Download PDF | Shainool Jiwa - The Founder of Cairo_ The Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Mu‘izz and his Era-I. B. Tauris (2013).
304 Pages
Introduction
Al-Muʿizz [li-Dīn Allāh] entered Cairo accompanied by all those who had gone [earlier] to receive him, along with all his sons, brothers, paternal uncles and the rest of the sons of al-Mahdī. The coffins of his ancestors, al-Mahdī, al-Qāʾim and al-Manṣūr, were also brought with him. His entry into Cairo and his arrival at his palace took place on Tuesday, 7 Ramaḍān 362 [11 June 973]. Thus, Egypt, after having been the seat of an amīrate, became the seat of a caliphate.1 Founded over a thousand years ago by the fourth Fatimid imam-caliph, al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh (d. 365/975), the city of Cairo has continued to function as the principal Egyptian metropolis, ranking today as the most populous city in Africa and the Arab world. As such, it constitutes one of the lasting legacies of al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, who is the subject of this work by the foremost Yemeni Ismaili scholar and author, Idrīs ‘Imād al-Dīn.
This publication provides the first annotated English translation of the author’s work on the life and times of this seminal Fatimid sovereign. The raison d’être of Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn’s scholarship was to record for the Fatimid Ismaili daʿwa (religio-political organisation) and its followers the unfolding of the Ismaili Weltanschauung through the course of history, with the principle of the imamate as its cornerstone. As the chief dāʿī (dāʿī al-muṭlaq) of the Yemeni Ṭayyibī daʿwa and an accomplished scholar, Idrīs drew upon an array of Ismaili and nonIsmaili primary sources across many regions including Iraq, Syria, North Africa, Egypt and Yemen in composing this work. Many of these have subsequently succumbed to the vagaries of time and circumstance, rendering Idrīs’ record a vital source on Fatimid history and thought. In the ʿUyūn al-akhbār wa funūn al-āthār (Sound Sources and Trustworthy Traditions),2 Idrīs recounts the key developments in Ismaili history spanning across nine centuries. Over the course of seven substantive volumes, he provides a historical narrative of the Prophet Muḥammad and the Shiʿi imams in the Ismaili line until the waning of the Fatimid dynasty in the 6th/12th century.
Effectively, Idrīs’ ʿUyūn al-akhbār provides the most comprehensive medieval account of Ismaili history from its inception to the author’s own era. Idrīs’ portrayal of al-Muʿizz and his reign is noteworthy as it is the most extensive extant account of this imam-caliph, which also happens to have been written from within the Ismaili daʿwa tradition. It provides comprehensive coverage of al-Muʿizz’s rule in North Africa, where the Fatimid sovereign spent the major part of his reign. It also relates at length Ismaili perspectives on the imamate, drawing significantly upon the sayings and anecdotes of al-Muʿizz as recounted by his own chief judge (qāḍī al-quḍāt) and chief dāʿī (dāʿī al-duʿāt) al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974).3 The works of al-Nuʿmān are among the earliest Fatimid writings on the history and doctrines of the Ismaili imams, as well as the authoritative source on al-Muʿizz’s words and actions. Idrīs’ extensive referencing of the Qāḍī’s works in his narrative indicates their continued importance in Ismaili thought, long after the demise of the Fatimid state. The authority and mandate of the imamate, in particular, took on a direct cogency for Idrīs when he succeeded to the role of the chief dāʿī of the Ṭayyibī branch of the Mustaʿlī Ismailis, according to whom theline of their imams had gone into concealment (satr), thus delegating its attendant responsibilities to the chief dāʿī, who in this instance was Idrīs himself. A distinctive feature of the ʿUyūn al-akhbār is that its historical account is clearly informed by an Ismaili worldview of the cosmic order and human destiny. Consequently, Idrīs’ understanding of the role of history, as well as the purpose and method of historical writing, was framed and conditioned by his doctrinal beliefs and commitment to what he believed to be an absolute truth: the divinely designated legitimacy and authority of the Ismaili imams, and their centrality in the unfolding of history. Idrīs’ narrative in the ʿUyūn al-akhbār, therefore, presents an opportunity to examine his notion of history and its role in the exposition of Ismaili doctrine. The ʿUyūn also offers an opportunity to undertake a comparative examination between Idrīs’ historical perspective, which is framed in a particular teleological approach to history, and that of non-Ismaili Muslim historians writing in the same period, whose conception of history bear some similarities as well as notable differences, but who nonetheless had an interest in compiling Fatimid history.
