Fatimid Research Articles

Re-Envisioning Persecution: Imagining a Converted World

This essay seeks to make a contribution to the study of persecution (which has often been dominated by the European experience) by examining the case of Coptic Christians in Fatimid Egypt: How did they perceive and imagine persecution? This case is of special interest because of the vaunted “tolerance” of the Fatimids towards non-Muslims (with the exception of the caliph al-Ḥākim). The Copts’ sense of persecution throughout this period, and their resistance to Islamization, are perceived through an examination of two texts that each represent the topos of the prominent Muslim who converts to Coptic Christianity: first, the Faṣl min Maqāla Masīḥiyya preserved in Paris bnf Ms Arabe 131, where it is understood to be the caliph al-Muʿizz’s confession of Christian faith; and next, a recension of the well-known Muqaṭṭam miracle-account that places it during the reign of the caliph al-Ḥākim, as preserved in Monastery of St. Anthony, Ms Hist. 86.

Dhimmīs in Fatimid Egypt: A View from the Islamic West

This paper is intended as an epilogue and concludes the papers of this collection by analyzing their content from the specific vantage point of a comparison with parallel developments and phenomena in the Maghrib and particularly in Islamic Spain (al-Andalus). The issues studied in the collection are thus reviewed in a wider geographical and chronological context.

Non-Muslim Communities in Fatimid Egypt (10th–12th Centuries ce)

Non-Muslim Communities in Fatimid Egypt (10th–12th Centuries ce)

The Fatimid Empire and its Population

The Fatimid Empire and its Population

The Martyrdom of Jirjis (Muzāḥim): Hagiography and Coptic Orthodox Imagination in Early Fatimid Egypt

The tenth-century neomartyr Jirjis (called Muzāḥim before his conversion to Christianity and baptism) is well known from the précis of his Martyrdom preserved in the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion (entry for 19 Baʾūna). The full text of the Martyrdom (as preserved in the fourteenth-century manuscript Cairo, Coptic Museum, History 469) allows us to date Muzāḥim’s imprisonments and execution to the year 978. If, as is probable, the Martyrdom was composed soon afterwards, it is a valuable witness to intercommunal relations and to processes of Coptic identity-definition in the early Fatimid period in Egypt. It draws the Christian-Muslim (and even Coptic-Melkite) boundaries as clearly as possible, offering a no-nuance evaluative stance that is in startling contrast with the more ecumenical approach of the sources preserved in The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria.

The Martyrdom of Bifām Ibn Baqūra al-Ṣawwāf by Mawhūb ibn Manṣūr ibn Mufarrij and Its Fatimid Background

This paper discusses the primary Copto-Arabic literary source for the history of Fatimid Egypt, and indeed, for much of the history of Egypt in general: known as the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, it was compiled in Arabic in the late eleventh century ce on the basis of earlier, mostly Coptic sources, by the Alexandrian notable Mawhūb ibn Manṣūr ibn Mufarrij, who added original Arabic materials of his own. Later continuations were added by others, from late Fatimid times up to the twentieth century. The first part of the paper is an outline of the textual history of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, its existing editions and their shortcomings, and the new critical edition that is now being prepared. This part also discusses the fundamentals of a meticulous method of textual criticism, close reading, and contextualization which should help to elucidate numerous problems of historic interpretation. In the subsequent sections of the paper, this same method is applied to a short text sample with an aim of, wherever possible, reconstructing Mawhūb’s original Arabic text, but also with the objective of illustrating how this late eleventh-century text may have been read by later generations. Finally, the freshly coined concept of “internal intertextuality” is employed to point to parallels with episodes that occur in the earlier parts of the Arabic History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, based on older Coptic sources. At the level of content, several new historical interpretations and corrections to older interpretations are offered. The text sample in question concerns the martyrdom of a young Copt, Bifām ibn Baqūra al-Ṣawwāf, during the imamate-caliphate of al-Mustanṣir Billāh (427/1036–487/1094). Throughout the paper, it is argued that narratives such as this, together with accounts of events belonging to the early Islamic period or even to pre-Islamic (Roman, Byzantine) history, are to be seen as emanating from the specific socio-cultural environment of the Coptic urban elite of the mid-Fatimid period.

