Fatimid Caliphate: A Visual History

The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shia dynasty that rose in Tunisia in 909, conquered Egypt in 969 and founded Cairo, and at its peak ruled North Africa, Sicily, the Levant, the Hejaz and Yemen. It claimed the caliphate in rivalry with the Abbasids and Umayyads of Cordoba, made Cairo a great commercial and intellectual centre (al-Azhar was founded in 970), and traded across the Indian Ocean. Weakened by famine, military factions and the Crusades, it was abolished by Saladin in 1171.

When it existed: the era ribbon

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Fatimid territory

Timeline of the Fatimid Caliphate

1. 909
   Fatimid caliphate proclaimedIn Ifriqiya (Tunisia).
2. 969
   Egypt conquered; Cairo founded
3. 970
   Al-Azhar founded
4. 1009
   Holy Sepulchre destroyedBy al-Hakim.
5. 1021
   Al-Hakim disappears
6. 1064
   The great famineCivil war among the army.
7. 1094
   Nizari schismThe Assassins split off.
8. 1099
   Crusaders take Jerusalem
9. 1171
   Saladin ends the caliphate

From the Maghreb to Egypt

Ismaili missionaries won over the Kutama Berbers of Algeria, and in 909 their leader Abdallah proclaimed himself Mahdi and caliph in Tunisia. After failed attempts, the general Jawhar conquered Egypt in 969 and laid out a new palace city, al-Qahira (Cairo). Al-Muizz moved there in 973. Damascus and the Hejaz followed; the Fatimids controlled Mecca and Medina for much of the eleventh century.

Cairo's golden age

Al-Azhar mosque and college trained Ismaili missionaries and became one of the world's oldest universities. The Fatimids ran a tolerant, mercantile state; Egyptian trade with India through the Red Sea prospered, recorded in the Cairo Geniza documents. Al-Hakim (996-1021) was an exception: erratic, he destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009 and disappeared mysteriously in 1021, and is revered by the Druze as divine.

Decline and Saladin

A seven-year famine and civil war between Turkish and Sudanese troops in the 1060s ruined the treasury. The Armenian vizier Badr al-Jamali restored order in 1074 but from then viziers, not caliphs, ruled. A schism in 1094 split off the Nizaris (the Assassins). The Crusaders took Jerusalem from the Fatimids in 1099. In 1169 the Syrian ruler Nur al-Din sent an army under Shirkuh and his nephew Saladin; Saladin became vizier and in 1171 quietly had the Friday prayer said for the Abbasid caliph, ending the dynasty.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Abbasid Caliphate (750 to 1258)
• Ayyubid dynasty (1171 to 1260)
• Byzantine Empire (395 to 1453)
• Great Seljuk Empire (1037 to 1194)
• Caliphate of Cordoba (929 to 1031)
• Almoravid dynasty (1040 to 1147)
• Mamluk Sultanate (1250 to 1517)

Wars of the same era and region

• Crusades (1096 to 1291)
• Reconquista (718 to 1492)
• Mongol invasions and conquests (1206 to 1368)

8 surprising things about the Fatimid Caliphate

1. Cairo means 'the Victorious'; it was named for the planet Mars (al-Qahir), which was rising when the city was founded.
2. Al-Azhar, founded in 970, is often called the oldest continuously operating university in the world.
3. Al-Hakim banned chess, dogs, mulukhiya (a favourite Egyptian dish) and women leaving their homes, and made shopkeepers work at night.
4. The Druze religion began as a movement proclaiming al-Hakim's divinity.
5. The Fatimids were the first to introduce the Islamic banking-style bills of exchange on a large scale, according to Geniza records.
6. The Fatimid navy was the strongest in the Mediterranean in the tenth century.
7. The Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir reigned 58 years, longer than any other caliph.
8. Saladin later gave away the Fatimid palace's fabulous library; some manuscripts ended up in the Ayyubid and Mamluk collections.

Sources

• Fatimid dynasty Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Fatimid Caliphate Wikipedia
• Fatimid Caliphate World History Encyclopedia
• Michael Brett, The Fatimid Empire (2017) Edinburgh University Press

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