Despite important recent advances in the investigation of the Fatimid caliphate partly as the result of new editions and/or translation of primary texts, several major book-length studies, and many smaller publications, there remain serious gaps in our knowledge of certain aspects of their rule and old interpretations that are now badly in need of revision. For this panel we bring together four papers each of which addresses one area where previous work is either lacking or ought to be revisited.
Because the Fatimids governed the Maghrib for more than a century, communities of Ismailis once flourished in the region but later disappeared entirely. We have known that they were exterminated in an ugly spate of pogroms commencing in 407/1016 but the details of what exactly happened and most critically who was responsible have remained in part a mystery. Using all the available Arabic materials, many not consulted previously for what they report about this matter, our first paper provides the answers.
Our second paper reappraises the reign of the fifth caliph al-'Aziz. The standard depiction of him would limit his role in the actual conduct of government in favor of activities which, although princely, such as hunting and elaborate processions, did not deal directly with the actual affairs of ruling. That impression should be challenged.
Yet another paper presents new research on internal state documents, meaning memoranda exchanged among state officials with an eye toward possible typologies. Which documents can be stabilized with formal typologies and which ones are more amorphous (like generic letters). But in additional to petitions and various kinds of decrees, there are tax receipts, multi-handed procedural documents (for the processing of petitions and the like), tax receipts, fiscal registers, administrative registers. At least a preliminary mapping seems feasible and helpful, and it offers a glimpse of the complexity of Fatimid government.
A fourth paper analyses titles of honor and status (alqab) in the Fatimid realm. Their use, allocation and control constituted a major feature of governing policy and the awarding of a title or titles, or the augmentation of them, became a prominent event, often with elaborate ceremony and protocol. A newly developed catalog-index of all those mentioned in our sources, produced for this purpose, provides a tool for understanding the ramifications of these titles both in the specific context of Fatimid administrative strategies and in comparison with other dynastic practice.
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Mohamad Ballan
In Summer 407 AH/1016 AD, a a wave of mass violence targeting Isma’ili Shi’i Muslims swept across Ifriqiyah, a province of the Fatimid caliphate ruled by the Zirid dynasty. Following their move to Egypt in the late 4th/10th century, the Fatimid caliphs had appointed the Zirids, a dynasty of Sanhaja Berbers, as their governors and deputies in North Africa. Despite occasional outbreaks of violence, for much of the 10th century, there had been a delicate, albeit uneasy, coexistence between the various Muslim communities in Ifriqiyah (Isma’ili Shi’is, Hanafis, Malikis, and Ibadis). The pogrom of 407/1016 was therefore a cataclysmic event that undermined this heterogeneous society. The massacres, which began in Qayrawan and spread across Ifriqiyah between 407/1016 and 408/1017, claimed the lives and property of thousands of Isma’ili Shi’is, essentially ending the existence of Isma’ilism as a significant presence in Ifriqiyah, where it had thrived for over a century.
This paper assesses all the available Arabic textual evidence for these events, including historical chronicles, poetry, biographical dictionaries and hagiographies, composed between the 5th/11th and 8th/14th centuries, much, if not most, never previously consulted for this topic. It demonstrates that the violence was underpinned by various social, political, economic and religious factors and was linked to the increasing sectarian tensions throughout the Fatimid caliphate during the reign of al-Hakim bi Amr-illah (r. 386/996–411/1021), whose social and religious policies alienated large numbers of his Sunni subjects. Moreover, the increasingly anti-Isma’ili theological discourse among many Sunni communities across the Islamic world, best exemplified by the theological manifesto issued by the Abbasid caliph al-Qadir (r. 381/991–422/1031) in Baghdad, played a role in legitimizing such anti-Isma’ili violence. The massacres in Zirid Ifriqiyah marked the beginning of the end of Fatimid rule in North Africa and was part of a broader development during the reign of Zirid emir al-Mu ‘izz ibn Badis (r. 407/1016–454/1062) that witnessed the emergence of the hegemony of the Maliki-Sunni school of thought in Ifriqiyah. Reinterpretation of the evidence available highlights the role of local Sunni leaders, including Mihriz b. Khalaf (d. 413/1022), while also examining the broader impact of the events of 407/1016 and 408/1017 upon Fatimid-Zirid relations during the 5th/11th century.
