The Fatimids

1 - The Rise of a Muslim Empire

Shainool Jiwa

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781786721747
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

I.B.Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies Emerging from a period of long seclusion, the leader of the burgeoning community of Ismaili Shi'i Muslims was declared the first Fatimid Imam-caliph in the year 909. Abd Allah al-Mahdi founded the only sustained Shi'i dynasty (909-1171) to rule over substantial parts of the medieval Muslim world, rivalling both the Umayyads of Spain and the Abbasids. At its peak, the Fatimid Empire extended from the Atlantic shores of North Africa, across the southern Mediterranean and down both sides of the Red Sea, covering also Mecca and Medina. This accessible history, the first of two volumes, tells the story of the birth and expansion of the Fatimid Empire in the 10th century. Drawing upon eyewitness accounts, Shainool Jiwa introduces the first four generations of Fatimid Imam-caliphs -- al-Mahdi, al-Qa'im, al-Mansur, and al-Mu'izz -- as well as the people who served them and those they struggled against. Readers are taken on a journey through the Fatimid capitals of Qayrawan, Mahdiyya, and Mansuriyya and on to the founding of Cairo. In this lively and comprehensive introduction, readers will discover various milestones in Fatimid history and the political and cultural achievements that continue to resonate today.

Chapter 1

The Origins

When the Prophet Muhammad died in the year 632, questions surfaced that would subsequently shape the communities of the Muslim world: Who was to inherit authority over the Muslim community (umma), who would now stand as its religious and moral guide, its political leader? Who was to be the arbiter of law and doctrine, now that the Prophet was physically no more? How was salvation to be realised now that the living guide on God’s path had passed away? The myriad questions that the earliest Muslims faced when the Prophet died were encapsulated in one: who now was the rightful leader, the legitimate imam of Muslims?

For some, the answer converged in one person, Ali b. Abi Talib (601–61), the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet. It was recalled that Ali had been brought up by the Prophet himself, was at the Prophet’s side from the earliest days of his mission until his final moments on this earth, had been given the Prophet’s daughter Fatima in marriage, and had fathered the Prophet’s only surviving grandsons. His supporters, who became known as the Shi‘at Ali (party of Ali), claimed that the Prophet, as ordered by God and therefore through divine designation, had appointed Ali and a chosen line of descendants from Fatima as the Imams of the community. As such, Shi‘a still believe that these Imams from the Household of the Prophet (ahl al-bayt) were the only true inheritors of the Prophet’s mantle of authority; only they were vested with the means to lead humankind to salvation.

For many others, the choice of succession to the Prophet settled on the four senior companions of the Prophet: Abu Bakr, followed by Umar, Uthman and Ali, who were recognised as the successors or caliphs of the Messenger of God. Over the course of time, those who followed this line of authority evolved into the Sunni branch of Islam, so named for their belief that the Prophet’s way of living (sunna) was transmitted this way. Ali’s caliphate was virulently contested by Mu‘awiya, the leading figure of the Umayyad clan, an aristocratic family from Mecca who had opposed the Prophet in the earlier days of his mission, but who ascended to the senior ranks of the Muslim community after his death. The assassination of Ali allowed Mu‘awiya to establish the Umayyad caliphate in 661. Their dynasty lasted nearly a century, until it was overthrown in 750 by the Abbasid clan, who also claimed to be Imams belonging to the family of the Prophet.

Over this first century of Islam, monumental transformations had taken place in the lands that were to become the Muslim world. The first believers had by now spread out from Arabia into the lands of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt and Ifriqiya. Across these lands, they built and settled in new towns, rubbing shoulders with the peoples who had lived there for centuries, and inheriting their learning and traditions. These interactions led to new questions: Who could be defined as a Muslim? Was Islam exclusively reserved for Arab tribesmen or open to all converts? What did it actually mean to be a Muslim? What was the relationship between faith and practice? Did a believer have merely to believe, or did he have to fulfil all the acts and rituals that were increasingly being codified? What determined law and ritual? How was the text of the Qur’an to be understood, and who could interpret it? What was true knowledge, and from whom could it be obtained? Underlying these questions was the ever-present concern of following the true guide to salvation.