The Nile: Its Role in the Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Fatimid Dynasty During its Rule of Egypt (969–1171)

AbstractThe Fatimids have been consistently studied as powerful contenders in the commercial and political control of the Mediterranean Sea. It is therefore surprising to find that only passing attention has been paid so far to the use of the Nile the Fatimids made as the ‘avenue’ through which goods from Africa and the Indian Ocean could be transported from Upper Egypt, to Cairo, then Alexandria and from there distributed to other Mediterranean ports. My argument in this paper is that the imperial aspirations of the Fatimids in Cairo and beyond were in many ways dependant on the unpredictability of the natural cycles that are characteristic of the river to this day but also on the Fatimids' success or failure in politically and economically managing the varied social, political and trading activities that took place along the Egyptian section of the Nile valley. Beside commercial navigation, throughout the history of Egypt during the Fatimid period, the river was used for transport of people, water supply, the staging of state rituals and parades, as holiday destination for the imam‐caliphs and their courts but also as a vehicle through which pilgrims form various regions of the Islamic world continued to penetrate Egypt whilst back and forth on their way to Mecca.

Chemical and physical characterization of the stucco mihrab of the mausoleum of Muhammad Al-Hasawati, Fatimid period, Cairo, Egypt

Stucco mihrabs in Islamic buildings in Egypt are suffering from many causes of deterioration, mainly groundwater and salt weathering, which have caused the complete loss of the decorations of some of these mihrabs. Some other mihrabs need restoration and conservation, so a solution for this problem has become urgent. A physiochemical study using analytical techniques such as X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, Fourier transform infrared and scanning electron microscopy was done. This characterization study, on one hand made reproduction of the original material possible; on the other hand, the deterioration factors of the stucco were determined. All analytical methods indicated that the Al-Hasawaty stucco mihrab contains lime, gypsum, dolomite, quartz, anhydrite and bassanite; they also proved that sodium chloride (halite) is the principal salt causing deterioration.

Accursed, Superior Men: Ethno-Religious Minorities and Politics in the Medieval Mediterranean

AbstractOne of the most salient features of the medieval Mediterranean is that it was a zone of intense interaction and long-term cohabitation of members of various ethno-religious communities whose relations are usually conceived of as fundamentally adversarial. Yet Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived amongst each other in both the Christian- and Muslim-ruled Mediterranean, even during the era of the crusades. Typically, such relationships have been presented as either fundamentally hostile, or cordial, and as related to the “tolerance” that host cultures were inclined to demonstrate as a consequence of their own religious orientation. This paper takes a different, phenomenological approach by focusing on a specific manifestation of this interaction: the emergence of out-group political elites in confessionally defined societies. Through the medium of three case studies—a powerful Jew in Islamic Spain, a powerful Muslim in Norman Sicily and a powerful Coptic Christian in Fatimid Egypt—I demonstrate that the status of minority elites was related to concrete political circumstances grounded in the particular environment of the region, and that, despite cultural differences that might have distinguished them, these societies developed near-identical strategies for engaging with minority elites. The language of religious polemic, exclusion, and marginalization was present, but it tended to serve as apost factumrationalization for repression rather than its cause, and tended to be deployed decisively only in certain circumstances. This provides new insights not only into Muslim-Christian-Jewish relations, but the fundamental nature of Mediterranean history and society.

Kitab al-alim wa-al-ghulam Dżafara Ibn Mansura al-Jamana jako przykład wczesnej literatury isma’ilickiej