In particular, the comprehensive writings of the Mamluk Sunni scholar, Taqī al-Dīn al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1449), who also wrote a dedicated history of the Fatimid dynasty, provide an invaluable source for this comparative analysis. While Idrīs and al-Maqrīzī were contemporaries, their political, social, religious and cultural milieus were distinct, as was their approach to historical writing and their motivations in composing their works on the Fatimids. Accordingly, their narratives are at times significantly different, not just in their content but also in the method, structure and style of their rendition. Occasionally, however, their texts almost exactly mirror each other, indicating their reliance on common sources as well as a convergence of their viewpoints.
The Fatimid framework
It has been argued that inherent in the monotheistic tradition, with its belief in a single universal God, are aspirations for the creation of a universal order which testify to this reality. This engenders the project of a universal empire so as to steer humanity towards the potential of salvation. The consequential relationship between monotheistic faith and the notion of a single, all-embracing polity was manifest in the relationship between early Christianity and the Byzantine Empire.4 As successor to the monotheistic tradition, Islam inherited the same predisposition to universalism. This link between religion and state was firmly established during the time of the Prophet Muḥammad and subsequently framed Islamic models of leadership such as the imamate and the caliphate. In both Shiʿi and Sunni Islam, the continued saliency of the principle of universalism was regarded as a culmination rather than a rupture of the historical process.5 The same ideal of a universal order characterised the religio-political vision of the Fatimids, a Shiʿi Ismaili dynasty, who ruled over the North African littoral, as well as Egypt, Syria and parts of the Hijaz, for over two centuries. Proclaiming his caliphate in Ifrīqiya (present-day Tunisia and eastern Algeria) in 296/909, the founder of the Fatimid dynasty, ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdī,6 pronounced his lineage from the Ahl al-Bayt, the household of the Prophet Muḥammad, and claimed to be the only legitimate successor to the Prophet’s mantle of temporal and religious leadership over the Muslim umma.
The Fatimid investiture was rooted in the Shiʿi belief in the continuity of divine guidance through prophets and imams, in that just as God had designated the guidance and custodianship of humanity to a succession of prophets from Adam to Muḥammad, so He had also ordained the appointment of the Prophet Muḥammad’s cousin and son-in-law, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, and a series of imams descended from him to provide a continuing link to divine providence. According to the Shia, the essential function of the prophets was to communicate the scripture in its exoteric (ẓāhir) sense, and that of the imams is to interpret its esoteric (bāṭin) meaning for the faithful.8 Hence, for the Shia, the manifestation of an imam in each time and age is indispensable, for without it the realisation of truth would not be possible. The Shiʿi imam is considered to be the bearer of the divine light and knowledge inherited from the Prophet. It is incumbent upon humankind, therefore, to recognise and obey the imam of the time in order to secure their salvation. The Fatimid Shiʿi claim was asserted in direct opposition to that of the reigning Abbasid caliphs who also claimed to be from the family of the Prophet and the sole rightful inheritors of his authority. Whereas in the 2nd/8th century, the Abbasids had sought to vest religious authority and leadership in themselves, by the time the Fatimids rose to power, the ability of the Abbasid caliphs to pronounce on religious precepts was on the wane. Instead, in those schools of thought that subsequently came to be known as Sunni, a consensus was emerging that the religious scholars, the ʿulamāʾ, were the true expounders of the faith and, therefore, the ultimate authority over religious doctrine and practice. Earlier, the Abbasids had made strenuous efforts to stem the rising prestige of the ʿulamāʾ, with the caliph al-Ma’mūn’s so-called miḥna and the inquisition of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal being a case in point;9 but essentially they were swimming against the consensual Sunni tide.
This ultimately gave way to a restriction of their role, so that, whereas in theory they remained God’s representatives on earth, in reality their scope of authority was pegged to a symbolic role, whilst the ʿulamāʾ took over the function of interpreting the faith and defining its practice for the believers. Nonetheless, even after the power of the Abbasids had diminished, the theoretical necessity of the caliphate embodying religious authority remained an abiding principle of Sunni Islam. From the time of the foundation of the Fatimid state in North Africa under the leadership of ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdī, the Fatimids invested considerable effort in asserting their own legitimacy and sovereignty. Whereas the first three imam-caliphs, al-Mahdī (d. 322/934), al-Qāʾim (d. 334/946) and al-Manṣūr (d. 341/953), were preoccupied with defending and consolidating their nascent state, it was during the reign of al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, and the transformation of his local North African dynasty into a powerful Mediterranean empire, that the conceptual framing of an all-inclusive, universal imamate was systemically fostered through their daʿwa organisation. By the late 4th/10th century, this framework crystallised into a considerable corpus of literature composed by Fatimid dāʿīs.
