Comparing the Crisis of 806/1403–1404 and the Fatimid Fitna (450–466/1058–1073): Al‑Maqrīzī as a Historian of the Fatimids

Abstract

Modern scholars often treat al‑Maqrīzī as an important, if not the most important, historian of the Fatimids, especially given the poor survival of sources from the Fatimid period, particularly for the Egyptian period of their rule. However, historians have emphasised how al‑Maqrīzī was heavily influenced by crises that occurred in his own present. Al‑Maqrīzī’s Ḫiṭaṭ, Sulūk and Iġāṯa all contain criticisms of Mamluk Sultans contemporary to al‑Maqrīzī and a general pessimism about the state of Egypt in his own day. This article argues that this critique and pessimism shapes how al‑Maqrīzī documented Fatimid history in ways that can profoundly influence how we understand the Fatimid past. It takes the Fatimid fitna of 450–466/1058–1073 as a case study and underlines how one must compare across al‑Maqrīzī’s works to understand how his present has influenced how he shapes the past. The chapter is broken into four parts. Part 1 examines the text shared between al‑Maqrīzī’s works (which can be analysed digitally), underlining that al‑Maqrīzī’s more polemical views in the Iġāṯa could be copied into his other works. Part 2 discusses how al‑Maqrīzī’s Ḫiṭaṭ can be understood as a work of remembrance in the face of crisis, a schema in which the Fatimids feature prominently. Part 3 digitally analyses the mention of dates to show how the crisis of 806/1403–1404 is a major theme in the Ḫiṭaṭ, and that this text was likely conceived around the same time as the Iġāṯa was written. Part 4 then utilises close reading to show how the Iġāṯa frames that account of the Fatimid fitna in a way that mirrors the crisis of 806—as al‑Maqrīzī saw it. This framing of the fitna is found in parts of the Ḫiṭaṭ. However, as the article concludes, there are multiple framings of the fitna in the Ḫiṭaṭ that reflect how al‑Maqrīzī’s views had evolved over time. Al‑Maqrīzī’s accounts of Fatimid history should, therefore, be treated and studied carefully in the light of his more critical views.