Home Region:  Northeast Africa (Africa)

Fatimid Caliphate

909 CE 1171 CE
EQ 2020  tn_fatimid_cal / TnFatim
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750 CE 946 CE Abbasid Caliphate I (iq_abbasid_cal_1)    [elite replacement]

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  General Description  
The Fatimid Caliphate lasted from 909 to 1171 CE. After a failed uprising against the Sunni Abbasids in Syria, the head of the Ismaili Shi’a religious movement - who claimed descent from Muhammad’s daughter Fatimah by way of her descendent Ismail - fled to Tunisia. There, with the help of local Berber warriors, he ’seized Ifriqiya - modern Tunisia and Eastern Algeria - took over the trans-Saharan gold-and-slave trade, built two great capitals - first Kairouan, then nearby Mahdiyya - and set up an autonomous state far from the reach of Baghdad’. [1] From there, the Fatimids conquered much of North Africa, extending their rule into Egypt. The effective end of the Fatimid Caliphate occurred at the end of the 11th century (though the Caliphate remained nominally intact for nearly another century). At this time, a series of Fatimid viziers increased their control of the military and, ruling from their own palaces, turned the imam-caliph into a nominal figurehead. [2] Over many years in the final century, the Fatimid state experienced a long decline marked by incompetent viziers. [3]
Population and political organization
Although relatively little is known about the Fatimid bureaucracy during the early period (909-969 CE), we can say that it did not have a vizier. [4] In Tunisia, the Fatimids used slave eunuchs to command army and naval forces, and, following the precedent of previous Islamic governments, founded cities as administrative and military centres and seats for their courts. [5] Suggesting the presence of a highly capable full-time bureaucracy, one of their purpose-built cities, the second capital Mansuriyya (948-975 CE), was supplied with fresh water from a distant spring via an aqueduct ’modelled on the Roman system at Carthage’. [6]
In 969 CE, the Fatimids conquered Egypt under a military general called Jawhar. This brought the total land area under Fatimid control to 2.4 million square kilometres, [7] and the new capital city, al-Qahira (Cairo), was founded in 975 and remained the capital under the fall of the dynasty in 1171. [8] In Egypt the vizier, a staple of Islamic Egyptian government, was introduced to Fatimid professional administration, which may suggest that the Fatimids retained much of the lower administration present during the Ikshidid Period as well. Heads of administration are known for the military, treasury, religion, missionary activities, and the judiciary. [9] Before 1073 CE, the vizier was a slave who did not have military powers. Between 1073 and 1121, he became the military chief and effectively replaced the iman-caliph as head of government. [10] The imam-caliph retreated into a palace that contained a harem run by a ’hierarchical corps of eunuchs’. [9]
Provinces were ruled through vassals. After the foundation of Cairo, North Africa was ’abandoned’ to the Zirid (972-1148 CE) and Hammadid (1015-1152 CE) Dynasties. [11] Within Egypt, two cities enjoyed a measure of self-rule: Fustat was governed by a wali (governor) [12] and Alexandria also had its own budget and chief judge. [13] The rest of Egypt was divided into seven districts, [14] which may have been commanded by amirs (military governors). Towns with markets would have a muhtasib, who oversaw shopkeepers’ and artisans’ activities and ensured that religious law was correctly observed. [12]
The Fatimids repaired and improved dams and canals [15] and Egypt grew exceptionally prosperous under their rule, especially before the mid-10th century. Al-Qahira had eight public baths, [16] a caravanserai (funduq) for foreign merchants, [17] and possibly the most famous market in the Islamic world at the time, called the Market of the Lamps (Suq al-Qanadil). [18] The 10th-century geographer al-Muqaddasi described Suq al-Qanadil as ’the marketplace for all mankind ... It is the storehouse of the Occident, the entrepot of the Orient.’ [19] Another contemporary traveller, Nasir-i Khusraw, reported that in Cairo the shops were ’all the sultan’s property’ and leased to the shop owners, [16] underscoring the power of the caliphs and their dedication to public works.
The population of the Fatimid Caliphate peaked at about 12-13 million in 1000 CE, but subsequently declined as territory was lost to about 4 million in 1100 CE. [20] By the end of the 10th century, the population of the caliphate was roughly equivalent to that of Egypt. The city of Fustat, close to Cairo, had approximately 120,000 residents, even after the fire of 1168, and multiple sources report multi-storey residential homes with up to seven levels. [21]

[1]: (Man 1999, 74) John Man. 1999. Atlas of the Year 1000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[2]: (Walker 2006, 88) Paul E. Walker. 2006. ’The Relationship Between Chief Qadi and Chief Da’i under the Fatimids’, in Speaking for Islam: Religious Authorities in Muslim Societies, edited by Gudrun Kramer and Sabine Schmidtke, 70-94. Leiden: Brill.