Among these, the erudite works of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān assumed special significance because of the authorisation they received from the imams. The Qāḍī’s prodigious writings spanned a variety of genres from history to hagiography and from protocol to statecraft. Notably, his works laid the foundations of Fatimid law with the Ismaili imam-caliph as its pivot and apex. It was primarily through the works of al-Nuʿmān that the Fatimids articulated a systematic exposition of their doctrines and historic mission. In recognition of the fact that the Fatimid imam was reigning over an empire – unlike the Ithnā ‘Asharī Shiʿi (Twelver) imam whose followers believed him to be in occultation (ghayba) – al-Nuʿmān’s works assiduously represented the Fatimids as historical figures, and present history as a lived experience of the imamate.10 In his works, the Fatimids were proclaimed to be the indubitable descendants of the Prophet through the Shiʿi Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq,11 and his eldest son Ismā‘īl12 and grandson Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl.13 As successors to and repositories of the Prophet’s wisdom, the imams were vested with the authority to interpret the Qur’an, provide worldly and spiritual guidance, and impart knowledge on the manifest and hidden realities of existence. Early Ismaili doctrine in the pre-Fatimid period had postulated the nascent vision of the mahdī as a single messianic saviour whose manifestation would herald an era of universal justice and harmony.14
This was amplified in al-Muʿizz’s time, through al-Nuʿmān’s works, to include a successive cycle of imams, each of whom would have his designated role in history and share in the mahdī’s fulfilment.15 The designation of the imams and their ongoing succession was characterised as mirroring the continuity of the succession of prophets of the scriptural monotheistic tradition, thus forging a theological link with the Abrahamic tradition and also re-affirming a prophetic lineage of the Fatimid imam-caliphs.16 While al-Nuʿmān’s works assert the Fatimids as the supreme bearers of authority and leadership in the Islamic world, they also reflect al-Muʿizz’s endeavour to foster rapprochement across all segments of the populace within his domains. In so doing, they drew upon the shared repertoire of Muslim traditions to create a modus vivendi between the precepts of Shiʿi and Sunni communities. The imam was considered to be the repository of the divine guarantee (dhimma) of safety and security which he vouchsafed to those living under his reign. This extended not only to the provision of material security, but more broadly, to the articulation of law and dispensation of justice, which were considered integral to the mission of the Prophet.
The dhimma of the Fatimids was consequently extended to all their subjects, whether they were of a different madhhab (school of law) or a different creed altogether, including those Christians and Jews who lived under their suzerainty. This conceptual framing of an inclusive, universal imamate as a perpetual providential canopy over all the subjects of the Fatimid empire, irrespective of their religious affiliations, formed the bedrock of the erudite scholarship of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān and it was systemically fostered through the institution of the daʿwa. The potency of this framing is further highlighted by the fact that a notable number of the Qāḍī’s works survived the otherwise systematic destruction of Ismaili literature by the dynasty’s opponents. Some five centuries later, they provided the principal source for Idrīs ‘Imād al-Dīn in his rendering of the history and doctrines of the Ismailis in his monumental ʿUyūn al-akhbār, thus vouchsafing the defining impact of the Qāḍī’s doctrinal synthesis in the subsequent shaping of the Ismaili tradition.
In his lengthy chapter on al-Muʿizz lī-Dīn Allāh that is translated here, Idrīs carefully annotates al-Nuʿmān’s relationship with al-Muʿizz and quotes the Qāḍī extensively to testify the extent to which al-Nuʿmān’s considerable literary output arose after close consultation with the imam. As such, Idrīs’ account in the ʿUyūn is as much a homage to al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān as it is to al-Muʿizz. From a textual perspective, it is fortuitous that some of the writings of al-Nuʿmān are extant and available partially in other sources and editions, for they provide a first hand opportunity to examine Idrīs’ approach to his sources and to review the accuracy of his citations.
The reign of al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh
The fourth Fatimid imam-caliph, Abū Tamīm Maʿadd, was formally invested in 341/953 when he was 21 years old. His birth-name, Maʿadd, invoked the legendary ancestry of the Arabs and its Abrahamic lineage.17 Upon his accession to the caliphate, he adopted the regal title al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, ‘the one who strengthens the religion of God’. In Ismaili speculative thought, al-Muʿizz’s appointment was infused with messianic expectations as he was considered to be the 14th imam, and therefore the one who was to complete the second cycle of seven imams.
