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The Fatimid dynasty was an Arab dynasty that ruled the Fatimid Caliphate, between 909 and 1171 CE. Descended from Fatima and Ali, and adhering to Isma'ili Shi'ism, they held the Isma'ili imamate, and were regarded as the rightful leaders of the Muslim community. The line of Nizari Isma'ili imams, represented today by the Aga Khans, claims descent from a branch of the Fatimids. The Alavi Bohras, predominantly based in Vadodara, also claim descent from the Fatimids.
Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn, better known by his regnal name al-Mahdī biʾllāh, was the founder of the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate, the only major Shi'a caliphate in Islamic history, and the eleventh Imam of the Isma'ili branch of Shi'ism.
The Qarmatians were a militant Isma'ili Shia movement centred in Al-Ahsa in Eastern Arabia, where they established a religious—and, as some scholars have claimed, proto-socialist or utopian socialist—state in 899 CE. Its members were part of a movement that adhered to a syncretic branch of Sevener Ismaili Shia Islam, and were ruled by a dynasty founded by Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi, a Persian from Jannaba in coastal Fars. They rejected the claim of Fatimid Caliph Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah to imamate and clung to their belief in the coming of the Mahdi, and they revolted against the Fatimid and Abbasid Caliphates.
Abu Tahir Sulayman al-Jannabi was a Persian warlord and the ruler of the Qarmatian state in Bahrayn. He became leader of the state in 923, after ousting his older brother Abu'l-Qasim Sa'id. He immediately began an expansionist phase, raiding Basra that year. He raided Kufa in 927, defeating an Abbasid army in the process, and threatened the Abbasid capital Baghdad in 928 before pillaging much of Iraq when he could not gain entry to the city.
Abu Sa'id Hasan ibn Bahram al-Jannabi was a Shia and the founder of the Qarmatian state in Bahrayn. By 899, his followers controlled large parts of the region, and in 900, he scored a major victory over an Abbasid army sent to subdue him. He captured the local capital, Hajar, in 903, and extended his rule south and east into Oman. He was assassinated in 913, and succeeded by his eldest son Sa'id.
The doctrine of the Imamate in Isma'ilism differs from that of the Twelvers because the Isma'ilis had living Imams for centuries after the last Twelver Imam went into concealment. They followed Isma'il ibn Ja'far, elder brother of Musa al-Kadhim, as the rightful Imam after his father, Ja'far al-Sadiq. The Ismailis believe that whether Imam Ismail did or did not die before Imam Ja'far, he had passed on the mantle of the imamate to his son Muhammad ibn Isma'il as the next imam.
Hamdan Qarmat ibn al-Ash'ath was the eponymous founder of the Qarmatian sect of Isma'ilism. Originally the chief Isma'ili missionary in lower Iraq, in 899 he quarreled with the movement's leadership at Salamiya after it was taken over by Sa'id ibn al-Husayn, and with his followers broke off from them. Hamdan then disappeared, but his followers continued in existence in the Syrian Desert and al-Bahrayn for several decades.
Zakarawayh ibn Mihrawayh, often misspelled as Zikrawayh in modern sources, was an Isma'ili and Qarmatian leader in Iraq who led a series of revolts against the Abbasid Caliphate in the 900s, until his defeat and death in January 907.
The Baqliyya or Būrāniyya were a subgroup of the Qarmatians that was active in southern Iraq in the early 10th century.
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan al-Aʿsam ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Bahrām al-Jannābī, was a Qarmatian leader, chiefly known as the military commander of the Qarmatian invasions of Syria in 968–977. Already in 968, he led attacks on the Ikhshidids, capturing Damascus and Ramla and extracting pledges of tribute. Following the Fatimid conquest of Egypt and the overthrow of the Ikhshidids, in 971–974 al-A'sam led attacks against the Fatimid Caliphate, who began to expand into Syria. The Qarmatians repeatedly evicted the Fatimids from Syria and invaded Egypt itself twice, in 971 and 974, before being defeated at the gates of Cairo and driven back. Al-A'sam continued fighting against the Fatimids, now alongside the Turkish general Alptakin, until his death in March 977. In the next year, the Fatimids managed to overcome the allies, and concluded a treaty with the Qarmatians that signalled the end of their invasions of Syria.
