Chapter XI: Part 11

As-Salih was thus able to enter Cairo without opposition, which he did on the 14th of Rabiʿ I. 549 (May, 1154), and took charge of the government. Guided by the young eunuch who had been present at the murder of az-Zafir he went to Nasir’s house and lifted up the stone under which lay the body of the late Khalif. This he removed and buried in the midst of a whole city in mourning. Az-Zafir’s sister wrote a letter to the Franks at Ascalon, a town which they had captured in 548 when the army setting out from Egypt under ʿAbbas failed to appear, and offered them a reward of 60,000 dinars for ʿAbbas and his son. This reward induced the knights Templars to go out and stop ʿAbbas on his way to take refuge with the Turks in the north: an engagement ensued in which ʿAbbas was killed and Nasir taken prisoner. The prisoner was put into an iron cage and sent with an escort and an accredited envoy to Cairo, and the promised reward was at once paid. Nasir’s ears and nose were cut off and he was paraded through the city and then crucified at the Bab Zawila, after which his body was burned (on the 10th Muharram 551 = March, 1156 A.D.). Osama who really was the prime instigator of the mischief escaped any punishment.

In the year of Faʿiz’s accession (549) the Turks under Nur ad-Din took Damascus and thus began pressing on the Franks from the north. The Egyptian wazir was very anxious to enter into alliance with Nur ad-Din and employed Osama as an intermediary, sending to the Turkish Sultan flattering messages, volumes of his own poetry, and the promise of substantial assistance. But in spite of all these efforts Nur ad-Din was extremely cautious and deeply suspicious of the Egyptians, as well, no doubt, as unsympathetic towards the Shiʿite sect. The Egyptian advances received their best endorsement from a victory gained by the Fatimid general Dirgham over the Franks in 553, but even then Nur ad-Din hesitated and would not enter into any definite engagement. This was undoubtedly a mistake, for united action between the Turks and Egyptians would probably have definitely cleared out the Frank settlers, and any further effectual Frankish invasion was impossible in the face of the Turkish power now firmly established in the north.

In 555 the Khalif al-Faʿiz died (on Friday, 17th Rajab = July, 1160) whilst in an epileptic fit.

XVIII

THE FOURTEENTH FATIMID KHALIF, AL-ʿADID

(A.H. 556-567 = A.D. 1160-1171)

At the death of al-Faʿiz at the age of eleven years his cousin Abu Muhammad ʿAbdullah al-ʿAdid, son of Jibril, one of the murdered brothers of az-Zafir, and then a child of nine, was proclaimed Khalif. He was treated simply as a prisoner of state, as indeed had been the case with his predecessor, and the government was entirely in the hands of the wazir as-Salih. But as-Salih was not a good ruler; he forestalled provisions and artificially raised prices, levied frequent fines, and managed to contrive the execution of various of the great officers of state whose property was forthwith confiscated. Indeed his besetting sin was avarice, and the resources of the country were greatly exhausted by his constant speculations. At length, in 559, “seduced by long prosperity, he neglected the precautions of prudence” (Ibn Khall. 336), and plots were formed against him. These plots received the support of the Khalif, which means in plain words that they were the result of harim intrigue as is the case with the majority of plots in oriental courts, and the Khalif’s guard was told off to act as executioners. One day an attempt was made, but one of the guard accidentally locked a door he was trying to open, and so the attempt failed. A few days later another attempt was made, this time with more success, and the wazir was severely wounded. His attendants managed to kill the attackers and carried the wounded wazir to his palace, where he died on Monday, the 19th Ramadan, 559 (Sept., 1161). The Khalif visited him on his death-bed, and he gave the sovereign the final messages of his office: he regretted most that he had not succeeded in taking Jerusalem and expelling the Franks, as they formed the most serious problem before the country: and he warned his son to beware of Shawar, the governor of Upper Egypt, for he was the most dangerous and unscrupulous rival to the wazir.