Hence, Idrīs’ account of al-Muʿizz begins by locating al-Muʿizz within this constellation of the imamate.18 During the course of his 22-year reign (341–365/953–975), al-Muʿizz was able to assert Fatimid authority over the North African landscape from the shores of the Atlantic to the Red Sea. His crowning achievement was the conquest of Egypt in 358/969. His vibrant engagement in the region brought the Fatimids into even closer proximity with a host of other significant regional powers such as the Umayyads of Spain, the Byzantines with their capital at Constantinople, and the Abbasids through their Ikhshīdid vassals in Egypt. Each of these dynasties claimed exclusive right to rule and was committed to the expansion of their domains. Inevitably, this led to political as well as ideological strife, which often escalated into military confrontations. In determining his responses to these challenges as well as in venturing into diplomatic and economic interactions, al-Muʿizz had the opportunity and acumen to draw upon the experience of his three predecessors who had weathered numerous internal and external challenges in their half-century rule over the region. Following earlier setbacks, al-Muʿizz was able to build on the naval power which his great-grandfather al-Mahdī had established in the Mediterranean and secured a decisive victory over an Umayyad-Byzantine coalition in 346/955.
This compelled both the Byzantine Emperor Romanus II and the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III19 to seek a truce with the Fatimid sovereign. Idrīs quotes extensively from al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān’s vivid eyewitness record of the presence of these delegations at the Fatimid court and their ensuing deliberations, thus providing an informed, firsthand account of the salient issues, contestations and terms of negotiation among them. These eventually resulted in al-Muʿizz granting a time-limited, five-year truce to the Byzantine emperor in terms that were particularly favourable to the Fatimids.20 This occasion was celebrated by the leading Fatimid court poet, Ibn Hāniʾ al-Andalūsī,21 in the following verses to extol al-Muʿizz’s success over the Byzantine forces: Whoso seeks guidance in a caliph other than al-Muʿizz [shall know that] verily guidance in [any] other than him is but misguidance.
He [is the one] to whose merit the Qurʾan bears witness, [something] confirmed by the Torah and the Gospels. It is possible to describe him except that likeness and images do not apply [to him]. For people in comparison to him are like accidents borne by him, an essential substance. Eyes cast themselves toward him looking, but when they then issue forth they are thinking. I plunged myself headlong into him and failed to understand him, but to my innermost conscience he is intelligible. Each of the imams from among your ancestors [O al-Muʿizz] is excellent, but when you are singled out then every one of them is surpassed in merit [by you]. Stand proud, for when your kin is numbered, Paradise counts among them and you are descended from the noble revelation.
I deem mankind nonsense whereas you are a truth: a known cannot equal an unknown. All of creation bears witness to your exaltedness; verily, [the testimony of all] creation is an acceptable testimony. Proof of God is in His handiwork among us: you are the proof of that proof.22 While the Umayyad threat was temporarily forestalled by the death of the elderly ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III, the Byzantines proceeded next to secure military domination of the eastern Mediterranean. The landing of their commander Nicephorus Phocas23 in Crete in 349/960 caused major consternation amongst its Muslim inhabitants, who appealed for succour to the Abbasid caliph as they were under his suzerainty. When this failed to materialise, they appealed to a number of Muslim rulers including Kāfūr al-Ikhshīdī24 who was reigning over Egypt, and the Ḥamdānids25 who ruled over parts of Syria and Mesopotamia. However, none were able to come to their aid. Idrīs recounts these events in considerable detail, quoting at length al-Muʿizz’s letters to the Byzantine emperor as well as to an envoy of Kāfūr al-Ikhshīdī, who then appealed to al-Muʿizz for military assistance.
The Fatimid sovereign had the naval capacity as well as the diplomatic wherewithal to check the Byzantine aggression, as the latter were still bound by the terms of the truce that they had agreed to earlier with the Fatimids. According to Idrīs’ account, al-Muʿizz viewed this as an opportunity to create a coalition of Muslim forces with the Ikhshīdid and Fatimid regiments fighting alongside each other against the Byzantines. Idrīs cites at length al-Nuʿmān’s account of these events. Al-Muʿizz’s correspondence with the Ikhshīdids provides his purpose for the coalition. It also reiterates two signal features of his reign, his emphasis on rapprochement and the universality of his claim: We have heard that you have begun to make preparations for jihād and to assist these people [of Crete] by sending them ships from your side. You are the most befitting for this because of their closeness to you, their links with you, their supply of provisions to your country and your unity under the same daʿwa. Indeed, had we left their matter to you and withheld ourselves, neither you nor they would have had any claim upon us. However, we chose to assist the umma of our grandfather, Muḥammad, and decided not to desist since they pinned their hope on us and have turned to us. We will not stand between you and your waging jihād in the path of God, and we will not hinder you from completing what you hope to do. So our sending of fleets to help you should not deter you from what you are intending to do. If you are anxious from us as regards the safety of those whom you have sent and of your boats, we give you God’s oath and covenant that we will only deal with them with goodwill and we will treat them like our men…. So know this and invest your trust in us. It is the alliance of the Muslims against their enemies and the unanimity of their word that strengthens God’s religion and subdues their enemies. Indeed, we have facilitated the path for you and God is our witness for what we have said.26 In effect, the matter came to naught, as by the time the FatimidIkhshīdid preparations could begin, the Byzantines had already occupied the Cretan capital Candia.
