Islam, and whether the criticism of him isjustified.

We owe to Zoroaster one of the oldest religions ofmankind. We cannot call Zoroaster's doctrine a worldreligion in the strict sense, for it did not spreadfar beyond the limits of the Iranian world, nor didits followers spread over the world as the Parsis donow and the Manichaeans once did. But many ideasfirst expressed by Zoroaster or his followers, suchas the all-encompassing dualism of good and evil,light and darkness, or the resurrection of the deadin the flesh, or the responsibility of mankind forthe fate of this world and the world beyond, haveinfluenced, from the middle of the first millenniumBCE on, the spirituality of the near eastern peoplesand so also the religions of Judaism, and by way ofJudaism, Christianity and Islam, too. This issufficient to grant the religion of Zoroaster a mostimportant position in the history of humanreligiosity.