Masoud (slave)

According to legend, Masoud was an infamous slave belonging to the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. He was said to be a large black man used by Hakim to carry out a bizarre punishment. Al-Hakim was said to have occasionally wandered the streets of Cairo looking for deceptive merchants. When he discovered one, he would immediately have Masoud publicly sodomize the man.

This folk tale has inspired a phrase which has survived into modern times, in which citizens of Cairo threaten to "bring Masoud" to another person.

Al-Hakim is worshipped by the Druze, a sect considered heretic by nearly all Muslims. According to the Encyclopedia of the Orient:

The theology of Druze religion is called hikma and its main theme is that God incarnated himself in the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim.

There are a number of tales of questionable historicity portraying Al-Hakim as deranged. Ismailis claim that anti-Ismaili historians concocted derogatory stories AbOUT him.. Among these is the legend of Masoud.

Sources

Desmond Stewart, Great Cairo: Mother of the World (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1981, 73-74