While al-Muʿizz assertively pursued Fatimid interests in the Mediterranean, he carefully calibrated the governance of his empire, paying particular heed to the experience of his forefathers in addressing the fractious challenges that had followed the establishment of the Fatimid state. Al-Muʿizz’s predecessors had struggled to assert their authority over the North African populace, which was predominantly Sunni in religious persuasion. The Mālikī ʿulamāʾ, who held an influential position among the North African Sunni populace, had vociferously opposed the Fatimid regime. In this, they were encouraged and supported by the Spanish Umayyad rulers. When their antagonism to the Fatimids converged with the insidious Khārijī revolt of Abū Yazīd,27 they threatened the very survival of the Fatimid dynasty. Once the third Fatimid imam-caliph al-Manṣūr had quelled the rebellion, he had the option to revert to the earlier Fatimid policy of appointing an Ismaili official over urban areas. However, he chose to adopt a more conciliatory stance by appointing a Mālikī administrator instead. Al-Manṣūr’s explicit recognition of a Sunni madhhab as a ‘legitimate religious and legal community’ has been labelled a ‘momentous development in Islamic government’.28 Al-Manṣūr’s gesture of reconciliation with the Mālikīs was the first time that a Muslim legal school different to that of the ruling dynasty was given official recognition. Al-Muʿizz drew upon the experience of al-Manṣūr to cultivate a latitudinarian approach towards the various segments of the Maghribī population. Accordingly, he too appointed Mālikī judges and administrative officials over towns with a Mālikī majority and permitted the utilisation of their precepts on matters pertaining to family law.
Nonetheless, in public performance, the Shiʿi norms concerning the regulations on prayer and fasting were maintained across Fatimid lands.29 Whilst al-Muʿizz’s reign in North Africa provides instructive examples of accommodating non-Ismaili Muslims, thus contributing to the stability of the state, it is in Egypt that this inclination towards rapprochement became the hallmark of his statecraft. As heir to an ancient crucible of civilisations, 10th-century Egypt sustained a rich variety of ethnicities, including Arabs, Turks, Greeks, Berbers, Nubians and Sudanese. Reflecting the process and pace of Islamisation in the region, a significant portion of the populace professed Sunni Islam, with a minority Shiʿi presence of Ithnā ‘Asharīs and Ismailis. Egypt was also home to substantive, historically antecedent Christian communities, including the Copts, Melkites and Nestorians, as well as a number of Jewish communities such as the Rabbanites and the Qaraites. In keeping with the ideal of universal sovereignty, upon the Fatimid entry into Egypt, al-Muʿizz offered his dhimma to these varied religious and ethnic groups. The notion of an all-encompassing guarantee of protection, which has antecedents in early Muslim history, emerged from Qur’anic discourse and was based particularly upon the Prophet’s own foundational conduct in Medina. The precepts and terms of al-Muʿizz’s commitment to uphold the dhimma have been preserved in the amān document, the formal written guarantee of safety which the Fatimid commander Jawhar30 issued on behalf of al-Muʿizz to the Egyptians upon his arrival in the country in 358/969.31 This document delineates the principles upon which the Fatimids were to base their subsequent two-century reign over Egypt.
