Warfare between the Fatimids and Seljuqs caused great disruption for the local Christians and for western pilgrims.
Sa'd al-Dawla himself oscillated between the Fatimids and Byzantium: on the one hand he resented Byzantine overlordship and was willing to acknowledge the Fatimid Caliph, but on the other hand was did not want to see his domain become merely another Fatimid province like southern Syria.
Evidence of cultural exchange with Egypt is less than might be expected, while the remains show a surprising amount of contact with al-Andalus, despite the continuous hostilities between the Fatimids and the Umayyads of the Iberian peninsula.
There he became embroiled in the complex power struggles between the Fatimid government and local elites.
Mufarrij next appears in 979, when the Hamdanid emir Abu Taghlib arrived in Palestine fleeing from the Buyid conquest of his domains in the Jazira, and became embroiled in the complex power struggles between the Fatimid government and local elites.
In turn, Sa'd came to rely increasingly on Byzantine assistance, although he continued to fluctuate in his allegiance between Byzantium, the Buyids, and the Fatimids.
The competition between these two powers, Byzantium and the Fatimids, would shape the history of Syria and of Aleppo for the next fifty years.
Similarly, the 12th-century Palatine Chapel in Sicily was painted and gilded in the imperial style of the Fatimids, the rulers of Egypt between the 10th and 12th centuries.
Yet even Saladin's restrained lust for power has negative repercussions today, in that his deposition of the last great Shia Caliphate, the Fatimids of Egypt, further destabilized the balance of power between Shia and Sunni to the present.
The Fatimids also made considerable development towards mausoleum building.
