Dhahir’s reign offers many points of interest.  Peace and contentment reigned in the interior, and Syria continued to be the chief point of interest to the Egyptian politics.  Both Lulu and his son Mansur, who received princely titles from Hakim, recognised the suzerainty of the Fatimites.  Later on a disagreement arose between Lulu’s son and Dhahir.  One of the former’s slaves conspired against his master, and gave Aleppo into the hands of the Fatimites, whose governor maintained himself there till 1023.  In this year, however, Aleppo fell into the power of the Benu Kilab, who defended the town with great success against Romanus in 1030.  Not till Dhahir’s successor came to the throne in 1036 was Aleppo reconquered by the Fatimites, but only to fall, after a few years, again into the hands of a Kilabite, whom the caliph was obliged to acknowledge as governor until he of his own free will exchanged the city for several other towns in Syria; but even then the strife about the possession of Aleppo was not yet at an end.

Mustanssir ascended the throne at the age of four years.  His mother, although black and once a slave, had great influence in the choice of the viziers and other officials, and even when the caliph became of age, he showed very few signs of independence.  His reign, which lasted sixty years, offers a constant alternation of success and defeat.  At one time his dominion was limited to the capital Cairo, at another time he was recognised as lord of Africa, Sicily, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and even of the Abbassid capital, Baghdad.  A few days later his dominion was again on the point of being extinguished.  The murder of a Turk by the negroes led to a war between the Turkish mercenaries and the blacks who formed the caliph’s body-guard.  The latter were joined by many of the other slaves, but the Turks were supported by the Ketama Berbers and some of the Bedouin tribes, and also the Hamdanite Nasir ed-Dowlah, who had long been in the Egyptian service.  The blacks, although supported by the caliph’s mother, were completely defeated, and the caliph was forced to acknowledge the authority of Nasir ed-Dowlah.  He thereupon threatened to abdicate, but when he learned that his palace with all its treasures would then be given up to plunder, he refrained from fulfilling his threat.  The power of the Hamdanites and the Turks increased with every victory over the negroes, who finally could no longer maintain themselves at all in Upper Egypt.  The caliph was treated with contempt, and had to give up his numerous treasures, one by one, to satisfy the avarice of his troops.  Even the graves of his ancestors were at last robbed of all they contained, and when, at last, everything had been ransacked, even his library, which was one of the largest and finest, was not spared.  The best manuscripts were dispersed, some went to Africa, others were destroyed, many were damaged or purposely mutilated by the Sunnites, simply because they had been written by the Shiites; still others were burnt by the Turks as worthless material, and the leather bands which held them made into sandals.