Rise of the Fatimid Caliphate
The Fatimid caliphate was the most powerful Ismaili Shia state in history and the principal rival to Sunni Abbasid Baghdad for over two centuries. Its founding in 909 CE by Ubaydallah al-Mahdi in Ifriqiya (modern Tunisia) was the culmination of a secret missionary network (the da'wa) that had been operating across the Islamic world for decades, recruiting adherents to the belief that the rightful leadership of Islam resided with the Ismaili imams descended from Muhammad's daughter Fatima. From their North African base, the Fatimids extended west into Morocco and east toward Egypt, which they targeted as the strategic prize of the Mediterranean world. In 969 CE the brilliant general Jawhar al-Siqilli — leading a Fatimid army of perhaps 100,000 men — crossed the border and conquered Egypt from the Ikhshidid dynasty without significant resistance. Jawhar immediately began building a new royal city north of the existing settlement of Fustat: Al-Qahira — 'The Victorious' — which became Cairo. The Fatimid caliphate Al-Muizz established in Cairo was an intellectually extraordinary state. The caliph Al-Muizz brought with him scholars, treasuries, and the accumulated culture of North Africa. In 970–72 the Fatimids founded Al-Azhar mosque and university — still functioning as the pre-eminent institution of Islamic scholarship — as a centre for Ismaili thought and missionary education. At its zenith in the late 10th and early 11th centuries, the Fatimid empire controlled Egypt, Palestine, Syria, the Hijaz (including Mecca and Medina), Yemen, most of North Africa, and Sicily. The caliph in Cairo received the formal allegiance of the Qarmatians and maintained diplomatic relations with the Byzantine Emperor — both of whom were ostensible enemies of the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. The caliphate entered gradual decline after the death of Caliph al-Mustansir in 1094, weakened by succession disputes, Turkish and Berber military commanders who accumulated autonomous power, the Crusader arrival in Palestine, and the Sunni resurgence under the Seljuks. Saladin — appointed vizier by the last Fatimid caliph — abolished the Fatimid caliphate in 1171 and restored Sunni authority to Egypt, ending 262 years of Ismaili rule.
- Year: 909 CE
- Category: Political