The Isma’ili branch of Islam has had a long and complex history and a rich literature. It fourished under the Fatimid dynasty after 909. The character of the Isma’ili literature was closely connected to the Isma’ili dawa (mission) and its religious principles. For this reason both the religious and philosophical texts, in which the Isma’ili doctrine has been explained, and the juridical texts played the pivotal role in the Isma’ili literature. The distinction between the esoteric ( batin ) and exoteric ( zahir ) was central to the early Isma’ili system. The Isma’ilis also emphasized the role of the imam as the friends of God ( awliya Allah ). Their writings were purposely mysterious and ambiguous (available only for the initiated members of the community). In later Fatimid texts the influence of Neoplatonism is quite visible. Kitab al-alim wa-al-ghulam ( Book of the Master and the Disciple) of Ja’far b. Mansur al-Yaman or/and his father, Mansur al-Yaman, was written in Yemen at the beginning of the 10th century. Its plot is a dramatic dialogue with the narrator. In Kitab al-alim all the issues important in the early Isma’ili period had been raised: the propagation of the mission, the esotericism of the doctrine, the gradual hierarchy of the initiated and the exclusiveness of the initiation. The universality of the Isma’ili revelation and the principles of the Isma’ili cosmology and cosmogony have been explained as well.

Doctrinal Impact on the Function of Funerary Architecture in Fatimid Egypt

The arrival of the Fatimid conquerors to Egypt was a turning point which brought forth a radical impact on both political and religious sides of life. Coming from quite a different doctrinal background, the Fatimids had a predominating aim to spread their beliefs between the Egyptian populace. Perhaps one of their workable tactics to diffuse the shīʿī doctrine was the introduction of mausoleums (mashads), devoted to the burial of their Fatimid imāms- who claimed the ultimate descent from “al- Ḥusayn Ibn ʿAlī Ibn Abī ālib”. Although Islam has strict traditions against funerary architecture, the Fatimid mashads did the trick; they were, and still are, highly venerated by the Sunnī populace of Egypt. This research is an attempt to reach a better understanding of the influence of the Shiite doctrine on the function of funerary architecture in Fatimid Egypt, while shedding light on women’s vital role in achieving this objective.

The Early History of Ismaili Jurisprudence: Law under the Fatimids edited and translated by Agostino Cilardo (review)

Reviewed by: The Early History of Ismaili Jurisprudence: Law under the Fatimids edited and translated by Agostino Cilardo Majid Daneshgar The Early History of Ismaili Jurisprudence: Law under the Fatimids, ed. & trans. Agostino Cilardo, 2012. (Islamic Texts and Translations Series, 18) London & New York: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, xi + 142 + 47 pp., £29.50. isbn: 978-1780-76129-9 (hbk). The Early History of Ismaili Jurisprudence is a critical edition and English translation by Agostino Cilardo of an Isma‘ili manuscript entitled Minhaj al-Fara’id. Minhaj al-Fara’id is by Abu Hanifah Muhammad al-Nu‘man (d. 363/974), known as al-Qadi al-Nu‘man. Apart from his momentous social, political, and cultural role in the Fatimid dynasty (297-567/909-1171), al-Qadi