As-Salih was succeeded in office by his son Abu Shuja al-ʿAdil Ruzzik, but within a year he was deposed and executed by Shawar, whose ambition had been rightly gauged by as-Salih. But Shawar, who was an Arab by birth, was distinctly unpopular, and within a few months he was driven out by Dirgham, who was the favourite of the soldiery and commanded the Barqiya brigade. Expelled from Egypt Shawar went to Damascus and opened negotiations with Nur ad-Din: he represented to him that Egypt was inadequately defended, that it would be an easy conquest, and that the union of the Muslim world would be the best means of effectually getting rid of the Franks, all the arguments already urged by as-Salih with the added attractive detail of conquest instead of alliance. But Nur ad-Din was ever extremely cautious, and moreover he distrusted what he saw of Shawar, who was very evidently a wily and treacherous man, but the ideas suggested seem to have sunk into his mind. Meanwhile circumstances began to force the Egyptian question on Nur ad-Din’s attention by making it more or less inevitable that Egypt must fall into the hands either of the Nur ad-Din, or else into those of the Frankish king of Jerusalem. It seems that a subsidy had been paid by the Fatimids to the Franks, though when this began is not recorded. Lane-Poole says that it “must have been recently instituted, for Ibn-Ruzzik, who died in 1161, assuredly would have paid no such subsidy to the ‘infidels.’ Probably Shawar began the payment in 1162, but the fact cannot be proved” (_Egypt in the Mid. Ages_, p. 177, note). At any rate Dirgham, seeking for increased popularity and confident in the military resources of his country and in the decadence of the Franks, stopped this payment to Amalric, who was at this time king of Jerusalem. As a result Amalric invaded Egypt in the following year (560). Dirgham went out to meet the invaders and was severely defeated at Bilbays. But it was then the time of the Nile inundation, and Dirgham had the dykes cut so that the whole country was very soon under water. This made the Franks ready to listen to some sort of compromise, and they accepted such payment as Dirgham offered and withdrew to Palestine. Shortly after their retirement Dirgham was informed of Shawar’s intrigues at Damascus, and he at once perceived that his wisest plan was to conclude an alliance with Amalric so that he could count on Frankish help against a Turkish invasion. No doubt this project was known to Nur ad-Din, although Amalric’s recent attempt was enough to force his hand, and he decided to take Shawar’s advice and send an expedition into Egypt. At the head of the army despatched by Nur ad-Din was the Turkish general Shirkuh, with his nephew Salah ad-Din (Saladin), as his lieutenant, and with him was Shawar as guide and adviser.

Dirgham held Bilbays against the Turks, but was defeated, though able to re-assemble his forces for the defence of Cairo. Shirkuh was able to gain possession of Fustat, but the fortified Kahira was held by Dirgham and he was able to resist all the Turkish attacks made upon it. Then Dirgham, who relied most on the popularity he enjoyed amongst the soldiers, sorely pressed for funds, laid hands on the _waqf_ or “pious bequests,” a comprehensive term which in a Muslim land includes all property left in trust for religious and allied purposes, the salaries of the mosque officials, the alms bequeathed for distribution amongst the widows and orphans and pilgrims, the lands left for the upkeep of the mosques and schools, even the copies of Qurʾans presented to a mosque for the use of worshippers and teachers contain on the fly-leaf an inscription declaring them _waqf_ for such and such a mosque; indeed the term includes everything held in trust for religious, charitable, or educational purposes, and in a country like Egypt this implies a very vast total, to-day administered under the supervision of an important department of the state. The actual seizure of this property by Dirgham, an act almost without precedent in Islam, caused a general revulsion of feeling amongst soldiers and people and practically ruined Dirgham’s cause at once. The army deserted him and the Khalif followed their lead; only a bodyguard of 500 men was left to the wazir. Conscious of his mistake Dirgham sought too late to try to repair it. For hours he stood in the great square before the Khalif’s palace with his faithful bodyguard and called out like a petitioner for the Khalif’s pardon and help, but without any reply being sent out to him. Then he noticed that even as he stood there his men were gradually stealing away from him, until at last only thirty were left. Suddenly a cry was raised that the besiegers had broken through the fortifications and had entered the royal city, which indeed was the case, the Turkish host riding in by the Bab al-Qantara leading from Jawhar’s bridge over the canal into Kafur’s garden, and at this news Dirgham turned away and rode out through the Bab az-Zuwila on the south. But this road took him through part of the old city and he was recognised by the citizens, pulled from his horse, and beheaded. His head was paraded through the streets and reviled by all, for the mediaeval Muslim had no sympathy with ecclesiastical disendowment, whilst the body was left lying on the ground until it was eaten by the city dogs.