The Second Qarmatian invasion of Egypt occurred in 974, when Qarmatians of Bahrayn unsuccessfully invaded Egypt, the seat of the Fatimid Caliphate. The Qarmatian attack followed upon a failed invasion in 971, which had nevertheless succeeded in evicting the Fatimids from their initial conquests in the Levant. The Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz was hard put to contain the Qarmatian threat, as his treasury was empty and the populace resentful at the high taxation. His efforts to bring the Qarmatians, who belonged to a different branch of the same Isma'ili sect of Shi'a Islam that had given birth to the Fatimid dynasty, into recognizing his authority as imam, were brusquely rebuffed by the Qarmatian leader, al-Hasan al-A'sam. In late 973, the Alid notable Akhu Muslim entered Egypt and led a rebellion against the Fatimids and their tax collectors, leading other disaffected Alid ashraf to flock to his cause. The main attack was launched in spring 974. The Qarmatian army entered Egypt and occupied the Nile Delta before turning south towards Cairo, but was defeated by the Fatimid heir apparent, Abdallah ibn al-Mu'izz, in battle north of Ayn Shams, close to where the 971 invasion had also been turned back. The Qarmatians retreated to their home territory in Bahrayn, and despite al-A'sam's urgings, reached an accommodation with the Fatimids and largely withdrew from interference in the affairs of the Levant thereafter. The rebellions in Egypt were quickly stamped out by the Fatimid forces. Akhu Muslim managed to evade capture and flee to Arabia, but was poisoned by his former Qarmatian allies. The failure of the Qarmatian invasion opened the way for the Fatimid conquest of Syria over the following years.
The First Qarmatian invasion of Egypt took place in 971, when the Qarmatians of Bahrayn unsuccessfully invaded Egypt, which had recently been conquered by the Fatimid Caliphate. Both the Qarmatians and the Fatimids were offshoots of the Isma'ili sect of Shi'a Islam, but belonged to different and rival branches. Following the takeover of Egypt under the general Jawhar in 969, the Fatimids began their expansion into the Levant. There they confronted the Qarmatians, who in previous years had raided and extracted tribute from the regional potentates. In order to stop the Fatimid advance, the Qarmatians, led by al-Hasan al-A'sam, joined in a league with other regional powers, including the Sunni Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. After defeating and killing the Fatimid commander Ja'far ibn Fallah at Damascus in August 971, the Qarmatians and their Bedouin allies marched south. A Fatimid relief army marching to assist Ibn Fallah withdrew to Jaffa where it was blockaded, while the main Qarmatian army invaded Egypt. The diversion of the Qarmatian forces into the Nile Delta in support of local revolts gave Jawhar the time to mobilize his remaining forces and prepare defences in the form of a trench and wall at Ayn Shams, just north of Cairo, then still under construction as the new Fatimid capital. At a battle north of the city on 22 and 24 December, Jawhar defeated the Qarmatians and forced them to withdraw from Egypt in disorder. After the Qarmatians quarreled with their Bedouin allies, the Fatimids were able to reoccupy Ramla, but this was short-lived; by the summer of 972, Palestine was again under Qarmatian control. On the other hand, the rebellions in Egypt were suppressed, and the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz was able to move his capital from Ifriqiya to Cairo in June 973. A second invasion followed in 974, which was also defeated, ending the Qarmatian threat for good, and paving the way for the Fatimid expansion into the Levant.
The Sack of Mecca occurred on 11 January 930, when the Qarmatians of Bahrayn sacked the Muslim holy city amidst the rituals of the Hajj pilgrimage.
