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.

This paper examines what came to be known as the Baghdad Manifesto, the public proclamation sponsored by the Abbasid Caliph al-Qādir in 402/1011 to undermine the legitimacy of the Fatimid claim to the Caliphate by denying their lineal descent from the Prophet Muhammad. The issuance of the document, its ratification by a number of esteemed scholars and leaders of the ashrāf, its pronouncement in mosques across Abbasid lands and its systematic incorporation in Abbasid historiography in the centuries that followed, cumulatively meant that this document subsequently became a standardised proof-text for the illegitimacy of the Fatimid claim. Yet, despite the frequent reference to the proclamation of the Manifesto, a study of the political and social dynamics that led to the issuance of this document, as well as its historiographical trajectory, remains incomplete until now. Through a systematic review of a range of Abbasid as well as Fatimid sources, this paper explores salient issues underpinning Fatimid-Abbasid relations leading to the proclamation of the Manifesto and its aftermath. It also examines the pivotal role of the ashrāf and their enigmatic and shifting alliances with both the Fatimids and the Abbasids in Iraq, Egypt and the Hijaz.

In this paper I chart a revival of the memory of the Fatimid Empire and Caliphate in Nizari Ismaili literature between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. While the connection with the Fatimids was consistently recalled within a genealogical framework, in Nizari literature produced between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries it was not the Fatimids, but rather the Nizari state based at Alamut, and in particular the doctrine of the qiyama, which served as the primary focal point of communal memory. Following the collapse of the Safavid state in Iran in the early eighteenth century the Nizari imamate underwent a dramatic shift in its social and political position. This shift concomitantly led to a reformulation of the historical vision of the community which increasingly emphasized the Fatimid inheritance in place of the qiyama. I argue that this shift in emphasis towards the Fatimids as a legitimation model was spurred by two related developments. The first is the shift in the political status of the imamate beginning in the eighteenth century, which for the first time in centuries placed the Nizari Imams in positions of political power and social authority beyond the bounds of the Ismaili community. Accordingly, the Fatimid state came to replace that of Alamut as a model for political leadership and legitimacy within a religiously pluralistic environment. The second is the context of the Ismaili engagement with Twelver Shiʿism in post-Safavid Iran, in which the Fatimid inheritance formed a critical element in legitimizing the religious authority of the Imams within a broader Shiʿi context. The Fatimid emphasis took on particular import in the writings of Imam Hasan ʿAli Shah (Aga Khan I), in which the claim to the Fatimid legacy assumed an important role in the context of his conflicts with the Qajar rulers of Iran.

The year 1171 marks the fall of the Fatimid state, ending 250 years of political rule of Fatimid imams over Egypt, North Africa, and beyond. Though the state no longer exists, the followers of its masters survived to the present in the form of two independent communities: the Nizārīs in Syria and Persia and the Ṭayyibīs in Yemen and India. In this paper, I focus on the Ṭayyibī community, commonly known as Bohras, who are led by the Dāʿī al-muṭlaq, the deputy of the imam in concealment, on top of a religious hierarchy known as the daʿwa. In the 20th century, the Bohra community went through a number of challenges and developments involving the nature of authority and the role and responsibility of the leadership, resulting in the consolidation of powers in the hands of the dāʿī. The daʿwa gradually formulated and implemented a new identity marked by a revival and reinvention of their Fatimid heritage. A number of policies involving education and language reforms, the implementation of a unified dress code, the standardization of religious rites, and major restoration and reconstruction projects of Shīʿī and Fatimid pilgrimage sites across the Middle East facilitated the expression of the community’s new identity. The newly established markers helped label membership in the community while excluding those who are not willing to abide by the rules set for it. This paper examines the politics of identity for the Ṭayyibī daʿwa mainly during the time of the late Dāʿī al-muṭlaq Muḥammad Burhānuddīn (d. 2014) with special focus on the controversial restoration and reconstruction work done by the Bohras on major Fatimid and Shīʿī sites in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Yemen. While the centralization of authority could not have been accomplished without the modernization of the community, these dramatic reforms were successful because they were rooted in the community’s own tradition.