[3]: (Raymond 2000, 73) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[4]: (Walker 2011, 104) Paul E. Walker. 2011. ’Responsibilities of Political Office in a Shi’i Caliphate and the Delineation of Public Duties under the Fatimids’, in Islam, the State, and Political Authority: Medieval Issues and Modern Concerns, edited by A. Afsaruddin, 93-110. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

[5]: (Yaacov 1991, 4) Yaacov Lev. 1991. State and Society in Fatimid Egypt. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

[6]: (Qutbuddin 2011, 39) Tahera Qutbuddin. 2011. ’Fatimids’, in Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, Volume 2: Africa, edited by Edward Ramsamy, 37-40. Los Angeles: Sage.

[7]: (Hrbek 1977, 10) Ivan Hrbek. 1977. ’Egypt, Nubia and the Eastern Deserts’, in The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3: From c. 1050 to c. 1600, edited by Roland Oliver, 10-97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[8]: (Lapidus 2012, 241) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[9]: (Hamblin 2004) William J. Hamblin. 2013. ’Egypt: Fatimids, Later (1073-1171): Army and Administration’, in Encyclopedia of African History, edited by K. Shillington. Online edition. London: Routledge.

[10]: (Lapidus 2012, 243) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[11]: (Lapidus 2012, 242) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[12]: (Raymond 2000, 65) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[13]: (Sanders 1998, 167) Paula A. Sanders. 1998. ’The Fatimid State, 969-1171’, in The Cambridge History of Egypt, Volume 1: Islamic Egypt, 640-1517, edited by Carl F. Petry, 151-74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[14]: (Lindsay 2005, 108) James E. Lindsay. 2005. Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group.

[15]: (Hrbek 1977, 16) Ivan Hrbek. 1977. ’Egypt, Nubia and the Eastern Deserts’, in The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3: From c. 1050 to c. 1600, edited by Roland Oliver, 10-97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[16]: (Raymond 2000, 54) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[17]: (Raymond 2000, 41) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[18]: (Raymond 2000, 42) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[19]: (Lindsay 2005, 106) James E. Lindsay. 2005. Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group.

[20]: (McEvedy and Jones 1978, 219-29, 141-47) Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. London: Allen Lane.

[21]: (Raymond 2000, 62, 65, 78) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Economy Variables (Luxury Goods) Coding in Progress.
Religion Variables Coding in Progress.

NGA Settlements:

Year Range Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal) was in:
 (970 CE 1170 CE) Upper Egypt
Home NGA: Upper Egypt

