The Fatimids 2

The Rule from Egypt

By Shainool Jiwa

Chapter 1

The Arrival of the Fatimids in Egypt

On Tuesday, 11 June 973, as the sun rose over the lush Nile valley, the people of Egypt awoke to witness a momentous event. Years of preparations had reached their crescendo. In FustatNow part of Cairo, the first Muslim city in Egypt, founded by ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ (d. 663)., the old capital of Egypt that sat astride the Nile, decorations adorned the city. Over the river itself, new pontoon bridges had been built in anticipation. But the grandest of preparations was underway a few kilometres north where for four years, builders, architects, craftsmen, and artisans had constructed a new royal city. There, a new palace and mosque had been built, and residential areas had been laid out – all surrounded by four large walls with towering gates. Awaiting its inauguration, it would soon be named al-Qahira al-Muʿizziya (the City Victorious of al-Muʿizz). In time this would be shortened to al-Qahira (Cairo, as it continues to be known today). 

On the other side of the river, on the plains of Giza that for millennia had been flanked by the ancient pyramids, the new ruler of Egypt – the Imam-caliph al-Muʿizz li-Din Allah (d. 975) – appeared riding regally on horseback. Preceded by a procession of people on foot, al-Muʿizz crossed the river, alighting on its eastern bank. Riding northwards, he entered Cairo for the very first time. In his palace, he fell to the ground prostrating in gratitude to God. 

A grand retinue had accompanied al-Muʿizz in his journey to Egypt. The Imam-caliph had also brought with him three coffins: those of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, the first three Imam-caliphs of the Fatimid realms. They were soon reinterred in a sanctified wing of the palace which came to be known as the Saffron Tomb (Turbat al-Zaʿfaran). While al-Muʿizz’s journey to Egypt had taken just over a year, that of his predecessors in reaching this juncture had taken over six decades. 

The Fatimids in North Africa 

The Fatimid Empire was founded in 909 in IfriqiyaMediaeval Muslim name for modern-day Tunisia; also the area where the Fatimids founded their state in the early tenth century. (a region encompassing Tunisia and eastern Algeria today). There, in the Great Mosque of QayrawanSee Kairouan, the Ismaili Shiʿi Imam Abd Allah al-Mahdi bi’llah (d. 934) had been proclaimed the amir al-muʾminin (commander of the faithful), a declaration that pronounced him as the sole righteous Imam and caliphIn Arabic khalīfa, the head of the Muslim community. See caliphate. over the Muslim world. In his 25-year rule, al-Mahdi oversaw the genesis of the Fatimid state. Initially he reigned from the palace town of RaqqadaA royal capital near Kairouan in North Africa founded by the Aghlabids., but in 921 al-Mahdi inaugurated the first newly built Fatimid capital city, called al-Mahdiyya, on the Mediterranean coast. 

Al-Muʿizz was born at al-Mahdiyya in 931, during the final years of his great-grandfather al-Mahdi’s reign. While growing up, he witnessed the turbulence that erupted during the early years of Fatimid rule. As a young boy, during the reign of his grandfather, the second Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Qaʾim bi Amr Allah (d. 946), al-Muʿizz experienced the Khariji anti-Fatimid rebellion that began in 943 and shook the foundations of Fatimid rule. When al-Qaʾim passed away in 946 at the height of the rebellion, al-Muʿizz then saw up close the tribulations of the reign of his own father, al-Mansur bi’llah (d. 953). Taking often to the battlefield, al-Mansur ended the rebellion by 947, and he spent the following years enacting policies to reverse the depredations of war by restoring the local economy and people’s livelihoods. Al-Mansur’s victory was architecturally commemorated with the building of a second Fatimid city, al-Mansuriyya, located a few kilometres south of Qayrawan – historically a heartland of Sunni scholarship. The positioning of the new Fatimid city and the appointment of a Maliki Sunni governor over Qayrawan became major milestones in the evolution of Fatimid governance, signalling greater inclusivity of different elements of North-African society within the Shiʿi caliphateThe Muslim political institution or state centred around the caliph, which came to an end, historically, in 1924 with the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire..  

Excerpted from The Fatimids: 2. The Rule from Egypt by Shainool Jiwa. Copyright © Islamic Publications Limited, 2023. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.