4. A Weird Caliph
The Fatimid Caliph Abu Ali Mansur (985 – 1021) is better known by his regnal title, Al Hakim bi Amr Allah (“Ruler by God’s Command”). He is even better known by the nickname “The Mad Caliph”, which he earned through a whole lot of crazy and weird behavior that made him one of the Middle Ages’ oddest rulers. Among other things, he was a megalomaniac who declared himself an incarnation of God. While other rulers who declared their divinity ended up with universal scorn – see, the Caligula entry, above – the Mad Caliph actually ended up with some adherents. And not just ones who adhered out of fear, but sincere believers who continued to revere Al Hakim long after his death. To this day, he is still viewed as a divine incarnation by the Druze sect in the Middle East, and is a religiously important figure to some Shia Muslims.
The son of the Fatimid Caliph Abu Mansur and a consort named Al Azizah, Al Hakim became Caliph at age eleven after his father’s death. The Mad Caliph’s mother was a Christian, which opened him to allegations that he was an insufficiently zealous Muslim, and that he was soft on Christianity. It seems those accusations got to him, so he went out of his to prove his Muslim chops, and demonstrate that he was no Christian puppet. As in way, way, out of his way: he launched an unprecedented wave of persecutions against Christians in his empire, and ordered the destruction of Christian churches and monuments.
