the Beja east of Nubia. As a result, they had to submit to the Caliph, thus expanding nominal Muslim authority over much of the Sudanese Eastern Desert. In 834 al-Mutasim ordered that the Egyptian Arab Bedouins, who had been declining as a military force since the rise of the Abbasids, were not to receive any more payments. Discontented and dispossessed, they pushed southwards. The road into Nubia was, however, blocked by Makuria: while there existed communities of Arab settlers in Lower Nubia the great mass of the Arab nomads was forced to settle among the Beja, driven also by the motivation to exploit the local gold mines. In the mid-9th century the Arab adventurer al-Umari hired a private army and settled at a mine near Abu Hamad in eastern Makuria. After a confrontation between both parties, al-Umari occupied Makurian territories along the Nile. King Georgios I sent an elite force commanded by his son in law, Nyuti, but he failed to defeat the Arabs and rebelled against the crown himself. King Georgios then sent his oldest son, presumably the later Georgios II, but he was abandoned by his army and was forced to flee to Alodia. The Makurian king then sent another son, Zacharias, who worked together with al-Umari to kill Nyuti before eventually defeating al-Umari himself and pushing him into the desert. Afterward, al-Umari attempted to establish himself in Lower Nubia, but was soon pushed out again before finally being murdered during the reign of the Tulunid Sultan Ahmad ibn Tulun (868-884). During the rule of the Ikhshidid dynasty, relations between Makuria and Egypt worsened: in 951 a Makurian army marched against Egypt's Kharga Oasis, killing and enslaving many people. Five years later the Makurians attacked Aswan, but were subsequently chased as far south as Qasr Ibrim. A new Makurian attack on Aswan followed immediately, which was answered by another Egyptian retaliation, this time capturing Qasr Ibrim. This did not put a hold on Makurian aggression and in 962–964 they again attacked, this time pushing as far north as Akhmim. Parts of Upper Egypt apparently remained occupied by Makuria for several years. Ikhshidid Egypt eventually fell in 969, when it was conquered by the Shiite Fatimids. Immediately afterward they sent the emissary Ibn Selim el-Aswani to the Makurian king Georgios III. Georgios accepted the first request of the emissary, the resumption of the Baqt, but declined the second one,