The Mamlūk historical tradition's depiction of al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allah (386-411/996-1021), the fifth Caliph of the Fāṭimid dynasty of Egypt (296-556/909-1171), is a contradictory amalgamation of awe, confusion, and horror. Al-Ḥākim assumes effective political power by murdering Barjawān, his guardian and tutor, who was pivotal to securing the young Caliph's succession in the face of powerful military opposition. Then we are witness to al-Ḥākim's steady decline into a kind of psychosis or madness. He sits alone in the candlelight or darkness for years and orders the sūqs (markets) to remain open throughout the night. His policies range from the patently absurd (e.g. banning cobblers from making women's shoes to keep them indoors or the killing of all dogs) to the outright tyrannical (e.g. forcing Jews and Christian to wear ten pound weights around their necks). The sources express horror when recounting al-Ḥākim's sudden killing sprees, but even his greatest critics acknowledge his selfless generosity. Most compilers assert that he proclaimed his own divinity and authorised missionaries to spread this message, while others deny this allegation, pointing towards his persecution of the early Druze. In the end, we are shown al-Ḥākim riding into the hills surrounding Cairo in solitary contemplation only to vanish into thin air.

In the pages of the Islamic chronicles which tell of the deeds of the crusaders, one figure stands apart. A man who not only is said to have attacked pilgrim caravans in a time of truce and insulted Muhammad himself, but who also, it is reported, had the audacity, temerity, and insanity (or possible genius) to threaten the very heart of the Islamic world – the cities of Mecca and Medina, and the ‘Islamic’ Red Sea. This man was Reynald of Châtillon, lord of Oultrejourdain, erstwhile Prince of Antioch, and he is described, amongst other things, as “one of the most devilish of the Franks, and one of the most demonic, and he had the strongest hostility to the Muslims”. The raid on the Red Sea and purported attempts to attack Mecca and Medina are believed to be one of the main reasons why Reynald is so despised in the Arabic chronicles. The intention of this article, therefore, is to examine the raid anew, using the Arabic material available, in order to try to contribute to an understanding of the raid, and to establish whether, indeed, Reynald even did try to attack the holy cities of Islam, and whether the criticism of him is justified.

We owe to Zoroaster one of the oldest religions of mankind. We cannot call Zoroaster's doctrine a world religion in the strict sense, for it did not spread far beyond the limits of the Iranian world, nor did its followers spread over the world as the Parsis do now and the Manichaeans once did. But many ideas first expressed by Zoroaster or his followers, such as the all-encompassing dualism of good and evil, light and darkness, or the resurrection of the dead in the flesh, or the responsibility of mankind for the fate of this world and the world beyond, have influenced, from the middle of the first millennium BCE on, the spirituality of the near eastern peoples and so also the religions of Judaism, and by way of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, too. This is sufficient to grant the religion of Zoroaster a most important position in the history of human religiosity.