The following day the palace was gorily purged—but even by the Fatimids’ bloody standards, this was a step too far. Al-Zafir was the supreme spiritual and political leader of the dynasty to which every Ismaeli Shi’ite in the world owed their allegiance: a man, in the words of William of Tyre, whom “the Egyptians are accustomed to cherish and revere as a supreme divinity.”
