Al-Basāsīrī, Abū al-Ḥārith Arslān (d. 451/1060), a famous Turkish commander during the last years of the Būyid era, who for a while abolished the ʿAbbāsid caliphate of Baghdad and ruled Iraq in the name of the Fāṭimids. Some sources give him the title of ‘al-Muẓaffar’ (Ibn al-Jawzī, 16/56; Ibn al-Qalānisī, 87), while others call him Arslān al-Mustanṣirī because of his association with the Fāṭimid caliph al-Mustanṣir bi’llāh (r. 427–487/1036–1094) (al-Muʾayyad, 151). As his nisba al-Basāsīrī indicates, he was originally a slave whose first master was from the people o…