General Variables
Identity and Location Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Utm Zone 32 S 909 CE  1171 CE
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Original Name Fatimid Caliphate 909 CE  1171 CE
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Capital 909 CE  1171 CE
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Capital 909 CE  1171 CE
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Capital 909 CE  1171 CE
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Alternative Name 909 CE  1171 CE
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Alternative Name 909 CE  1171 CE
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Temporal Bounds Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Peak Years
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Peak Years
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Duration
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Political and Cultural Relations Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Suprapolity Relations none 909 CE  1171 CE
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Supracultural Entity Islam 909 CE  1171 CE
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Succeeding Entity Ayyubid Sultanate 909 CE  1171 CE
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Scale of Supracultural Interaction 909 CE  1171 CE
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Relationship to Preceding Entity 909 CE  1171 CE
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Preceding Entity
750 CE 946 CE
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Degree of Centralization 909 CE  1171 CE
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Language Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Linguistic Family Afro-Asiatic 909 CE  1171 CE
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Language 909 CE  1171 CE
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Religion Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Religion Genus Islam 909 CE  1171 CE
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Religion Family Shia 909 CE  1171 CE
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Religion Ismaili 909 CE  1171 CE
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Alternate Religion Uncoded Undecided 909 CE  1171 CE
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Social Complexity Variables
Social Scale Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Population of the Largest Settlement 909 CE  1171 CE
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Polity Territory 1000 CE
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Polity Territory 1100 CE
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Polity Population 1000 CE
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Polity Population 1100 CE
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Hierarchical Complexity Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Settlement Hierarchy 909 CE  1171 CE
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Religious Level 909 CE  1171 CE
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Military Level 909 CE  1171 CE
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Administrative Level 909 CE 969 CE
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Administrative Level 970 CE 1171 CE
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Professions Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
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Professional Soldier 909 CE  1171 CE
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Professional Priesthood 909 CE  1171 CE
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Professional Military Officer 909 CE  1171 CE
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Source Of Support 909 CE  1171 CE
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Bureaucracy Characteristics Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Specialized Government Building 909 CE  1171 CE
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Merit Promotion 909 CE  1171 CE
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Full Time Bureaucrat 909 CE  1171 CE
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Examination System Absent Inferred 909 CE  1171 CE
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Law Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Professional Lawyer 909 CE  1171 CE
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Judge 909 CE  1171 CE
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909 CE  1171 CE
Court 909 CE  1171 CE
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Specialized Buildings: polity owned Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Market 909 CE  1171 CE
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Irrigation System 909 CE  1171 CE
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Food Storage Site 909 CE  1171 CE
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Drinking Water Supply System 909 CE  1171 CE
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Transport Infrastructure Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
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Road 909 CE  1171 CE
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Port 909 CE  1171 CE
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Canal 909 CE  1171 CE
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Bridge 909 CE  1171 CE
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Special-purpose Sites Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
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Mines or Quarry 909 CE  1171 CE
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Information / Writing System Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Written Record 909 CE  1171 CE
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Script 909 CE  1171 CE
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Phonetic Alphabetic Writing Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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Nonwritten Record 909 CE  1171 CE
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Non Phonetic Writing Absent 909 CE  1171 CE
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Mnemonic Device Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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Information / Kinds of Written Documents Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
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Scientific Literature 909 CE  1171 CE
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Sacred Text 909 CE  1171 CE
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Religious Literature 909 CE  1171 CE
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Practical Literature 909 CE  1171 CE
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Philosophy 909 CE  1171 CE
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Lists Tables and Classification Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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History 909 CE  1171 CE
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Fiction 909 CE  1171 CE
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Calendar Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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Information / Money Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Token Unknown Suspected 909 CE  1171 CE
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Precious Metal 909 CE  1171 CE
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Paper Currency Absent 909 CE  1171 CE
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Indigenous Coin 909 CE  1171 CE
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Foreign Coin 909 CE  1171 CE
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Foreign Coin 909 CE  1171 CE
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Article 909 CE  1171 CE
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Information / Postal System Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Postal Station 909 CE  1171 CE
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Postal Station 909 CE  1171 CE
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General Postal Service 909 CE  1171 CE
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Courier 909 CE  1171 CE
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Information / Measurement System Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Warfare Variables (Military Technologies)
Fortifications Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Wooden Palisade Unknown Suspected 909 CE  1171 CE
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Stone Walls Non Mortared Unknown Suspected 909 CE  1171 CE
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Stone Walls Mortared 909 CE  1171 CE
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Settlements in a Defensive Position Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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Modern Fortification Absent 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moat Unknown Suspected 909 CE  1171 CE
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Fortified Camp 909 CE  1171 CE
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Earth Rampart 909 CE  1171 CE
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Ditch 909 CE  1171 CE
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Complex Fortification 909 CE  1171 CE
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Military use of Metals Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Steel Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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Iron Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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Copper 909 CE  1171 CE
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Bronze 909 CE  1171 CE
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Projectiles Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Tension Siege Engine 909 CE  1171 CE
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Sling Siege Engine 909 CE  1171 CE
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Sling 909 CE  1171 CE
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Self Bow 909 CE  1171 CE
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Javelin 909 CE  1171 CE
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Handheld Firearm Absent 909 CE  1171 CE
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Gunpowder Siege Artillery Absent 909 CE  1171 CE
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Crossbow 909 CE  1171 CE
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Composite Bow 909 CE  1171 CE
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Atlatl 909 CE  1171 CE
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Handheld weapons Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
War Club 909 CE  1171 CE
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Sword 909 CE  1171 CE
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Spear 909 CE  1171 CE
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Polearm 909 CE  1171 CE
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Dagger 909 CE  1171 CE
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Battle Axe Present Inferred 909 CE  1171 CE
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Animals used in warfare Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
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Horse 909 CE  1171 CE
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Elephant 909 CE  1171 CE
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Donkey 909 CE  1171 CE
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Dog Unknown Suspected 909 CE  1171 CE
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Camel 909 CE  1171 CE
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Armor Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Wood Bark Etc Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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Shield 909 CE  1171 CE
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Scaled Armor 909 CE  1171 CE
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Plate Armor 909 CE  1171 CE
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Limb Protection 909 CE  1171 CE
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Leather Cloth 909 CE  1171 CE
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Laminar Armor 909 CE  1171 CE
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Helmet 909 CE  1171 CE
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Chainmail 909 CE  1171 CE
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Breastplate 909 CE  1171 CE
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Naval technology Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Specialized Military Vessel 909 CE  1171 CE
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Small Vessels Canoes Etc Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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Merchant Ships Pressed Into Service Unknown Suspected 909 CE  1171 CE
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Economy Variables (Luxury Goods)
Religion Variables
Moralizing Supernatural Punishment and Reward Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
Variable Coded Value / Certainty Tags Year(s) See More
Moralizing Enforcement is Broad 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Supernatural Concern is Primary 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Enforcement is Agentic 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Enforcement in This Life 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Supernatural Punishment And Reward 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Religion Adopted by Commoners Present 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Enforcement is Targeted 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Enforcement in Afterlife 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Religion Adopted by Elites 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Enforcement of Rulers 909 CE  1171 CE
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Moralizing Enforcement is Certain 909 CE  1171 CE
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Human Sacrifice Fatimid Caliphate (tn_fatimid_cal)
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Instability Data
Power Transitions