The expedition, though led by Shirkuh, had professedly been to restore Shawar to the wazirate, and now established in office Shawar only desired to get rid of the Turks. He kept Shirkuh out of the royal city, entirely refused to allow him any share in the results of the conquest, and declined to pay the expected indemnity. He felt, no doubt, that the decisive factor had been the revolt against Dirgham rather than the help of the Turks. But Shirkuh was not a likely person to suffer this conduct with impunity, and sent his nephew Saladin to occupy Bilbays and thus hold the Sharqiya or eastern province, one of the four great divisions of Egypt, the other three being Gharbiya or the western province, Qus or Upper Egypt, and Alexandria or Lower Egypt. This move on the part of Shirkuh moved Shawar to appeal to Amalric, and an army of Franks marched down to besiege Bilbays. The siege lasted three months and then Amalric was obliged to retire and call an armistice as the Turkish hosts of Nur ad-Din were proceeding south to the relief of Saladin. It was agreed that the body of Syrians occupying Bilbays should be allowed to evacuate without interference, and they marched out between the armies of the Egyptians and the Franks. For the moment matters had produced a stale-mate, but Shirkuh was fully convinced that Egypt could be conquered without much difficulty, and that this would be the right way to check the Franks effectually. Nur ad-Din, with characteristic caution, hesitated over so great an undertaking which would necessitate the employment of his forces in the far south and leave the Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem between his capital and the bulk of his army, but the project was warmly espoused by the Khalif of Baghdad, and at length Nur ad-Din acquiesced and a new expedition started from Damascus in the early part of 562.

This new force was under the command of Shirkuh who had his nephew Saladin with him as before, but this time he was free from the presence of the treacherous Shawar. They took the desert route so as to avoid the Franks by a long detour and thus reached the Nile at Atfih some forty miles south of Cairo, the ancient Aphroditopolis just north of Wasta, and there crossed the river and commenced the journey down along the west side. Hardly had Shirkuh crossed than the Franks who had heard of the expedition and followed close after appeared on the other side of the Nile and, not venturing to cross in face of the enemy marched along the east side, the two armies keeping pace one with the other, the river between. Both pushed on to Cairo where Amalric encamped near Fustat, Shirkuh at Gizeh. The Frankish king took advantage of these circumstances to insist on a clearer understanding with Shawar, and to see that the terms of the agreement made with him were duly ratified by the Khalif. It was contrary to all precedent for a foreign and non-Muslim prince to pay a personal visit to the Imam, but Amalric insisted, and at length the wazir assented. William of Tyre has left a graphic description of that visit, and of the astonishing splendours of the palace to which Amalric and his companions were admitted. There he had an interview with the Khalif, a young Egyptian of dark colour, the terms of the treaty were recited, that Egypt was to pay 200,000 pieces of gold at once, and 200,000 pieces later, whilst Amalric on his side was to expel the Syrians. Both parties assented and then Amalric held out his right hand to grasp that of the Khalif whilst a shudder passed round the court at this apparent profanity. After a brief hesitation the Khalif also held out his hand covered with a glove. But Amalric exclaimed that as an honest man he preferred to take the prince’s bare hand; at this again the court suffered a shock of horror, but the Khalif drew off his glove and grasped the rough hand of the Frankish king.

