Fatimid Caliphate

  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.