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Dr. Shainool Jiwa
Wedged between the better known reigns of the Fatimid Imam-caliph, al-Mu?izz li-D?n All?h (r. 341-365/953-975), termed the Founder of Cairo, and that of al-??kim bi-Amr All?h (r. 386-411/996-1021), called the Caliph of Cairo, there is the often eclipsed twenty-one-year reign of the fifth Fatimid Imam-caliph, al-?Az?z bi?ll?h, the first to begin his rule in Egypt
As the third of four sons, al-?Az?z had been among the father’s retinue that took up residence in Cairo two and half years prior to his accession. Late in this period al-?Az?z’s elder brother, the wal? al-?a?d and heir-apparent ?Abd All?h, suddenly died, leading to the appointment of al-?Az?z himself days only before al-Mu?izz’s own death in 365/975. Thrust thus swiftly into state prominence, al-?Az?z thereafter embarked upon a plan to lay the foundations of lasting Fatimid rule in Egypt.
However descriptions of al-?Az?z in the primary sources, often mirrored in secondary literature, present him as a figure who was disinclined to rule directly, drawn instead to princely pursuits such as lion-hunting, falconry and the collection of precious gems and rarities. This characterisation resulted in part from the concurrent rise of al-?Az?z’s famous vizier Ya?q?b b. Killis [d. 380/991], the illustrious financial administrator of his age, often posited in secondary literature as the ‘power behind the throne’.
Through a close review of the sources, this paper reappraises the reign of al-?Az?z seeing him rather as a sovereign at the helm of affairs, striving to create institutional frameworks to buttress Fatimid rule. Ibn Taghri Birdi (d. 874/1470), an otherwise zealous critic of the Fatimids, noted that al-?Az?z was “was the best of the Fatimid caliphs, notably in comparison to his father, al-Mu?izz and his son, al-??kim.”
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Except for the self-chosen names of individual Fatimid caliphs, this dynasty avoided conferring titles for most of the 4th/10th century, even while the practice had become standard in the Abbasid east. Beginning with al-‘Az?z and then al-Hakim, however, a few such titles appear, usually of a fairly simple form, e.g. Am?n al-Dawla, Q?’id al-Quww?d and Kha??r al-Mulk. Thereafter this aspect of Fatimid rule proliferates with more and more titles granted, some a series of several for a single recipient, and the ceremony surrounding the event became an elaborate occasion including typically a formal sijill read publicly to announce the new titles, gifts, a procession, and more.
Although Fatimid practice was not different from that of others particularly of the Abbasids and eastern Islamic regimes, a close look at this subject is nevertheless warranted in part because it constituted a major feature of their governing as is evident from the considerable attention given it or accounts of it in our sources. Long ago the Egyptian scholar Hasan al-Basha published an essential study of these laqab (plural alq?b) throughout the Islamic world and he noted as many examples as he could for the Fatimids. Since his time, however, we have recovered several sources he could not have used. Moreover in editions of texts, either brought to light after his work or newly edited versions of previously known sources, the editors have seen fit to include an index specifically devoted to such titles. We can now, as was done for the purposes of this paper, assemble a reasonably complete catalog that lists the titles bestowed by the Fatimid caliphs on the elite members of their government.
With this data in hand we can analyze such issues as which titles appear regularly or not, which indicate rank—i.e. are some more exalted than others—what does it mean to earn one as opposed to another, and when and how are they given in multiples. In addition we learn about curious oddities such as the wazir Bahram, who was Christian, being called the “Sword of Islam”, the Coptic Monk Ab? Naj??, of dubious notoriety, who was given the title “The Thirteenth Apostle of Jesus”, and the impressive string of at least ten separate titles granted to Sayyida Arwa, the Sulayhid queen of the Yemen, a loyal vassal of the Fatimid imams. She in fact, as is now clear, accumulated more titles than any man in the period.
