MESA Banner
Rhetorical Methods of Demeaning an Enemy: Fatimid References to the Abbasids
Abstract
In the contest between these two medieval superpowers—the one Shi’i and the other Sunni—an important aspect of the struggle depended on the use of a special language and terms belittling the other side or casting aspersions on their right to claim the caliphate. Some of it is fairly clear and obvious but other elements deployed items with a coded meaning now less readily understandable without additional explanation, particularly for Shi’i material and arguments against either the Abbasids specifically or the Sunnis (or other non-Ismailis) in general. From the Fatimid side we now possess copious examples, most only recently brought to light. In it many terms, such as, for example, frequent references to the Sunnis simply as the Murji’a, are, as yet, not well known in modern scholarship. Frequent use of Qur’anic passages that, by implication support the Shi’i imamate, as another example, appear regularly in our sources. But exactly how were they understood by supporters of the Fatimid cause? That is not always obvious. The present paper, however, changes that by drawing together and analyzing many examples of such Fatimid anti-Abbasid and anti-Sunni rhetoric from the preaching of Abu ‘Abdallah al-Shi’i, a khutba of al-Qa’im, the writings of al-Sijistani and al-Kirmani, and more. The result constitutes a preliminary catalog of this aspect of Fatimid imperial strategy.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
All Middle East
Sub Area
7th-13th Centuries