Shi‘i Beginnings

The Zaydis

The two Sunni caliphates that preceded the Fatimids – that of the Umayyads (661–750) and the Abbasids (750–1258) – both claimed to be the legitimate inheritors and rightful representatives of the Prophet’s authority. But throughout those periods, the communities of Shi‘a Muslims maintained their belief that the only true heirs to the Prophet’s mantle of religious and temporal authority remained the lineal descendants of the Prophet through his daughter, Fatima, and Ali. In time, the Shi‘a also divided over who amongst the progeny of Ali and Fatima were the true Imams. Zayd b. Ali (d. 740), a great-greatgrandson of the Prophet and the eponymous founder of the Zaydi branch of the Shi‘a, held that any of the descendants of Ali could become the Imam, so long as they sought justice and publicly declared their claim. But for many of the Shi‘a, the imamate followed the lineage of the sons of al-Husayn, son of Ali, as shown in Figure 3.

The Imami Shi‘a

Another branch of Shi‘a emerged in the middle of the 8th century, as the Umayyad dynasty was disintegrating and the Abbasid caliphate gained ascendancy. Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq (702–65) – the great-grandson of Imam Husayn – around whom the Imami Shi‘a clustered, lived in the city of Medina throughout this tumultuous age, devoting his life to outlining the principles of the Shi‘i faith based on the teachings of his forefathers. He explained that guidance and salvation were attained through knowledge, learning and the use of the intellect. He taught that supreme knowledge of the right path had been given by God to His creation through His chosen messengers and guides; the seal of the prophets, and therefore the last, was Imam Ja‘far’s own forefather, the Prophet Muhammad. Thereafter, divine guidance continued with his rightful successor, Ali, and then in a divinely chosen lineage through the sons of his progeny, the Imams from the Household of Muhammad.

It was this knowledge that enabled the Imams of the ahl al-bayt to know the truth that underpinned the Qur’an, whose inner meanings are known only to God’s chosen guides. Imam Ja‘far proclaimed that rightful leadership belonged only to these divinely appointed guides, each of whom named his own successor, just as the Prophet Muhammad had designated Ali as his successor. Political authority, and the caliphate, belonged to them by divine decree. But whether they held political office or not, the legitimacy of the Imams did not alter. After al-Husayn, the imamate passed to Zayn al-Abidin, Ja‘far’s grandfather, and then to his own father, al-Baqir, before the imamate – the knowledge, the wisdom, the guidance and the rightful authority – came to reside in Imam Ja‘far himself. Due to the centrality of the idea of the imamate in their vision of faith, the followers of Imam Ja‘far, in time, would often be referred to as the Imamiyya (the Imamis).

The Shi‘i Imams and their supporters endured decades of persecution under the reign of the Umayyad caliphs, the latter always in fear of a challenge to their claim to the caliphate. After the Abbasid revolution in 750 that overthrew the Umayyads in Damascus, the descendants of Ali and their followers suffered a new wave of persecution under the Abbasid caliphs, with their new capital city at Baghdad. The Abbasids asserted that, as the descendants of the Prophet’s uncle Abbas, they were part of the Prophet’s family, the true ahl al-bayt, and to them alone belonged the titles of Imam and caliph; claims by rival Imams from the lineage of Ali and Fatima, who were direct blood descendants of the Prophet, would not be tolerated. Scores of Alids (followers of those descended from Ali and Fatima) were executed by the Abbasids, and many more imprisoned.

The Ismaili Shi‘a and the Twelvers

It was during this oppressive climate when agents of the Abbasid caliph pursued the Imami Shi‘a that Imam Ja‘far Sadiq passed away. His death in 765 led to a major division between the Imamis. There were those who held that Imam Ja‘far had pronounced the nass (divine designation of succession) upon his eldest son, Isma‘il, who, according to some historical reports predeceased his father, whereupon the imamate was passed on to his son, Muhammad b. Isma‘il. In history, they came to be known as the Ismaili Shi‘a. There were others who contended that the nass was professed instead on Imam al-Sadiq’s youngest son, Musa. Subsequently, this latter group came to be known as the Ithna‘ashari, or Twelver, Shi‘a.

