In 394 the Chief Qadi Husayn b. Nuʿman was deprived of his office and replaced by ʿAbdu l-ʿAziz b. Muhammad b. Numan, who had been acting as Inspector of Complaints. In every Muslim country the Qadi who administers the sacred law is a person of very great importance, but under the Fatimids the Chief Qadi very often also held the office of Chief Daʿi or Supreme Missionary, as was the case with Husayn. If the two offices were held by different persons the Chief Daʿi ranked next after the Chief Qadi, and wore a similar official costume. It was the duty of the Chief Daʿi, who had under him twelve assistants as well as subordinate daʿis in the different provinces, to receive the conversions of those who joined the Ismaʿilian fraternity, and to deliver regular courses of instruction to those who were members, according to their grades in the society. His official income was derived from a fee of three and a half pieces of silver from each member. In earlier times, as we have seen, the daʿis were chosen from the most earnest proselytes, but at this period the office of Chief Daʿi was hereditary in the family of the B. ʿAbdu l-Kawi, and in them we may be disposed, perhaps, to recognise “the power behind the throne.” Still it does not seem that this hereditary right was treated as essential for the office, but only that it was usually regarded as giving a normal qualification. The appointment of a new Chief Daʿi brings us to the period of al-Hakim’s puritanism. It was a time of great dissatisfaction. Even a people so habitually patient as the Egyptians were beginning to feel irritation at the expense involved in the nightly illuminations so long continued. A more serious cause of discontent was that which usually lies behind every disaffection in Egypt, a failure of the inundation of the Nile. For three years in succession the Nile flood had been exceptionally low, and so food was scarce and dear. In 395, when a great number of people were executed, the ex-Qadi Husayn b. Nuʿman was put to death and his body burned. We note elsewhere the peculiar pro-Ismaʿilian legislation of 394 against various vegetables which were traditionally associated with persons who appeared in history as hostile to the house of ʿAli (cf. p. 141 below). At the same time a prohibition was issued against the slaying of oxen, other than those injured or diseased, save at the Feast of Sacrifice (Maq. ii. 286, Ibn Khallik. iii. 450), a prohibition perhaps connected with the scarcity due to the bad Niles.