Amalric desired now to come to grips with the Syrians immediately and began constructing a bridge of boats across the Nile, but this was easily prevented by the Syrians. Amalric then marched his men by night down the river to where it divided at the commencement of the Delta, and there he managed to cross without great difficulty, appearing next morning on the west or left side. At once Shirkuh began retreating southwards towards Upper Egypt closely followed by the Franks. Amalric overtook the enemy at al-Babayn near Oshmunayn about ten miles south of Minia, and there Shirkuh halted and made ready for battle. In the middle he placed his baggage and on the flank he stationed Salah ad-Din with orders to retreat as soon as the Franks commenced the attack, so that they might be drawn off and the Egyptians dealt with alone whilst the Franks were separated from them. These tactics were followed, and whilst Saladin was leading away the Franks and skilfully evading them, the Egyptians were completely routed by the main body of Syrians. As soon as the Franks perceived that their allies were defeated they began to retreat and abandoned their baggage to the Syrians, so this was a definite victory for Shirkuh.

The Syrian leader now began marching back along the left bank of the river but did not continue to follow that route, breaking westwards along the desert route to Alexandria which in due time he reached and took, appointing Saladin governor and leaving an adequate body to support him whilst he retired towards Upper Egypt which he began to lay waste. The Franks had followed as soon as they could, and the allied Franks and Egyptians laid siege to Alexandria. For some time Saladin defended the city with vigour, but the citizens of Alexandria were very soon in revolt against the military occupation and the inconveniences inevitable from a state of siege. Alexandria was then, as now, a cosmopolitan town, largely Levantine in population, and essentially a community of merchants, the type least likely to be patient in enduring the restrictions and dangers of a siege. When their discontent broke out in open revolt Salah ad-Din sent to his uncle Shirkuh for relief, and in response he laid siege to Cairo. The news of this counter move induced Amalric to raise the siege of Alexandria and march to the relief of Cairo, first making terms with Salah ad-Din. It is very difficult to discover the real nature of the terms under which Alexandria was abandoned by the Franks as both sides claimed that the operations ended in a victory for themselves. It seems clear that Alexandria was handed over to Shawar which was a score for the Franks: at the same time Amalric paid 50,000 pieces of gold. So far it probably was a bargain struck between the two forces in which we may regard the city as ransomed for 50,000 pieces of gold. But it seems that the Franks left a garrison there and increased the subsidy paid by the Egyptians to 100,000 pieces of gold. No doubt the right interpretation is that, after the bargain had been made between Amalric and Saladin, the Syrians made these new terms with Shawar to his disadvantage.

After this, in the latter part of the year, Shirkuh retired to Damascus. This seems to suggest that the Turks and Syrians had abandoned the projected conquest of Egypt. But Amalric saw quite clearly that the possession of Egypt was the crucial point in the struggle between the Franks and the Muslims, and himself planned to steal a march on Nur ad-Din and conquer Egypt for himself. With this end in view he raised new forces and again entered Egypt in 564, taking Bilbays and slaughtering the inhabitants. This was a more serious danger to the Egyptians than anything which had happened before, and at once the grouping of parties was changed by new alliances. Now Shawar made alliance with Nur ad-Din and invited the Turkish-Syrian army to come to the rescue. Before any result could be arranged the Franks had pressed on and were threatening Cairo. To save the city from falling into the hands of the enemy the Egyptians determined to set fire to the ancient Fustat and abandon it, the newer Kahira was strongly fortified and could hold out on its own account. This plan was carried out. For fifty-four days the fire raged in Fustat abandoned by all its population, and nothing lay before the invaders but charred ruins and the Old Mosque, and a few other buildings which more or less resisted the conflagration.