al-Nu‘man produced a number of informative works in different areas of Islamic studies, particularly jurisprudence. Al-Nu‘man cooperated with several Fatimid Imam-Caliphs; and his collaboration with the fourth Imam-Caliph, al-Mu‘izz (r. 341-365/953-975) led to one of his most notable works, Da‘a’im al-Islam. Al-Nu‘man is often seen as the founder of Isma‘ili juirpsrudence, and Ciliardo observes that ‘it is to be underlined that al-Nu‘man’s major merit was the construction of a juridical and legal system not just for Isma‘ili adherents but for the use of the Fatimid state’ (7) as well. Agostino Cilardo’s treatment of the work reflects his awareness of and familiarity with the history of Islamic jurisprudence, particularly inheritance law, which he has published several studies on, such as Diritto ereditario islamico delle scuole giuridiche ismailita e imamita (about Isma‘ili and Twelver laws of inheritance, 1993), Diritto ereditario islamico delle scuole giuridiche sunnite (hanafita, malikita, shafi‘ita e hanbalita) e delle scuole giuridiche zaydita, zahirita e ibadita (about Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, Hanbali, Zaydi, Zahiri, and Ibadi laws of inheritance, 1994), and The Qur’anic Term Kalala (2005). Thus, it should come as no surprise that he gives extra attention here to al-Nu‘man’s approach towards the laws of inheritance and uses this issue as a significant part of his analytical framework. Additionally, Cilardo draws the readers’ attention to the originality of Isma‘ili jurisprudence and how it relates to other schools of law. [End Page 110] Additionally, he explores the question of al-Nu‘man’s religious-doctrinal orientation, questioning whether he was originally a Maliki, a Hanafi, or a Twelver scholar. Cilardo highlights the significance such an investigation, saying: Discovering al-Nu‘man’s doctrinal orientation is important for understanding the theological underpinning that informed his work and his judgments and, far more importantly, the relationship between Sunnis and Shi‘is, and between Imamis and Isma‘ilis. (19) To that end, he explores a range of views about which school of thought (madhhab) that al-Nu‘man initially followed. For instance, he mentions that Poonawala (1974) agrees with Ibn Khallikan’s view that al-Qadi al-Nu‘man was initially a Maliki, and then became a Twelver; this is in line with Fyzee’s view that al-Nu‘man converted to Isma‘ili faith after embracing Twelver Shi‘ism. He also says that Lokhandwalla asserts that al-Nu‘man became familiar with Isma‘ilism at an early age, However, he cites Ibn Taghribirdi’s view that al-Nu‘man converted from Hanafism to Isma‘ilism. Proceeding from the premise that Minhaj al-Fara’id is an Isma‘ili work written by al-Nu‘man, Cilardo discusses some questions partly already raised by previous scholars, such as whether the Minhaj’s contents are related to Sunnism or Shi‘ism (either Imami or Isma‘ili), who its real author is, and whether the contents of this text are in agreement with al-Nu‘man’s other works. Therefore, in Chapter 1, Cilardo addresses the relationship, differences and commonalities between the Minhaj and al-Nu‘man’s other works, such as the structure and contents of the chapter on inheritance in the Minhaj, Iqtisar, Yanbu‘, Athar, and Da‘a’im. In Chapter 2, Cilardo engages in a deep and precise comparative study...

