Yaacov Lev

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Yaacov Lev is an Israeli historian of the medieval Middle East, with focus on the Islamic states of the region, particularly Egypt.

Born in 1948, he studied at the University of Manchester, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1978. He then worked as professor of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Bar-Ilan University. [1]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fatimid Caliphate</span> Fourth Islamic caliphate (909–1171)

The Fatimid Caliphate, also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shia dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia, it ranged from the western Mediterranean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids trace their ancestry to the Islamic prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband Ali, the first Shia imam. The Fatimids were acknowledged as the rightful imams by different Isma'ili communities as well as by denominations in many other Muslim lands and adjacent regions. Originating during the Abbasid Caliphate, the Fatimids initially conquered Ifriqiya. They extended their rule across the Mediterranean coast and ultimately made Egypt the center of the caliphate. At its height, the caliphate included—in addition to Egypt—varying areas of the Maghreb, Sicily, the Levant, and the Hejaz.

al-Zahir li-Izaz Din Allah Fatimid caliph and Ismaili Imam (r. 1021–1036)

Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥākim, better known with his regnal name al-Ẓāhir li-Iʿzāz Dīn Allāh, was the seventh caliph of the Fatimid dynasty (1021–1036). Al-Zahir assumed the caliphate after the disappearance of his father al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.

al-Muizz li-Din Allah 4th Caliph of the Fatimid dynasty (r. 953–975)

Abu Tamim Ma'ad al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah was the fourth Fatimid caliph and the 14th Ismaili imam, reigning from 953 to 975. It was during his caliphate that the center of power of the Fatimid dynasty was moved from Ifriqiya to Egypt. The Fatimids founded the city of Cairo in 969 as the new capital of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ikhshidid dynasty</span> Turkic mamluk dynasty (935–969)

The Ikhshidid dynasty was a dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin, who ruled Egypt and the Levant from 935 to 969. The dynasty carried the Arabic title "Wāli" reflecting their position as governors on behalf of the Abbasids. The Ikhshidids came to an end when the Fatimid army conquered Fustat in 969. Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid, a Turkic mamluk soldier, was appointed governor by the Abbasid Caliph al-Radi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muslim Sicily</span> Period of Sicilian history under Islamic rule from 831 to 1091

The island of Sicily was under Islamic rule from the late ninth to late eleventh centuries. It became a prosperous and influential commercial power in the Mediterranean, with its capital of Palermo serving as a major cultural and political center of the Muslim world.

Hugh Nigel Kennedy is a British medievalist and academic. He specialises in the history of the early Islamic Middle East, Muslim Iberia and the Crusades. From 1997 to 2007, he was Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of St Andrews. Since 2007, he has been Professor of Arabic at SOAS, University of London.

Abū Manṣūr Ismāʿīl ibn al-Ḥāfiẓ, better known by his regnal name al-Ẓāfir bi-Aʿdāʾ Allāh or al-Ẓāfir bi-Amr Allāh, was the twelfth Fatimid caliph, reigning in Egypt from 1149 to 1154, and the 22nd imam of the Hafizi Ismaili sect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arab Agricultural Revolution</span> Arab transformation of agriculture in Medieval Spain

The Arab Agricultural Revolution was the transformation in agriculture in the Old World during the Islamic Golden Age. The agronomic literature of the time, with major books by Ibn Bassal and Ibn al-'Awwam, demonstrates the extensive diffusion of useful plants to Medieval Spain (al-Andalus), and the growth in Islamic scientific knowledge of agriculture and horticulture. Medieval Arab historians and geographers described al-Andalus as a fertile and prosperous region with abundant water, full of fruit from trees such as the olive and pomegranate. Archaeological evidence demonstrates improvements in animal husbandry and in irrigation such as with the saqiyah waterwheel. These changes made agriculture far more productive, supporting population growth, urbanisation, and increased stratification of society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fatimid art</span> Arab artifacts and architecture from the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171)

Fatimid art refers to artifacts and architecture from the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171), an empire based in Egypt and North Africa. The Fatimid Caliphate was initially established in the Maghreb, with its roots in a ninth-century Shia Ismailist uprising. Many monuments survive in the Fatimid cities founded in North Africa, starting with Mahdia, on the Tunisian coast, the principal city prior to the conquest of Egypt in 969 and the building of al-Qahira, the "City Victorious", now part of modern-day Cairo. The period was marked by a prosperity amongst the upper echelons, manifested in the creation of opulent and finely wrought objects in the decorative arts, including carved rock crystal, lustreware and other ceramics, wood and ivory carving, gold jewelry and other metalware, textiles, books and coinage. These items not only reflected personal wealth, but were used as gifts to curry favour abroad. The most precious and valuable objects were amassed in the caliphal palaces in al-Qahira. In the 1060s, following several years of drought during which the armies received no payment, the palaces were systematically looted. The libraries were largely destroyed and precious gold objects were melted down, with a few of the treasures dispersed across the medieval Christian world. Afterwards, Fatimid artifacts continued to be made in the same style, but were adapted to a larger populace, using less precious materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turan-Shah</span> Al-Malik al-Muazzam

Shams ad-Din Turanshah ibn Ayyub al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Shams ad-Dawla Fakhr ad-Din known simply as Turanshah was the Ayyubid emir (prince) of Yemen (1174–1176), Damascus (1176–1179), Baalbek (1178–1179) and finally Alexandria where he died in 1180. He is noted for strengthening the position of his younger brother, Sultan Saladin, in Egypt and playing the leading role in the Ayyubid conquests of both Nubia and Yemen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reuven Amitai</span> Israeli-American historian and writer (born 1955)