Abu'l-Qāsim al-Ḥasan ibn Faraj ibn Ḥawshab ibn Zādān al-Najjār al-Kūfī, better known simply as Ibn Ḥawshab, or by his honorific of Manṣūr al-Yaman, was a senior Isma'ili missionary from the environs of Kufa. In cooperation with Ali ibn al-Fadl al-Jayshani, he established the Isma'ili creed in Yemen and conquered much of that country in the 890s and 900s in the name of the Isma'ili imam, Abdallah al-Mahdi, who at the time was still in hiding. After al-Mahdi proclaimed himself publicly in Ifriqiya in 909 and established the Fatimid Caliphate, Ibn al-Fadl turned against him and forced Ibn Hawshab to a subordinate position. Ibn Hawshab's life is known from an autobiography he wrote, while later Isma'ili tradition ascribes two theological treatises to him.
ʿAlī ibn al-Faḍl al-Jayshānī was a senior Isma'ili missionary from Yemen. In cooperation with Ibn Hawshab, he established the Isma'ili creed in his home country and conquered much of it in the 890s and 900s in the name of the hidden Isma'ili imam, Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah. After the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya in 909, and the public proclamation of al-Mahdi Billah as caliph, Ibn al-Fadl denounced al-Mahdi as false, and instead declared himself to be the awaited messiah. His erstwhile colleague, Ibn Hawshab, refused to follow him, so Ibn al-Fadl turned against him and forced him to capitulate. Ibn al-Fadl's dominion collapsed swiftly after his death in October 915. In January 917, his stronghold of Mudhaykhira was seized by the Yu'firids, his children captured, and his two sons executed.
Ja'far ibn Mansur al-Yaman was an Isma'ili missionary and theological writer of the 10th century. Originally born and raised in Yemen, where his father Ibn Hawshab had established the Isma'ili daʿwa in the late 9th century, he fled the country to the court of the Fatimid caliphs in Ifriqiya, where he remained until his death. He composed poems in praise of the Fatimids' victory over the uprising of Abu Yazid, a biography of his father, and authored or compiled a number of important theological treatises.
The term dār al-hijra was originally applied to Medina, the city where Muhammad an his followers sought refuge when exiled from Mecca in 622 (Hijrah). The term was accordingly later adopted by radical Islamic sects, most notably the Isma'ilis, for their strongholds, which were to serve both as bases of operations and as nuclei of 'true' Islamic communities.
The Qarmatian invasion of Iraq was a large-scale raid by the Qarmatians of Bahrayn against the Abbasid Caliphate's metropolitan region of Iraq, that began in autumn of 927 and continued until the summer of 928.
The Sack of Basra was the capture and looting of the Abbasid city of Basra by the Qarmatians of Bahrayn, and took place in August 923. It was the first of a series of Qarmatian attacks, that culminated in an invasion of Iraq in 927–928.
In March 924, the Qarmatians of Bahrayn attacked and looted a caravan of Hajj pilgrims making their way back from Mecca to Iraq. The Qarmatians overcame the caravan's armed escort and took many pilgrims prisoner, along with the escort commander, Abu'l-Hayja al-Hamdani, before releasing them for ransom. The raid, along with a failure to prevent a sack of Basra a few months before led to popular unrest in Baghdad, and the deposition and execution of the Abbasid Caliphate's vizier, Ibn al-Furat.
References
- ↑ Abbas Amanat (9 February 2002). Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America. I.B.Tauris. pp. 123–. ISBN 978-1-86064-724-6.
- ↑ Imagining the End: Visions of Apocalypse By Abbas Amanat, Magnus Thorkell - Page 123
- ↑ Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam - Page 26 by Delia Cortese, Simonetta Calderini
- ↑ Early Philosophical Shiism: The Ismaili Neoplatonism of Abū Yaʻqūb Al-Sijistānī - Page 161 by Paul Ernest Walke
- ↑ The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy by Yuri Stoyanov
- ↑ Classical Islam: A History, 600–1258 - Page 113 by Gustave Edmund Von Grunebaum
- ↑ Halm 1991, p. 257.
- ↑ "CARMATIANS – Encyclopaedia Iranica". iranicaonline.org. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
- ↑ Farhad Daftary, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'ilis, IB Tauris, 1994, p21
- ↑ Delia Cortese; Simonetta Calderini (2006). Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 26–. ISBN 978-0-7486-1733-3.
- ↑ Daftary 2007, p. 162.