After the fall of Ibn al-Bataihi the Khalif determined to act as his own wazir, and in this was assisted by the Christian monk Abu Najah b. Kanna, who undertook the department of finance. The monk’s method was to farm out the taxes to Christian collectors for a net sum of 100,000 dinars, which he paid in to the treasury. But Abu Najah made himself extremely offensive by his arrogant airs and by being the scape-goat of the harsh exactions of the collectors, the inevitable result of this system, and after a brief try the Khalif was persuaded to depose him, and he was flogged to death. Al-Amir continued, however, to act as his own wazir until his death in 524, and this made his office universally detested and justifies the custom of appointing a wazir or deputy on whom the odium of the harsher details of the executive should lie, and against whom there might be, at least in theory, an appeal to the throne. Indeed, during these years 519 to 524 the Khalif seems to have been more heartily hated than any other of his dynasty before or after. At length the end came in 524 by the hands of Ismaʿilian Assassins who had undertaken the duty of ridding the country of the tyrant. On Tuesday, the 3rd of Dhu l-Qaʿdah, the Khalif proceeded to Fustat and thence to the island of Roda, where he had built a pleasure house for a favourite Baidawi concubine. “Some persons who had plotted his death were lying there concealed with their arms ready; it being agreed among them that they should kill him as he was going up the lane through which he had to pass in order to reach the top of the hill. As he was going by them, they sprang out and fell upon him with their swords. He had then crossed the bridge and had no other escort than a few pages, courtiers, and attendants. They bore him in a boat across the Nile, and brought him still living into Cairo. The same night he was taken to the castle and there he died, leaving no posterity ... al-Amir’s conduct was detestable: oppressed the people, seized on their wealth and shed their blood: he committed with pleasure every excess which should be avoided, and regarded forbidden enjoyment as the sweetest. The people were delighted at his death” (Ibn Khall. ii. 457). During the latter part of al-Amir’s reign the Franks continued to consolidate their kingdom in Palestine. On Monday, the 22nd of Jumada II. 518, they took Tyre, and only Ascalon remained to the Fatimids of their former possessions in Asia. About this time the Franks began to strike their own coinage, after issuing coins in the name of the Fatimid Khalif for three years. XV THE ELEVENTH FATIMID KHALIF, AL-HAFIZ (A.H. 524-544 = A.D. 1131-1149.)