Both these groups of Shi‘a met with severe persecution by the Abbasids. Musa al-Kazim, the seventh Imam of the Ithna‘ashari Shi‘a, was arrested, jailed and then allegedly poisoned on the orders of the Abbasid caliph. Another son of Ja‘far fled to Mecca. It was then that the Ismaili Shi‘a Imam Muhammad b. Isma‘il secretly left Medina, and, evading Abbasid agents, headed eastwards to the region of Khuzistan, which straddles Iraq and Iran.

The Emerging Ismaili Da‘wa

The ‘Concealment’

From around 765, the location and identity of Imam Muhammad b. Isma‘il were considered to have been known only to his most trusted associates, who concealed his whereabouts while remaining in contact with him. Following this significant turn of events, the next century and a half (765–909) came to be characterised in Ismaili history as the dawr al-satr (period of concealment). It was during this era, when the identities of the Imams remained hidden except from the most trusted of believers, that an organised movement known as the da‘wa (religio-political mission) gained momentum across the Muslim world. This mission, which promoted the recognition of the hidden Ismaili Imams and secured allegiance for their cause, served as the precursor to the establishment of the Fatimid state.

Salamiyya: The Ismaili Imam’s Secret Residence

Salamiyya (see Figure 1) at this time comprised clusters of houses that made up the districts of the town, all situated around a main road that ran through the centre of the town. The ruins of ancient Christian monasteries nearby testi-fied that it was an old settlement, but the town itself had only recently been resettled in the Abbasid era, by immigrants from near and far. As did many other towns of the time, it featured a governor’s mansion, residential districts, teeming marketplaces and, rising above them all, the minarets and walls of the central mosque, which in Salamiyya was built out of the black rock extracted from local lava fields.

In the residential quarters was a mansion whose high walls indicated that it was home to someone of considerable status. The people of Salamiyya knew the owner to be a respected and wealthy merchant from the Hashimi family (the name of the greater clan to which the Prophet Muhammad had belonged), but only a small, trusted group of people across the Muslim world knew his real identity and the purpose his building served. By the end of the 9th century, the mansion had come to function as the secret central headquarters of the Ismaili da‘wa, and it was home to Imam Abd Allah al-Mahdi. Few living in Salamiyya at the time could have imagined the series of events that over the next decade would propel Abd Allah to become the first Imam-caliph to found an empire that would span the shores of the Mediterranean.

Justice and Righteous Rule

During the dawr al-satr that began with the concealment of the Imam Muhammad b. Isma‘il in the 8th century, the Ismaili da‘wa attracted adherents across the Muslim world, particularly in Ifriqiya, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and Sind. It called for the establishment of a reign based on justice and a Shi‘i understanding of righteous rule, one that aimed to end what many had come to regard as the oppressive rule of the Abbasids, and to replace it with the Alid Ismaili Imams at the helm of the Muslim world.

In the early decades of the 9th century, the Ismaili da‘wa became highly organised and hierarchical. In the climate of fear and persecution, secrecy was paramount. At the head of the organisation was the hujja, the ‘proof’ and ‘guarantor’ of the Imam himself. Many thought that the hujja in those early years was the ‘representative’ of Muhammad b. Isma‘il. Later, in the Fatimid age, hujjas were understood to be his sons and successive Imams, whose true identities had remained concealed.

The term da‘i, which is derived from the same root as da‘wa, literally means ‘inviter’ or ‘summoner’. The task of the da‘i was to call people to the recognition of the imamate of Muhammad b. Isma‘il, and to teach the doctrines of the din al-haqq (the true faith/religion). The da‘is held that the core of ‘the religions of the book’ (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam) was the true religion, the din al-haqq, a universal and eternal truth. Throughout history, God had sent speaker-prophets (natiqs) – Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad – each of whom pronounced laws and ceremonies, rites and regulations, for their own communities. These were seen as the exterior (zahir) expressions of the faith. Yet the core of their message and the inner reality of all the scriptures – the Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an – contained the same universal truths.

