In 969 the Saracen empire became divided. No longer is the 'Caliph' of Baghdad the only 'Successor' to Muhammad (and at the time a cipher of a Persian warlord) but Egypt is conquered by Al-Muizz who claims himself 'Caliph' the 'Successor' to Muhammad's daughter, Fatima.
It was to the great-grandson of this Fatimid Caliphate, founded in 909 by the ''Mahdi' (The Rightly Guided One), that the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II sent as a splendid gift the 'Zalfiqar', Muhammad's sword. A treacherous gift as Nikephoros calculated that with a rival Caliphate of Baghdad, it would be Saracen vertebrae that would end up being cleaved by the Fatimids, not Roman. |