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The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dynasty of Arab origin, trace their ancestry to Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband, ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, the first Shi‘a 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 conquered Ifriqiya and established the city of al-Mahdiyya. The Ismaili dynasty ruled territories across the Mediterranean coast of Africa and ultimately made Egypt the center of the caliphate. At its height, the caliphate included—in addition to Egypt—varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and the Hijaz.
Al-Maqrīzī, 1364–1442, was a medieval Egyptian historian and biographer during the Mamluk era, known for his interest in the Fatimid dynasty and its role in Egyptian history. He is recognized as the most influential historian of premodern Egypt.
Al-Mustansir, more fully al-Mustansir billah, is a Muslim regnal surname and may refer to:
Banu Kanz, also known as Awlad Kanz, was a semi-nomadic Muslim dynasty of Arab descent that ruled the border region between Upper Egypt and Nubia between the 10th and 15th centuries. They were descended from the sons of sheikhs of the Arab Banu Hanifa tribe who intermarried with the princesses of the Beja Hadariba tribe. They gained official control over the region of Aswan, Wadi Allaqi and the frontier zone in the early 11th century when their chief, Abu al-Makarim Hibatallah, captured a major rebel on behalf of the Fatimid authorities. Abu al-Makarim was accorded the title Kanz al-Dawla by Caliph al-Hakim and his successors inherited the title. The Banu Kanz entered into conflict with the Ayyubids in 1174, during which they were defeated and forced to migrate southward into northern Nubia, where they helped accelerate the expansion of Islam in the mostly Christian region. They eventually assumed control of the Nubian Kingdom of Makuria in the early 14th century, but by the early the 15th century, they were supplanted by the Hawwara tribesmen dispatched by the Mamluks to combat the Banu Kanz. Their modern-day descendants are a Sudanese tribe known as the "Kunuz", who live in the far north of the country.
Abū Tamīm Maʿad al-Mustanṣir biʾllāh was the eighth Fatimid Caliph from 1036 until 1094. He was one of the longest reigning Muslim rulers. His reign was the twilight of the Fatimid state. The start of his reign saw the continuation of competent administrators running the Fatamid state, overseeing the state's prosperity in the first two decades of al-Mustansir's reign. However, the break out of court infighting between the Turkish and Berber/Sudanese court factions following al-Yazuri's assassination, coinciding with natural disasters in Egypt and the gradual loss of administrative control over Fatamid possessions outside of Egypt, almost resulted in the total collapse of the Fatamid state in the 1060s, before the appointment of the Armenian general Badr al-Jamali, who assumed power as vizier in 1073, and became the de facto dictator of the country under the nominal rule of al-Mustansir.
Shajar al-Durr, also Shajarat al-Durr, whose royal name was al-Malika ʿAṣmat ad-Dīn ʾUmm-Khalīl Shajar ad-Durr, was a ruler of Egypt. She was the wife of As-Salih Ayyub, and later of Izz al-Din Aybak, the first sultan of the Mamluk Bahri dynasty. Prior to becoming Ayyub's wife, she was a child slave and Ayyub's concubine.
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.
Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad ibn al-Mustanṣir, better known by his regnal name al-Mustaʿlī Biʾllāh, was the ninth Fatimid caliph and the nineteenth imam of Musta'li Ismailism.
Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ṭughj ibn Juff ibn Yiltakīn ibn Fūrān ibn Fūrī ibn Khāqān, better known by the title al-Ikhshīd after 939, was an Abbasid commander and governor who became the autonomous ruler of Egypt and parts of Syria (Levant) from 935 until his death in 946. He was the founder of the Ikhshidid dynasty, which ruled the region until the Fatimid conquest of 969.
The Ikhshidid dynasty was a dynasty of Turkish 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 Turkish mamluk soldier, was appointed governor by the Abbasid Caliph al-Radi.
Abū'l-Najm Badr ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Jamālī al-Mustanṣirī, better known as Badr al-Jamali was a vizier and prominent statesman for the Fatimid Caliphate under Caliph al-Mustansir. His appointment to the vizierate in 1073 restored the fortunes of the Fatimid state, which had faced collapse in the previous decades, but also began a period where the vizierate was dominated by military strongmen who held power through their military strength, rather than through the Caliph's appointment. An Armenian, Badr al-Jamali initiated a wave of Armenian migration into Egypt, and was the first of a series of viziers of Armenian origin, who played a major role in the fortunes of the Fatimid Caliphate over the subsequent century.
Hafizi Isma'ilism was a branch of Musta'li Isma'ilism that emerged as a result of a split in 1132. The Hafizis accepted the Fatimid caliph Abd al-Majid al-Hafiz li-Din Allah and his successors as imams, while the rival Tayyibi branch rejected them as usurpers, favouring the succession of the imamate along the line of al-Hafiz's nephew, al-Tayyib.