Adherents of the da‘wa pronounced the basic Shi‘i doctrine of Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq, that alongside each natiq, God had decreed a wasi, a vicegerent who was to serve as an elucidator of the revelation and to lead the initiated believers towards its inner truth. Just as the wasi of Adam was his son Abel, for Abraham it was his son Isma‘il, for Moses it was Aaron, and for Jesus it was Peter, so for Muhammad the wasi was Ali b. Abi Talib. Thereafter, the task of explaining the spirit of Islam and the inner truths of the Qur’an was vested in the Imams who came after Ali. Recognition of the Imam was therefore indispensable for anyone who would attain salvation.

As the Ismaili da‘is spread across the Muslim world, they found an increasingly receptive audience. Towards the latter half of the 9th century, the previously powerful and intellectually vibrant Abbasid state began to unravel. Disaffection plagued their lands; political factionalism encouraged unscrupulous tax collectors exacting unjust taxes to pay for the growing luxuries of the court and the rising stipends of the unruly soldiers. As the infrastructure declined, farmers suffered, trade was stifled and a general breakdown in order led to rebellion and rioting in the cities.

The call for a reign of justice and righteousness led by an Imam from the ahl al-bayt found copious respondents in these politically, socially and economically turbulent times. People were drawn to various aspects of the Ismaili cause; the emphasis on seeking knowledge appealed to many amongst the literary classes of Iran and Iraq, whilst the call for justice and good governance drew those who felt slighted by the existing powers, including the Bedouins of the desert and the rural populations of Iraq and North Africa. The da‘wa’s call for the imminent emergence of a long-awaited mahdi fell on receptive ears.

Belief in the mahdi, literally meaning ‘the rightly guided one’, formed an integral doctrinal feature of a number of Muslim communities from the earliest decades of Islam, given support by the hadiths ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad which predicted his arrival to ‘fill the world with justice just as it was once filled with oppression’. Almost synonymous with the term al-mahdi was the term al-qa’im, ‘the one who rises’ to restore justice and righteousness. While there were differences of views amongst Muslim groups regarding the identity of the mahdi, the time of his appearance and his role and function in the Muslim community at the time of his manifestation (zuhur), there was nonetheless considerable conformity among various groups to the idea that a mahdi and a qa’im would indeed appear to restore the community of Muhammad to the true path.

Within the Ismaili da‘wa also there developed different views on the identity of the mahdi. For some, the one they were calling Imam al-Mahdi was Ja‘far al-Sadiq’s grandson Muhammad b. Isma‘il himself, whom they believed would emerge, having been in concealment for over a century but who was to return as God’s appointed saviour. Yet, for others, and for the leaders of the da‘wa at Salamiyya, the mahdi would be the living Imam from the descendants of Muhammad b. Isma‘il, and it would not be long before his public emergence would be proclaimed. It was to North Africa that the eyes of many Ismaili faithful turned, in the year 909, for the manifestation of Imam al-Mahdi.

The Ismaili Da‘wa in Ifriqiya

The Berber clans of the Kutama tribes lived in the lands of eastern Algeria, an area known today as the lesser Kabylia, a highland region of mountains, deep valleys, thick forests and flowing streams. Around 893, almost 20 years before the arrival of Imam Abd Allah al-Mahdi in North Africa, a group of Kutama pilgrims went to Mecca. There, they met an Ismaili da‘i and set out upon a mission that was soon to change the face of the Muslim ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. The Origins
• Chapter 2. Towards a Mediterranean Empire
• Chapter 3. The Fatimid State in Transition
• Chapter 4. The Making of an Empire
• Chapter 5. The Fatimid Venture in Egypt
• Glossary
• Notes
• Further Reading
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Note on the Text