In all probability, it is because of its historic significance that the amān has been preserved in its entirety in both Ismaili and Egyptian sources. Notably, the document vouchsafes equity and protection to the entire Egyptian populace, under the Fatimid sovereign’s authority and guardianship: Our master and lord, the Commander of the Faithful [al-Muʿizz], has advised his servant [Jawhar] to spread justice and promote the truth, to temper oppression, to eradicate transgression, to enhance sustenance, to be equitable about rights, to aid the oppressed, to repel tyranny, to prefer justice, closeness and compassion, to supervise fairly, to be generous in companionship, to be kind in associations, to scrutinise living conditions, to offer protection to the inhabitants day and night so that they can strive freely to earn their living and can manage their affairs such that it would restore them to their feet… Islam consists of one sunna and a sharī‘a followed [by all]. [You shall have the right] to follow your madhhab (creed) or any other Muslim madhhab; to perform your obligations according to religious scholarship, and to gather for it in your mosques and places of congregation; and to remain steadfast in the beliefs of the worthy ancestors from the Companions of the Prophet, may God be pleased with them, and those who succeeded them, the jurists of the cities who have pronounced judgements and fatwas (legal opinions) according to their madhhabs… I guarantee you God’s complete and universal safety, eternal and continuous, inclusive and perfect, renewed and confirmed through your families, your livestock, your estates and your quarters, and whatever you possess, be it modest or significant.
There shall be no opponent opposing you, no harasser harassing you and no pursuer pursuing you. You shall be safeguarded, protected and defended. We will defend you and protect you against [enemies]. We will not let you be harmed, nor will we aid any of your enemies, nor be presumptuous against the powerful among you, not to mention the weak. 32 In addition to formally issuing a guarantee of security for people and property, al-Muʿizz’s amān is notable for its commitment to the continuity of the legal and ritual practices of various Muslim communities. In particular, al-Muʿizz’s recognition of the merits of the Prophet’s companions is significant, bearing in mind the sectarian fractiousness that from time to time had marred Sunni-Shiʿi relations in Egypt. The same ecumenical attitude evident in the amān document pervades the ensuing Fatimid approach towards the Ahl al-Kitāb, the substantial Christian and Jewish communities in Egypt, who were permitted to practice their faith and, by and large, to maintain the upkeep and building of their houses of worship. Another constituency with whom al-Muʿizz actively cultivated his relationships were the ashrāf, the various clans and families who also claimed descent from the Prophet Muḥammad through Fāṭima and ʿAlī. Although the ashrāf had gained stature, influence and social cohesiveness as a group because of their descent, they were not necessarily Shiʿi or Ismaili, with a number adopting a Sunni outlook. While al-Muʿizz’s motives for befriending the ashrāf have been questioned by a number of scholars, with some considering it as a purely diplomatic venture and others viewing it as a sign of Fatimid wariness to their hostility, al-Muʿizz’s efforts at rapprochement were received positively by a significant number of them. As a beneficiary of the North African propensity for the veneration of the Ahl al-Bayt, which had fostered the establishment of the Idrīsid dynasty in the 2nd/8th century and facilitated the rise of the Fatimids in the 3rd/9th century, al-Muʿizz had earlier demonstrated exceptional clemency to a group of recalcitrant Idrīsids who had been taken captive in the Maghrib by his commander Jawhar in 347–348/958– 959.
Quoting al-Nuʿmān, Idrīs relates in detail the generosity which al-Muʿizz bestowed upon the captured Idrīsids in recognition of their familial linkage, whilst also reiterating his singular sovereignty over the umma. In an exclusive audience which al-Muʿizz hosted for the Idrīsids where he granted them the privilege to sit in his presence and to draw near him, he addressed the Idrīsids at length and admonished them as follows: You are aware of our benevolence and bounty to you and our pardon and clemency concerning your preceding actions. We are setting you free because we know of your wish to unite with those whom you have left behind and your longing for one another. So we chose to aid you and grant it to you. So be cognisant and accept it in gratitude as a gesture of goodwill and loyalty. Then you will receive more from us and you will receive our bounties and benefactions. Let he who relates to us through lineage know that this [relation] is only for those who adhere to us and are obedient. As for those who disobey the awliyā’ Allāh (friends of God) and oppose them, their lineage will be severed, just as God severed the lineage between Nūḥ (Noah) and his son when he disobeyed him. If God had not obligated all of creation to obey us and enjoined it with obedience to Him and His Messenger, and made it a creed which people should worship and appointed us to establish His religion, we would not have been concerned about who is loyal to us and who is disloyal. However, by that we wish to fulfil what God has ordered concerning the establishment of faith… He has made us the imams of His creation, and He only accepts the obedience of those who obey them, and He is only content with those who make them content… In fact, God has made all His servants needy of us in matters pertaining to the world and of faith.34 Al-Muʿizz’s interactions with the ashrāf extended beyond the boundaries of his empire. Hence, when a feud broke out between the two leading Hashimid clans in the Hijaz, the Banū Ḥasan and the Banū Jaʿfar,35in 348/959–960, al-Muʿizz was instrumental in mediating conciliation between the two families, bearing the cost of the indemnities due to the aggrieved families so as to ensure a peaceful resolution between them. This disposed the Banū Ḥasan in particular towards al-Muʿizz such that when Jawhar arrived in Egypt, al-Ḥasan b. Jaʿfar took possession of Mecca and proclaimed al-Muʿizz as the sovereign over Mecca and Medina. Al-Muʿizz reciprocated by investing al-Ḥasan b. Jaʿfar with the administration of both cities. In Egypt, the ashrāf had formed an established aristocracy of wealthy notables who were well organised and highly respected. They also wielded significant influence in Egyptian society. In the political vacuum that ensued after the death of Kāfūr al-Ikhshīdī in 355/966, the ashrāf were among the prominent notables who were involved in the dialogue with al-Muʿizz and his Egyptian dāʿīs to negotiate the Fatimid takeover. Of the five delegates who were selected to represent Egyptian interests to Commander Jawhar upon his arrival in Egypt and to secure a peace agreement, two were senior members of the ashrāf who also occupied leading positions in the Egyptian bureaucracy.36 The fact that these ashrāf were entrusted with the task of negotiating the vested interests of Egyptian nobility with the Fatimid commander indicates that the latter were keen to draw upon the familial connections of the ashrāf with al-Muʿizz. Equally, al-Muʿizz’s reaching out to the ashrāf in other regions would have had a bearing on their inclination to negotiate with his commander.
