A general report began to circulate in the course of this year that Hakim intended to have a great massacre of many people, and the report, though vague, was readily believed, with the result that multitudes fled from Cairo, so that the markets were suspended and all business came to an end for the time (Maq. ii. 288). On the 12th of Rabiʿ I. ʿAbdu r-Rahim, who had killed the victims at the preceding Feast of Sacrifice and was a great grandson of the Mahdi who had been the first Fatimid Khalif, was publicly declared heir to the throne to the exclusion of the Khalif’s infant son. Orders were given that he was to be saluted in the form: “Hail to the cousin of the Commander of the faithful, the designated successor of the sovereign of the Muslims.” His name was placed on the coinage, he received apartments in the royal palace, his name was inserted in the _khutba_, and he acted as the Khalif’s deputy in all business of state. Business was at this time little regarded by Hakim, who spent much of his time riding about in the city and in the country round, sometimes by day, often also by night. In the following month he cut off the hands of the Kaʾid’s secretary, Abu l-Kasim Jarjarai. This secretary had been in the service of the Princess Hakim’s sister, but fearing that this was a dangerous place had left her for the service of the Kaʾid. The Princess desired to know the reason of this change, and the secretary sent her a letter in which he made reference to a certain matter which he had discovered,—probably Hakim’s intention to change the succession—and this letter the Princess, fearing a trap, showed to the Khalif, at which he was very greatly annoyed. ʿAyn had been Kaʾid (Commander-in-Chief) since 402, and had had one of his hands cut off in 401, and now on the 3rd of Jumada I. Hakim cut off his remaining hand, after which he sent him a present of 5,000 pieces of gold and 25 horses; on the 13th of the same month he had his tongue cut out and then sent other gifts, but after this the Kaʾid died. Very many were put to death about this time, for the Khalif seemed to be suffering from an insane impulse to torture and slay; so great was the alarm that many fled from the city. Since 400 the Khalif had been showing favour to the orthodox, but in the course of this year he changed his attitude, ceased to make gifts to the mosques, to the muezzins, doctors, etc., and disbanded the college which he had founded for teaching the Malikite canon law. More than this he treated the lecturers with great severity, and put to death Abu Bakr Antaki, the principal, and one of his assistants.