Ḥadīth in the Christian Arabic Kalām of Būluṣ Ibn Rajāʾ (c. 1000)

‭The Coptic saint and theologian Būluṣ b. Rajāʾ (b. c. 955; d. c. 1010) wrote a work entitled Kitāb al-Wāḍiḥ in which he employed kalām-style interrogation to defend Christianity and critique Islamic truth claims. As a Muslim convert to the Coptic Church in Fatimid Egypt, Ibn Rajāʾ was familiar with the Islamic ḥadīth tradition and made use of them in his religious arguments. This article examines the biography of Ibn Rajāʾ, the contents of Kitāb al-Wāḍiḥ in Ms. Paris BNF Syriac 203, and its audience. The article investigates how Ibn Rajāʾ employed oral traditions in his work, concluding that he was attracted to ḥadīths as supporting evidence for his polemics while he was also disenchanted with their lack of reliability in his apologetics.‬

Reconstructing the Social History of Rabbinic Ideas

Reconstructing the Social History of Rabbinic Ideas David M. Freidenreich Marina Rustow. Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate. Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008. Pp. xxxv + 435. Uriel I. Simonsohn. A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam. Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Pp. viii + 306. How should Historians study the social context and the social impact of rabbinic ideas? This question poses a serious challenge precisely because rabbinic literature itself is so often aspirational rather than descriptive. The challenge is especially acute for those who seek not merely to trace the social history of rabbinic Jews but more specifically the social history of rabbinic ideas. Many scholars, including the present writer, seek to avoid this dilemma entirely by studying rabbinic literature with an eye toward intellectual history, tracing the evolution of rabbinic thought without making any claims about the relationship between elite exhortations and the Jewish masses. This simple solution, however, comes at the price of dismissing important aspects of Jewish history as unknowable. Marina Rustow and Uriel I. Simonsohn, in contrast, confront head on the complex challenges of writing social history about two fundamental rabbinic ideas, namely the notion that Qaraites 1are heretics and the principle that Jews should not take recourse to gentile courts. Their recent books make significant contributions to our understanding of relations [End Page 581]between Rabbanites and non-Rabbanites in the medieval Islamic world. This essay focuses particular attention on their equally valuable contributions to the field of rabbinic historiography, namely, their distinct yet complementary approaches to contextualizing rabbinic thought. Heresy and the Politics of Communitythoroughly disproves the once-prevalent presumption among historians of Rabbanite Judaism that the anti-Qaraite polemics of Sa‘adya Gaon effectively severed ties between Rabbanites and Qaraites, rendering the latter a marginalized, heretical sect. Rustow accomplishes this task by marginalizing the polemical literature of the Rabbanites, once central to historiography of Rabbanite-Qaraite relations, in favor of documentation from the Cairo Geniza. The questions Rustow poses to these documents are no less influential in shaping her revisionist history: they orient her work toward social dynamics instead of the issues of orthodoxy and orthopraxy that animate polemical literature. “Rather than asking only what those accused of heresy believed that made them vulnerable to the charge, I have asked here about the causes and consequences of the accusations—if there were any consequences at all” (p. xviii). Many of Rustow’s questions are profoundly political: who stood to gain from accusations of heresy, what power did Rabbanites have to make those accusations stick, and what power did Qaraites have to thwart such efforts? Rustow finds evidence in the Geniza for only four instances in which Rabbanites in the Fatimid empire purportedly accused Qaraites of heresy during the eleventh century. In each case, the accusers sought political objectives unrelated to Qaraite doctrines. The failure of these accusations to affect Rabbanite-Qaraite relations, Rustow demonstrates, reflects the degree to which Qaraites played key roles in Jewish communal politics, including those of Rabbanite institutions. “The history of heresy,” Rustow concludes, “encompasses not merely the ideas or practices ascribed to heretics, but the set of human circumstances that cause the label to be attached to them” (p. 348). Rustow’s rich depictions of Rabbanite-Qaraite relations, woven from various genres of textual evidence and enlivened with especially effective case studies, demonstrate that even Rabbanite officials did not act on the anti-Qaraite polemic of such figures as Sa‘adya. Rustow documents the heavy reliance of geonim and other officials of the Rabbanite yeshivahs on Qaraite merchants and courtiers in their efforts to obtain, preserve, and extend their authority. She highlights wedding contracts drawn up in Rabbanite courts that preserve the rights of Qaraite spouses to follow their own ancestral customs, and she draws particular attention to Rabbanite use of Qaraite ketubba formularies as exemplary of Rabbanite [End Page 582]respect for Qaraite norms. In one of her many case studies, Rustow shows how a Rabbanite from Toledo sought to help landsmen who had converted to...

Head of the Jews in Spain in Comparison to Head of the Jews in Egypt

Two big Jewish settlements were sitting on the shores of the Mediterranean in the 11^th century: one in Fatimid Egypt, mainly in the city of Fustat, close to Cairo, the second in Muslim-Suni Spain, mainly in the cities of Cordova – the capital of the Umyyads caliphs, and Granada – the capital of the Granada Emirate. How related were those two settlements to each other by means of communication, mutual influences, similar behavior and the main aspect: relying on a Muslim rule which might be similar in its basis but completely different in its outlook. This article aims to look at a certain institution of Jewish leadership in those two settlements, an institution that relies on a Muslim rule while supported by the Jewish community. It aims to inspect the validity of this institution's existence and the sources of its power and authority, and to view the system of connections and mutual influences between the two settlements, in spite of the different conditions within which they operated. The institution referred to is the <em>nagid</em> or "Head of Jews" - <em>ra'is al-yahud</em>, and methodological questions related to the research.

Holy land, lost lands, &lt;i&gt;Realpolitik&lt;/i&gt;. Imperial Byzantine thinking about Syria and Palestine in the later 10&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; and 11&lt;sup&gt;th&lt;/sup&gt; centuries

