Life under the Shiite caliphs in Egypt under the Fatamid dynasty, as seen through the lives of a distinguished family of Islamic judges, or qadis. This paper sketches the history of the family and then offers a lengthy extract from an an Islamic biographical dictionary (in Arabic and English, with notes); the family of al-Numan were chief qadis to the Fatamids from before the conquest of Egypt , when al-Muizz the victorious installed al-Numan as qadi in Egypt, alongside the existing officeholder; his great-grandson al-Aziz was one of those executed by the eccentric Caliph al-Hakim, and al-Aziz's son was also twice qadi.