ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the career of one military eunuch, Muʾnis, and shows how it extends the paradigm of eunuch activity beyond the palace walls and the domestic sphere. It offers as well a very different image from the usual paradigm of the effeminate, devious, scheming and vicious eunuch that is so common in later Western stereotypes concerning eunuchs and their political influence. Muʾnis seems to have believed that it would be in his interests for Subkara to remain as governor of Fars, and when Subkara offered to increase the amount of money he paid, Mu'nis opened negotiations. Muʾnis' next important military mission was to Egypt in 30–3/915–6; the country was under threat from the Fatimids, now ruling in Ifriqiya, but the latter were determined to extend their power to the East and overthrow the Abbasids as universal caliphs.