This study reviews Byzantine attitudes and state policy towards the region between Antioch and Mount Sinai, stressing the general cautiousness of imperial strategy and, from the late tenth century onwards, the government’s preference for peaceful coexistence and commerce with the Fatimid caliphate. Caliph al-Ḥākim’s destruction of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009 did not overturn this state of affairs, and the main bone of contention between Cairo and Constantinople was the city of Aleppo, not Jerusalem. Even here, the two powers were inclined to leave the initiative to local parties, rather than insisting on direct rule, and communications between Muslim and Byzantine-ruled territories were mostly fairly straightforward. During the relative detente of the first half of the eleventh century, pilgrimages to the Holy Land increased, and it may well have been primarily in order to impress pilgrims – those travelling from Byzantium itself, but especially those from the Christian west – that emperors lavished resources on reconstructing the church of the Holy Sepulchre in the 1030s and 1040s. Militant intervention on behalf of the Christian populations of south ern Syria and Palestine was not on their agenda. These conclusions rest on the collation of miscellaneous evidence, whose components are mostly well-known but have seldom received consideration side by side. The study highlights the value of trade to Fatimids and Byzantines alike, the esteem for ‘the holy places’ among Byzantines besides westerners, and the emperors’ desire to demonstrate concern for the Holy Sepulchre without jeopardising relations with the Fatimids

Carving techniques of Fatimid rock crystal ewers (10–12th cent. A.D.)

Fatimid art is known for the production of luxury artifacts, particularly rock crystal vessels. The appearance in 2008 of the Francis Mills Ewer, which seemed to belong to a famous group of 6–8 rock crystal ewers attributed to Fatimid Egypt, prompted an investigation of the techniques used to carve them. A comparison of the carving technique of the Francis Mills Ewer with that of the other members of the group offers the best criterion for determining whether the new ewer belongs to this group. To this end, the traces of manufacture (mainly polishing and carving) were analysed on a group of fourteen artifacts. The topography of the surfaces has been measured with a confocal rugosimeter using silicon replicas. To identify and characterise the multi-scale wear signature and the traces left by the tools, a Fourier isotropic filtering technique was applied. Using these complementary methods, we were able to confirm that the Francis Mills Ewer belongs to the Fatimid group.

David Ayalon (1914–1998) and the History of Black Military Slavery in Medieval Islam

: This paper deals with three inter-related topics: the origins of Black military slavery, the legacy of David Ayalon and Islamic military slavery in the broader context of world history. The first Black military system emerged in ninth-century Aghlabid Ifrīqiya, but its heyday and demise took place in eleventh- through twelfth-century Fatimid Egypt. Black military slavery was mostly outside the mainstream of David Ayalon’s work on Islamic military slavery, but it should be integrated into the study of both medieval Islamic military history and slavery. When viewed from the perspective of world history, Islamic military slavery and its Black component are part of a global experience of arming slaves and the transformation of slaves to soldiers.

Historicizing Islam: Rethinking Tolerance

In spite of all efforts to paint a black portrait of Islam and to introduce it as a hostile and intolerant creed, Islamic civilization played a major role in shaping global civilization. Prominent Muslim scholars and intellectuals established the basis of art, philosophy, science and technology which directly and indirectly influenced societies around the world.1 Among all these bright and positive aspects of Islamic civilization, this paper will focus on the Islamic view of other religions and the status of nonMuslims in Islamic regions through the ages. In-depth study of the Quran and understanding the soul of its message, alongside Prophet Muhammad‘s (SAW) word and his behavior with non-Muslims, and tracing this subject in history, will show both theoretically and practically the high potentiality of Islam for peace and harmony. By this view, Jews in the Fatimid Caliphate and Christian Bakhtishu‘s clan were respected in Abbasid Caliphate, and even held government posts. Tolerance and engaging in dialogue with other religions-notwithstanding dogma, brought Muslims progress in all areas and even led some scholars to regard tolerance and altruism as ―the mother‖ of Islamic civilization.

Material Worlds: The Shared Cultures of Southern Italy and its Mediterranean Neighbours in the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries

As scholars of people's physical environments, we tend to view the past according to our own forms of categorisation rather than those of contemporaries. From a medieval Mediterranean perspective, the fragmentation of scholarship caused by modern disciplinary constraints—Islamic, Byzantine, Western—has artificially set apart cultures which had more in common than has hitherto been acknowledged. This is a comparative study of the dress and textile cultures of southern Italy, particularly Apulia, Egypt and the Fatimid Caliphate and regions in the Byzantine Empire, as recorded in dowries, wills and other documents. This article also demonstrates how using the Mediterranean as a framework for comparison allows us to identify new areas where cultural differences really lay.