After his victory over Manjutakin Sulayman was made governor of Syria and proceeded to Tiberias, sending his brother ʿAli to act as his deputy in Damascus. But the citizens of Damascus, always turbulent and independent, refused to accept ʿAli as governor or to allow him to enter the city until they received a threatening letter from Sulayman which thoroughly frightened them and put an end to their opposition. ʿAli entered Damascus in no pleasant mood, and made his irritation felt by turning his soldiers loose, so that many of the citizens were slain and some parts of the city burned, after which he withdrew and pitched camp outside. Not long afterwards Sulayman himself arrived and received the apologies and protestations of loyalty of the citizens and was pleased to express his pardon. It was his aim at this time to continue the policy of al-ʿAziz and to hold the sea coast as a check upon the Greeks, and thus had no desire to be embroiled with a city in his rear which he left to be dealt with at a more convenient time. The Syrian Tripoli was the most important coast town held by the Muslims, and this he now handed over to his brother ʿAli, dismissing the governor Jaysh, although he was a fellow Berber and a tribesman of the Katama, with the result that Jaysh went back to Egypt with a grievance and joined himself to Barjawan’s faction. Barjawan’s intrigues had now so far succeeded that he had a strong following, and as most of Ibn ʿAmmar’s troops were absent in Syria it seemed a favourable moment to strike his rival. For some time there were street riots between Berbers and Turks, indeed, this seems to have been more or less the normal state of Cairo at the time, for in spite of the good treatment accorded to Manjutakin, the Turkish mercenaries were deeply jealous of the favour shown by Ibn ʿAmmar to his fellow Berbers. When Barjawan felt that the time was ripe he secretly distributed largess amongst the Turks, and they made an open attack upon Ibn ʿAmmar which compelled him to conceal himself and to retire from public life. At Ibn ʿAmmar’s downfall, for this it actually was, Barjawan assumed the offices of Wasita and Sifara, thus becoming practically regent of the state, on 28 Ramadan 387, after Ibn ʿAmmar had held office for a little less than eleven months. He treated the fallen minister as a kind of usurper who had tried to make the Khalif a prisoner and celebrated his own accession, or rather restoration to office—for he had certainly acted as chief minister for the first few days of al-Hakim’s reign—as a vindication of the Khalif’s rights. He brought forth al-Hakim in public, had him again proclaimed Khalif, and displayed him as sovereign.