Abu Mansur Nizar ibn al-Mustansir was a Fatimid prince, and the oldest son of the eighth Fatimid caliph and eighteenth Isma'ili imam, al-Mustansir. When his father died in December 1094, the powerful vizier, al-Afdal Shahanshah, raised Nizar's younger brother al-Musta'li to the throne in Cairo, bypassing the claims of Nizar and other older sons of al-Mustansir. Nizar escaped Cairo, rebelled and seized Alexandria, where he reigned as caliph with the regnal name al-Mustafa li-Din Allah. In late 1095 he was defeated and taken prisoner to Cairo, where he was executed by immurement.
Abu'l-Qasim al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Maghribi, also called al-wazir al-Maghribi and by the surname al-Kamil Dhu'l-Wizaratayn, was the last member of the Banu'l-Maghribi, a family of statesmen who served in several Muslim courts of the Middle East in the 10th and early 11th centuries. Abu'l-Qasim himself was born in Hamdanid Aleppo before fleeing with his father to Fatimid Egypt, where he entered the bureaucracy. After his father's execution, he fled to Palestine, where he raised the local Bedouin leader Mufarrij ibn Daghfal to rebellion against the Fatimids (1011–13). As the rebellion began to falter, he fled to Iraq, where he entered the service of the Buyid emirs of Baghdad. Soon after he moved to the Jazira, where he entered the service of the Uqaylids of Mosul and finally the Marwanids of Mayyafariqin. He was also a poet and author of a number of treatises, including a "mirror for princes".
Nasir al-Dawla Abu Muhammad al-Husayn ibn Hamdan was a descendant of the Hamdanid dynasty who became a general of the Fatimid Caliphate, ruing Egypt as a de facto dictator in 1071–1073.
Abū'l-Faḍl Rifq al-Khādim was a black African eunuch in the court of the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir and a commander of the Fatimid army. In 1024, during the reign of Caliph al-Zahir, Rifq led policing expeditions in the Egyptian countryside, earning him a reputation of loyalty. In 1049, he was appointed governor of Damascus in place of Nasir al-Dawla al-Hamdani, and headed a 30,000-strong expedition to assert Fatimid control over Aleppo, then held by the Mirdasid emir Thimal ibn Salih. His army consisted of Berbers, Turks, black Africans and, after it entered Syria, local Bedouin tribes. These diverse and often antagonistic factions quarreled frequently, weakening Rifq's army. After initial clashes with Thimal's troops outside Aleppo, many Bedouin defected and Rifq's officers ultimately deserted him for refusing their counsel. Rifq was captured, received a head injury and died in Mirdasid custody.
Rasad, also known as Sayyida Rasad, was a politically active Egyptian Caliph mother. She was the de facto regent of Fatimid Egypt as the influential mother of her son, the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir Billah, between 1044 and 1071. The name Rasad literally means "observed".
The Book of Gifts and Rarities is an Arabic history of wealth and ostentation from the 6th to 11th centuries. It was written in Egypt by an official of the Fatimid Caliphate sometime after 1071. The surviving form of the work is not complete and contains no attribution. It has been ascribed to a certain Al-Qāḍī al-Rashīd Aḥmad ibn al-Zubayr, but this is not universally accepted.
References
- 1 2 Davis, Lee Allyn (2010). Natural Disasters. Infobase Publishing. pp. 120–121. ISBN 9781438118789.
- 1 2 3 4 Baynes, Thomas Spencer; Smith, William Robertson, eds. (1878). "Egypt". Encyclopædia Britannica. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 752.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Al-Maqrīzī, Aḥmad ibn 'Alī (1403). Ighāthat al-Ummah bi-Kashf al-Ghummah [The Salvation of the Nation Through the Lifting of the Hardship] (in Arabic).
- ↑ Lewis, Bernard (1990). Race and Slavery in the Middle East. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-505326-5. OL 7386556M.
- 1 2 3 Al-Maqrīzī, Aḥmad ibn 'Alī. al-Mawāʻiẓ wa-al-Iʻtibār bi-Dhikr al-Khiṭaṭ wa-al-Āthār [The Examples and Lessons of the Tales of the Historical Ruins of Egypt] (in Arabic). Vol. 1.
- 1 2 3 Al-Maqrīzī, Aḥmad ibn 'Alī. Itti'āz al-Ḥunafā' bi-Akhbār al-A'immah al-Fāṭimīyīn al-Khulafā [The Preaching of the Pious on the History of the Fatimid Caliphs] (in Arabic). Vol. 2.