The cooperation of the ashrāf proved instrumental in securing Jawhar’s relatively peaceful victory over Egypt. Al-Muʿizz cemented the alliance by ensuring that the ashrāf continued to remain involved in the Fatimid administration, thus becoming a vital force in securing Fatimid legitimacy over their Egyptian subjects. Ideologically, the significance of the Fatimid sovereign as instituting the rule of the Ahl al-Bayt provided a platform to which the ashrāf could relate and thus contribute to servicing the Fatimid state. Similarly, the ashrāf represented to al-Muʿizz the ideal mediators in the administration of authority between the majority Sunni populace and the Fatimid imam, as they had the flexibility to straddle both sides of the ideological divide. As such, Jawhar’s special regard for the prominent sharīf of Egypt, Abū Jaʿfar Muslim, can be understood in this vein. After remnants of the previous Ikhshīdid and Kāfurid forces failed in their limited attempt to halt the Fatimid advance, the notables of Fusṭāṭ chose Abū Jaʿfar Muslim to formally request a re-issuance of the amān. In his reply, Jawhar remarked: The Sharīf’s letter has arrived; may God lengthen his life, perpetuate his honour, support and strengthen him. [In it] he congratulated us for the blessed conquest which God has paved for us, and he, may God support him, deserves to be congratulated as it is his realm and the realm of his family, and he is worthy of it. As for his request for a guarantee of safety and the return of the original guarantee of safety, I have returned to him what he has sought and I have appointed him on behalf of our lord and master, the Commander of the Faithful, to guarantee people safety as and how he wishes. 37 The energetic efforts of al-Muʿizz to accommodate the interests of the majority Sunni populace of his domains did not detract him from augmenting the strength of his Ismaili following. In particular, the expansion of the Fatimid daʿwa became a noteworthy feature of his reign. Under his patronage, Cairo became the central headquarters of the daʿwa, servicing a network of regional hubs, known within the daʿwa as jazā’ir or ‘islands’, across the Islamic world which disseminated Fatimid Ismaili teachings through its dāʿīs. In his position as the chief dāʿī under al-Muʿizz and through his scholarship, al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān was instrumental in propagating the idea of the daʿwa as a divine calling and presenting its dāʿīs as model teachers and exemplars.38 The active propagation of the Fatimid mission yielded some immediate results, notably in Sind,39 which became an Ismaili principality for almost five decades (347–353/958–1005), with Multan serving as the locus for the growing activity of the Fatimid daʿwa in the Indian subcontinent. The extension of Fatimid sovereignty to a part of the Indian subcontinent offered an example from which Ismaili dāʿīs in successive generations sought to draw instruction. This is evident from the fact that writing some five centuries later, Idrīs makes a concerted effort to provide a detailed rendering of the inception as well as progression of the daʿwa in Sind, noting its triumphs and tribulations, drawing principally upon the account of al-Nuʿmān. He candidly notes the difficulties that emerged in that region with aberrant interpretations of Fatimid doctrine propagated by certain dāʿīs, while also providing an eyewitness account of al-Muʿizz’s perturbed reaction and corrective action to them. Idrīs had a vested interest in doing so, as the Ṭayyibī daʿwa in Yemen had found a considerable degree of success in spreading its mission in India. Moreover, the fact that Idrīs himself was the chief dāʿī of the Ṭayyibī Ismailis in Yemen where, in the absence of an imam, he steered the dāʿīs under his purview, must have provided a further incentive to the rendition. Another measure al-Muʿizz took to unify the daʿwa was to encourage various non-Fatimid Ismaili groups to recognise the authority of the Fatimid imam-caliphs and coalesce with their standpoint. The origin of these groups can be traced back to the foundational phase of the Ismaili daʿwa during the early years of the Abbasid caliphate when the authorities maintained a sharp surveillance over all the ‘Alid contenders to power, fearing that support for their claim to leadership would undermine their own caliphate. It was in this climate that the Ismaili daʿwa was driven underground for almost a century and a half. During this period, known as dawr al-satr (period of concealment),40 while the daʿwa actively spread its mission across the Islamic world, it nonetheless