Saladin abolishes the Fatimid caliphate

September 13, 1171

When the ailing Shia caliph al-Adid of Cairo died, Saladin suppressed the dynasty that had ruled Egypt for over two centuries and ordered Friday prayers said in the name of the Sunni Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. The political revolution met almost no resistance in the streets. The ease of the transition revealed how deeply the Fatimid regime had lost popular support, its esoteric Ismaili theology having failed to take root among Egypt's largely Sunni population.