Reuven Amitai, also Reuven Amitai-Preiss, is an Israeli-American historian and writer, specializing in pre-modern Islamic civilization, especially Syria and Palestine during the time of the Mamluk Empire. In his 20s he moved to Israel, and became history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As of 2012 he is the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fatimid navy</span> Navy of the Fatimid Caliphate

The navy of the Fatimid Caliphate was one of the most developed early Muslim navies and a major force in the central and eastern Mediterranean in the 10th–12th centuries. As with the dynasty it served, its history is in two phases. The first was c. 909 to 969, when the Fatimids were based in Ifriqiya ; the second lasted until the end of the dynasty in 1171, when they were based in Egypt. During the first period, the navy was employed mainly against the Byzantine Empire in Sicily and southern Italy, where it enjoyed mixed success. It was also in the initially unsuccessful attempts to conquer Egypt from the Abbasids and brief clashes with the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba.

Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAmmār al-Kalbī, usually called simply Ibn Ammar in the Arabic sources, was an Arab commander for the Fatimid Caliphate. A member of the Kalbid family, he was active in the wars with the Byzantine Empire in Sicily in the 960s, leading the capture of Taormina and Rometta, which completed the Muslim conquest of Sicily.

Kutayfāt, also known as Abu Ali Ahmad ibn al-Afdal or al-Afdal Kutayfāt, was vizier and amīr al-juyūsh to al-Hafiz, Caliph of Egypt, from 1130 to 1131. He seized power by imprisoning al-Hafiz but was murdered by Fatimid forces loyal to the caliph. Kutayfāt was the son of al-Afdal Shahanshah and grandson of Badr al-Jamali, and so the third generation of Armenians serving as Fatimid vizier.

The vizier was the senior minister of the Fatimid Caliphate for most of the Egyptian period of its existence. Originally it was held by civilian officials who acted as the chief civilian ministers of the caliphs, analogous to the original model established by the Abbasids. When a vizier was not appointed, an "intermediary" was designated instead. The enfeeblement of the caliph's power and the crisis of the Fatimid regime under Caliph al-Mustansir, however, led to the rise of military strongmen, who dominated the post from the 1070s until the caliphate's end. These "viziers of the sword" were also commanders-in-chief of the army who effectively sidelined the caliphs and ruled in their stead, often seizing power from their predecessors. The last vizier, Saladin, abolished the Fatimid Caliphate in 1171.

Abu'l Muzaffar Bahram al-Armani al-Hafizi was the vizier of the Fatimid Caliphate in 1135–1137, under the Caliph al-Hafiz li-Din Allah.

Abū Shujāʿ Ruzzīk ibn Ṭalāʾiʿ was the son of the Twelver Shi'a Armenian vizier of the Fatimid Caliphate, Tala'i ibn Ruzzik, and succeeded his father when the latter was assassinated in September 1161. He was himself overthrown by the Bedouin military commander Shawar in early 1163 and executed in August 1163.

The Fatimid campaigns in the western Maghreb were led by the Fatimid general Jawhar and Ziri ibn Manad between 958 and 960. They were directed against the rulers who had recognised the suzerainty of the Caliph of Cordoba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fatimid army</span>

The Fatimid army was the land force of the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171). Like the other armies of the medieval Islamic world, it was a multi-ethnic army, drawn from marginal and even foreign peoples, rather than the Arab mainstream of Fatimid society. The core of the Fatimid army emerged from the Berber Kutama tribe, who had accepted the Isma'ili propaganda of Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i and overthrown the Aghlabids of Ifriqiya between 902 and 909. Very quickly the Kutama were supplemented with other ethnic contingents, such as the Rūm and the Sudān, inherited from the Aghlabid military, but the Berbers remained the mainstay of Fatimid armies until the 970s, when the Fatimid conquest of Egypt and their subsequent expansion into Syria brought them into conflict with the Turkic ghulām cavalry of the eastern Islamic world. The Fatimids began to incorporate Turks and Daylamites in large numbers into their army, which led to—often bloody—rivalry with the Kutama. The Turks enjoyed an almost absolute ascendancy during the chaotic years 1062–1073, when the Fatimid regime almost collapsed during the Mustansirite Hardship. Their regime was ended by the Armenian Badr al-Jamali, who instituted a quasi-military dictatorship under the guise of an all-powerful vizierate, which effectively reduced the Fatimid caliphs to puppets. Under Badr and his successors, the Armenians rose to prominence in state and army, and during the final century of the Fatimid state it was them and the Sudān who provided the bulk of the Fatimid armies, until their power was broken by Saladin in the Battle of the Blacks in 1169.

The siege of Alexandria took place in summer 1167, during the third Crusader invasion of Egypt, when the Crusaders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem besieged the port city of Alexandria, nominally part of the Fatimid Caliphate but held by Saladin on behalf of his uncle, Shirkuh. Despite the small number of troops he had with him and the dubious support of the Alexandrians, Saladin managed to sustain the siege for three months, until food started running out. At that point Shirkuh arranged for a negotiated settlement, which saw Alexandria handed over to the Fatimid vizier Shawar, and both the Crusaders and Shirkuh's Zengid troops departed Egypt after the payment of tribute from the Fatimid treasury.

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