maintained secrecy about the identity of the Ismaili imams. This contributed to the rise of distinct groups within the daʿwa with a range of varying interpretations regarding the concealed imams. Among these groups the most militant were followers of the dāʿī Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ in Iraq and Bahrain who came to be known as the Qarāmiṭa.41 Their focal point of disagreement was their refusal to acknowledge the imamate of ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdī, the first Fatimid imam-caliph. Instead, they anticipated the imminent return to the world of Imam Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl,42 the grandson of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, as the mahdī and qāʾim, the archetypal messiah who would initiate the final era of history. Al-Muʿizz’s long letter to the Qarmaṭī leadership in Bahrain more than half a century later, reiterating their common origins as well similarities in their beliefs, is an illustrative example of his efforts to secure their support.43 In the letter he rebuked the existing Qarāmiṭa for abandoning the right path of their ancestors and invited them to return to it through recognition of his imamate. He also rehabilitated the founding figures of the Qarmaṭī movement by accommodating some of their views in Fatimid doctrine. This included transposing the pivotal precept of the imminent return of Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl as the mahdī and qāʾim to one where the messianic mission of the mahdī was depicted as an ongoing and continuous historical process to be shared and fulfilled by all the imams. Despite al-Muʿizz’s overtures, the Qarāmiṭa of eastern Arabia remained hostile to the Fatimids, which escalated to outright military confrontation against them after their entry into Egypt. However, al-Muʿizz’s reconcilliatory efforts bore fruit, for within a decade the Qarmaṭī leadership pledged allegiance to al-Muʿizz’s son and successor, al-ʿAzīz bi’llāh.44 There were other elements of the Ismaili daʿwa in the eastern regions, including Iraq and Iran, who had remained unconvinced of al-Mahdī’s claim to the imamate. Among them were a number of leading dāʿīs and intellectuals, such as Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī,45 Muḥammad al-Nasafī46 and Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī,47 who were particularly important to the Fatimids.
The most notable respondent to al-Muʿizz’s overtures was the dāʿī of Khurasan, al-Sijistānī, whose move to the Fatimid fold around 349/960 proved invaluable as he shepherded a number of the adherents of Iran and Central Asia towards the Fatimid cause. Moreover, his philosophical writings paved the way for the infusion of Neoplatonic ideas into Fatimid thought, initiated earlier by his predecessor al-Nasafī. Consequently, the legal framework which al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān had formulated came to be complemented by the metaphysics of Late Antiquity.48 Sijistānī’s influence and impact on the Fatimid daʿwa and its literature is evidenced by the fact that from his time onwards the Ismailis of the Iranian world came to form ‘the largest and the most influential body of believers in the mission of the Fatimids, whose scholarly elite elaborated the dynasty’s doctrine of the imamate into a vast synthesis of contemporary wisdom’.49 In addition to harnessing the resources of the Fatimid daʿwa abroad to his cause, al-Muʿizz vigorously promoted the dissemination of learning in Egypt, principally by the founding of the Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. Additionally, he continued the well-established practice of holding the majālis al-ḥikma (sessions of wisdom).
These were assemblies of learning led by the chief dāʿī or his representatives on esoteric knowledge (‘ilm al-bāṭin), held usually in the caliphal palace and conducted exclusively for Ismailis following the inception of the Ismaili daʿwa in North Africa. 50 Idrīs cites a first-hand account from al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān on al-Muʿizz’s counsel for the majālis al-ḥikma. When the Commander of the Faithful, al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, opened the gate of mercy for the believers and turned his attention to his followers by his benefaction and grace, he gave me books on esoteric knowledge (‘ilm al-bāṭin) and instructed me to read out from them in a session every Friday at the palace which during his lifetime was much frequented. People thronged to it and the place became crowded.
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق