The Fatimid Caliphate

Diversity of Traditions

Farhad Daftary, Shainool Jiwa, Farhad Daftary, Shainool Jiwa

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781788311335
• eBook ISBN: 9781786723093
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

I.B.Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies

The Fatimids ruled much of the Mediterranean world for over two centuries. From the conquest of Qayrawan in 909 to defeat at the hands of Saladin in 1171, the Fatimid caliphate governed a vast area stretching, at its peak, from the Red Sea in the East to the Atlantic Ocean in the West. Their leaders - the Ismaili Shi`i Imam-caliphs - were distinctive in largely pursuing a policy of tolerance towards the religious and ethnic communities of their realm, and they embraced diverse approaches to the practicalities of administering a vast empire. Such methods of negotiating government and diversity created a lasting pluralistic legacy.
The present volume, edited by Farhad Daftary and Shainool Jiwa, brings together a series of original contributions from a number of leading authorities in the field. Based on analyses of primary sources, the chapters shed fresh light on the impact of Fatimid rule. The book presents little explored aspects of state-society relations such as the Fatimid model of the vizierate, Sunni legal responses to Fatimid observance, and the role of women in prayer. Highlighting the distinctive nature of the Fatimid empire and its legacy, this book will be of special interest to researchers in mediaeval Islamic history and thought.

1

The Early Ismaili Imamate:
Background to the Establishment
of the Fatimid Caliphate

Farhad Daftary

Various Shiʿi communities of interpretation evolved during the formative period of Islam. They all believed that the Prophet Muḥammad himself had designated his cousin and son-in-law ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, married to his daughter Fāṭima, as his successor. Furthermore, they held that this designation, or naṣṣ, had been instituted under divine command. Originally a minority, a group holding to this view had gradually expanded and so became generally designated as the Shīʿat ʿAlī, the party of ʿAlī, or simply as the Shiʿa. The Shiʿa also came to hold a particular conception of religious authority that set them apart from other Muslims. They held that the message of Islam as revealed by the Prophet Muḥammad contained inner truths that could not be comprehended directly through common reason. Thus, they recognised the need for a religiously authoritative guide, or imam as the Shiʿa have traditionally preferred to designate their spiritual leader. According to the Shiʿa, a person qualified for such an important task of spiritual guidance could belong only to the Prophet’s family, the ahl al-bayt, whose members provided the sole authoritative channel for elucidating and interpreting the teachings of Islam.

By early Umayyad times, the Shiʿa were in disagreement among themselves regarding the precise definition and composition of the ahl al-bayt, causing internal divisions within Shiʿism. Initially, for some 50 years, Shiʿism had represented a unified community with limited membership comprised mainly of Arab Muslims. The Shiʿa had then recognised successively ʿAlī (d. 40/660) and his sons al-Ḥasan (d. 49/669) and al-Ḥusayn (d. 61/680) as their imams. This situation changed with al-Mukhtār’s Shiʿi movement, organised in the name of ʿAlī’s third son Muḥammad b. Ḥanafiyya as the Mahdi, the divinely guided messianic saviour imam and restorer of true Islam and justice in the world. The new eschatological concept of the Mahdi, used later by the Ismailis and other Shiʿi groups, proved particularly appealing to the mawālī, the non-Arab converts to Islam, who under the Umayyads were treated as second-class Muslims. The mawālī were now attracted to Shiʿism and played a key role in transforming it from an Arab party of limited membership and doctrinal basis to a dynamic movement.

Henceforth, different Shiʿi communities came to coexist, each with its own line of imams and elaborating its own ideas. However, the Shiʿism of Umayyad times developed mainly along two branches, the Kaysāniyya and the Imāmiyya, while another Shiʿi movement led to the foundation of the Zaydī branch of Shiʿi Islam. The Kaysāniyya, who followed an active anti-Umayyad policy, were eventually absorbed mainly into the Abbasid movement, and then disappeared after the Abbasid revolution of 132/750.

Meanwhile, the Imāmiyya, the common heritage of the Ismailis and the Ithnāʿasharīs, or Twelvers, had acknowledged a particular line of ʿAlids, descendants of al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, as their imams; and they remained completely removed from any political activity against the establishment. It was in the imamate of al-Ḥusayn’s grandson, Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. ca. 114/732), that the Ḥusaynid ʿAlid line of imams and the Imāmī branch of Shiʿism began to acquire prominence. Imam al-Bāqir, too, refrained from any political activity and concerned himself with the spiritual aspects of his imamate. He is also credited with introducing the important principle of taqiyya, or precautionary dissimulation of one’s true religious identity under adverse circumstances, which was later widely adopted by both the Ismailis and the Twelvers.

It was during the long and eventful imamate of al-Bāqir’s son and successor, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, that the Imāmiyya expanded significantly and became a major religious community with a distinct identity. Imam al-Ṣādiq acquired prominence rather gradually during this turbulent period in early Islam when the Abbasids finally uprooted the Umayyads. He acquired a widespread reputation as a religious scholar. He was a reporter of ḥadīth and was later cited as such even in the chains of authorities accepted by Sunni Muslims. He also taught fiqh, or jurisprudence, and has been credited, after the work of his father, with founding the Imāmī Shiʿi school of religious law, or madhhab, named Jaʿfarī after him. Owing to the intense intellectual activities of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and his circle of eminent scholars, the Imāmī Shiʿis came to possess a distinctive body of rituals as well as theological and legal doctrines. Above all, they now elaborated the basic conception of the doctrine of the imamate (imāma), which was essentially retained by later Ismaili and Twelver Shiʿis.¹ This doctrine enabled al-Ṣādiq to consolidate Shiʿism on a quietist basis.

The doctrine of the imamate was founded on the belief in the permanent need of mankind for a divinely guided, sinless and infallible (maʿṣūm) imam who, after the Prophet Muḥammad, would act as the authoritative teacher and guide of men in all their spiritual affairs. Although the imam, who could practise taqiyya when necessary, would be entitled to temporal leadership as much as to religious authority, his mandate did not depend on his actual rule. The doctrine further taught that the Prophet himself had designated ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib as his legatee (waṣī) and successor, by an explicit designation (naṣṣ) under divine command and that most of the Prophet’s Companions had ignored this designation. After ʿAlī, the imamate would be transmitted from father to son by the designation of the naṣṣ, among the descendants of ʿAlī and Fāṭima; and, after al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, it would continue in the Ḥusyanid ʿAlid line until the end of time. This ʿAlid imam, the sole legitimate imam at any time, is deemed to be in possession of special knowledge or ʿilm, and to have perfect understanding of the outward, or exoteric (ẓāhir), and the inward, or esoteric (bāṭin), aspects and meanings of the Qurʾan and the message of Islam. Indeed, the world could not exist for a moment without such an imam who would be the proof of God (ḥujjat Allāh) on earth.

Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, the last imam recognised by both the Ismailis and the Twelvers, died in 148/765. The dispute over his succession caused historic divisions in Imāmī Shiʿism, leading to the eventual formation of independent Twelver and Ismaili communities. According to most of the available sources, Imam al-Ṣādiq had originally designated his second son, Ismāʿīl, the eponym of the Ismāʿīliyya, as his successor to the imamate by the rule of the naṣṣ. There cannot be any doubt regarding the historicity of this designation, which provides the basis of the Ismaili claims. However, matters are rather confused, as most of the sources report that Ismāʿīl predeceased his father and that three of al-Ṣādiq’s other sons simultaneously claimed his heritage. According to the Ismaili religious tradition, Ismāʿīl succeeded his father in due course. However, most non-Ismaili sources relate that he died before his father, though some of these sources also state that Ismāʿīl was later seen in Baṣra. At any rate, Ismāʿīl was not present in Medina or Kūfa at the time of Imam al-Ṣādiq’s death, when three other sons claimed his succession. As a result, the Imāmī Shiʿis now split into several groups, two of which may be identified with the earliest Ismailis, while another group eventually evolved into Twelver Shiʿism.

One of the two earliest Ismaili groups denied the death of Ismāʿīl during his father’s lifetime and awaited his return as the Mahdi. The early Imāmī heresiographers al-Nawbakhtī and al-Qummī, who provide our main primary sources on the opening phase of Ismailism, designate this group as al-Ismāʿīliyya al-khāliṣa, or the ‘pure Ismailis’.² The second splinter group of proto-Ismailis affirmed that Ismāʿīl predeceased his father and now they acknowledged his eldest son, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, as their imam. They further held that Imam al-Ṣādiq had personally designated his grandson as the rightful successor to Ismāʿīl after the latter’s death. The Imāmī heresiographers call this group the Mubārakiyya, named after Ismāʿīl’s epithet al-Mubārak (‘the blessed one’).³ The Mubārakiyya held that the imamate could not be transferred from brother to brother after the case of Imams al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn; and this is why they could not accept the claims of any of Ismāʿīl’s brothers.

Little is known about the life and career of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, the seventh imam of the Ismailis. The relevant biographical information in the Ismaili sources was collected later by Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn (d. 872/1468), the nineteenth Ṭayyibī Ismaili dāʿī.⁴ Muḥammad was the eldest son of Ismāʿīl, and also the eldest grandson of Imam al-Ṣādiq. Born around 120/738, he was 26 at the time of al-Ṣādiq’s death. Thus he was about eight years older than his uncle Mūsā al-Kāẓim, who was born in 128/745–746. Soon after the recognition of Mūsā al-Kāẓim’s imamate by the majority of al-Ṣādiq’s followers, Muḥammad’s position became untenable in his native Ḥijāz, where Mūsā also lived. Due to his activist policies, Muḥammad also needed to avoid Abbasid persecution. Not long after 148/765 Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl left Medina and went into hiding, initiating the dawr al-satr, or ‘period of concealment’, in early Ismaili history which lasted until the foundation of the Fatimid caliphate. Henceforth, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl acquired the epithet of al-Maktūm, ‘the hidden one’, in addition to al-Maymūn, ‘the fortunate one’. However, he maintained contact with his Mubārakiyya followers who, like most other Shiʿi groups of the time, were based in Kūfa. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl seems to have spent the latter part of his life in Khūzistān, in south-western Persia, where he had some supporters. He died not long after 179/795, during the caliphate of Hārūn al-Rashīd, the year in which the Abbasid caliph arrested Mūsā al-Kāẓim and banished him from the Ḥijāz to Iraq. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl had several sons, including ʿAbd Allāh who, according to later Ismailis, was his rightful successor to the imamate.

On the death of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, the Mubārakiyya themselves split into two groups. One small and obscure group apparently traced the imamate in the progeny of their deceased imam. However, most of the Mubārakiyya refused to accept Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl’s death. For these earliest Ismailis, identified by the Imāmī heresiographers as the immediate predecessors of the Qarmaṭīs, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl was regarded as their seventh and last imam.⁵ He was expected to reappear imminently as the Mahdi or qāʾim (riser) – terms which were essentially synonymous in their early usage by the Ismailis and other Shiʿis. Almost nothing is known with certainty regarding the subsequent history of these earliest Ismaili groups until shortly after the middle of the 3rd/9th century, when a unified Ismaili movement emerged on the historical stage.

A variety of sources contain evidence that supports the idea that for almost a century after Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, one group of leaders which was well placed within the earliest Ismailis, worked secretly for the creation of a unified revolutionary movement against the Abbasids. Initially attached to one of the earliest Ismaili groups, and in all probability the imams of that obscure group that issued from the Mubārakiyya, who maintained the continuity of the imamate in the progeny of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, these leaders did not openly claim the imamate for three generations. They had, in fact, hidden their true identity in order to escape Abbasid persecution. ʿAbd Allāh, the first of these hidden leaders, organised his campaign around the central doctrine of the majority of the earliest Ismailis, namely, the Mahdiship of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl. Be that as it may, the leaders in question were members of the same family who succeeded one another on a hereditary basis.

Ismaili tradition recognises three generations of leaders between Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl and ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdī, founder of the Fatimid caliphate and the last of the hidden leaders during the dawr al-satr of early Ismaili history.⁶ The first of these leaders, ʿAbd Allāh, designated in later Ismaili sources as al-Akbar (the Elder), settled in ʿAskar Mukram in Khūzistān, where his father Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl had spent his final years. He disguised himself as a merchant. It was from that locality that ʿAbd Allāh, who later received the epithet of al-Raḍī, began to organise a reinvigorated Ismaili daʿwa, sending dāʿīs to surrounding districts. Subsequently, at an unknown date in the first half of the 3rd/9th century, ʿAbd Allāh settled in Salamiyya, in central Syria, continuing to pose as a Hāshimid merchant. Henceforth, Salamiyya served as the secret headquarters of the early Ismaili daʿwa. The Ismailis now referred to their movement simply as al-daʿwa, the mission, or al-daʿwa al-hādiya, the rightly guiding mission.

The sustained efforts of ʿAbd Allāh and his successors began to bear fruit by the early 260s/870s, when numerous dāʿīs appeared in southern Iraq and other regions.⁷ In 261/874, Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ was converted to Ismailism in the Sawād of Kūfa. Ḥamdān and his chief assistant ʿAbdān, a learned theologian, organised the daʿwa in southern Iraq. ʿAbdān trained numerous dāʿīs, including the Persian Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan b. Bahrām al-Jannābī, the future founder of the Qarmaṭī state of Baḥrayn. The Ismailis of southern Iraq became generally known as the Qarāmiṭa, after their first local leader. Later, this term was applied to other Ismaili communities not organised by Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ. At the time, there was a single Ismaili movement centrally directed from Salamiyya in the name of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl as the awaited Mahdi.

Meanwhile, the Ismaili daʿwa had appeared in many other regions. In southern Persia, the daʿwa was under the supervision of the dāʿīs in Iraq. Abū Saʿīd al-Jannābī (d. 301/913) was initially active there, before he was dispatched to eastern Arabia, then known as Baḥrayn, where he preached successfully among the Bedouin tribesmen and the local Persian community. The daʿwa in Yemen was initiated by Ibn Ḥawshab (d. 302/914), later known as Manṣūr al-Yaman (the Conqueror of Yemen), where he arrived in 268/881 accompanied by his chief collaborator, ʿAlī b. al-Faḍl (d. 303/915).⁸ Both of these dāʿīs, like many other early dāʿīs, had been converted from Imāmī (Twelver) Shiʿism. By 293/905, almost all of Yemen had been brought under the control of the Ismaili dāʿīs. However, the Ismailis were later obliged to abandon the greater part of their conquests under pressure from the local Zaydī imams, who had established a state of their own in 284/897 in northern Yemen. Southern Arabia also served as an important base for the extension of the daʿwa to remote lands, including North Africa and Sind. Indeed, by 280/893, on Ibn Ḥawshab’s instructions, the dāʿī Abū ʿAbd Allāh...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on the Contributors
• Note on Transliteration and Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. The Early Ismaili Imamate: Background to the Establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate
• 2. The Baghdad Manifesto (402/1011): A Re-Examination of Fatimid-Abbasid Rivalry
• 3. Was the Fatimid Amir al-Juyush in fact a Wazir?
• 4. ‘Leading from the Middle’: Qa?i al-Nu?man on Female Prayer Leadership
• 5. Al-?ur?ushi and the Fatimids
• 6. Transmitting Sunni Learning in Fatimid Egypt: The Female Voices
• 7. The Fatimid Legacy and the Foundation of the Modern Nizari Ismaili Imamate
• Bibliography