In his dealings with the Copts he was harsh. Again as in the anti-Christian legislation of Hakim we observe the great unpopularity of those who were hereditary tax-collectors and who were suspected, no doubt with excellent reason, of defrauding the revenue. The strict organization introduced under the first Fatimid Khalif had been allowed to grow slack, its continuance meant constant effort and unceasing supervision, and this sustained effort hardly lies within the oriental character. As wazir Yazuri himself amassed great wealth, far beyond what could possibly have come to him from the regular emoluments of his office: a certain amount of perquisites, of a kind which the western would be inclined to describe as bribery, is known and tolerated in oriental administration and Yazuri, a minister who must be regarded as a good and beneficent ruler in spite of this, was not the one to take a high ground of morality in such matters. He imprisoned the Patriarch Christodoulos whom he accused of persuading the Nubian king to withhold tribute, a charge which does not seem to have had any foundation; then laid heavy fines on the whole Coptic community, no less a sum than 70,000 dinars, and closed churches until none were left in use, and imprisoned the bishops, all it would appear in the attempt to make the Copts pay up the fine or, as Yazuri would no doubt have described it, to disgorge some part of their plunder filched from the public revenue. It does not seem that there was any sectarian motive or feeling in these measures, although they are sometimes made to figure as religious persecution. In 450 Yazuri died, poisoned by order of the Queen Mother with the consent of the Khalif. The ostensible charge was that he had been detected in treasonable correspondence with the court of Baghdad, but the real reason seems to have been that his inordinate wealth, which could only have been attained by defrauding the public revenue on a gigantic scale, had awakened jealousy and suspicion.