Meanwhile Amalric obtained possession of the country and encamped before Cairo. The crafty Shawar managed to deceive him and induced him to consider suggested terms which served to delay operations whilst Shirkuh was collecting a new force and preparing to come to the relief of the Egyptians, nor was Amalric undeceived until Shirkuh arrived and joined the Egyptians. At this the Franks retired and Shirkuh entered Cairo and then made camp outside. Day by day visits of compliment were exchanged between Shawar and the Turkish leader, but Shawar constantly postponed the payment of the money expected and promised for Shirkuh’s help and, judging from his knowledge of the man Shirkuh was convinced that he was trying to play off the Frank and the Syrian against one another. At a conference of his generals Shirkuh announced that it was of primary importance to put an end to this state of affairs and recommended that Shawar should be seized and held prisoner. No one was ready to take the first step in the execution of this proposal until Saladin volunteered to do it with his own hands. Soon afterwards Shawar was seen coming with a train of attendants to pay one of his customary visits. Salah ad-Din with his guard rode out to meet him, and as they rode side by side he suddenly grasped Shawar’s collar and pulled him off his horse, at the same time ordering his men to fall on the attendants of the wazir. Shawar was then taken to a tent and held prisoner. For some time Shirkuh was doubtful what the result of this measure would be, then an embassy came from the Khalif bringing the official pelisse, the outward badge of the wazirate, to Shirkuh and asking for the head of Shawar. This was equivalent to appointing Shirkuh as ruler of Egypt, and was a final and definite step in ending the independent existence of the Fatimid Khalifate and establishing the suzerainty of Nur ad-Din, whose servant Shirkuh was. On Wednesday, the 17th of Rabiʿ II. 565, Shirkuh was formally invested as wazir, and aroused popular enthusiasm by permitting a general looting of Shawar’s palace. Shirkuh, however, held office only two months and died on Saturday, 28th of Jumada II., being succeeded in his office by his nephew Saladin. Soon afterwards Aiyub, Saladin’s father arrived in Egypt, and his son offered to resign his appointment to his father, but Aiyub refused to accept this sacrifice and urged his son to continue in the exercise of the functions which he had received as the most trusty and efficient lieutenant of his uncle Shirkuh.

Two years later (567) a message was received from Nur ad-Din ordering the _khutba_ in Egypt to be changed and the name of the ʿAbbasid Khalif to be used in place of the Fatimid. Saladin hesitated fearing a revolt of the people at this termination of the Egyptian Khalifate and proclamation of their being incorporated in the Khalifate of Baghdad. But fresh orders from Damascus insisted. In Cairo there was much reluctance amongst Saladin’s officers to venture on this change, but at length a Persian visitor named al-Amir al-Aahin offered to ascend the pulpit next Friday and pronounce the new _khutba_, and this was accepted. On the following Friday the Persian did so, and no single word of protest was uttered: the Fatimid dynasty fell without being the object of more than private comment, and Egypt acquiesced in the change without discussion or even taking any particular notice. At the moment the Khalif al-ʿAdid was ill and confined to his rooms. The members of Saladin’s suite debated whether he ought to be informed of the change, but it was agreed that if he recovered it would then be time enough to tell him, and if he did not recover he might as well die in peace without knowing that his dynasty had fallen. Shortly afterwards he died in this peaceful ignorance.

This surprisingly commonplace end of the Fatimids is a striking comment on their history. As organised by ʿAbdullah b. Maymun the Ismaʿilian sect was a secret society, and this society had established an empire in which it ruled over subjects who, though loyal to their rulers as political sovereigns, were totally out of sympathy with the society’s known or supposed aims. So far as these had become prominent from time to time they had only produced difficulties and friction, most pronounced in the incidents connected with al-Hakim; the wiser and saner advisers of the throne undoubtedly made it their aim to push the sectarian element into the background, or get rid of it altogether. Yet all through the history of Egypt, at least up to the time of al-Mustansir, that sectarian element was very distinctly present and the Fatimid Khalif as the pontiff of the Ismaʿilians was visited by pilgrims from Persia, Arabia, and other parts. As a sectarian movement the Fatimid adventure had two off-shoots which are still to some extent living forces. The Druses of the Lebanon still form a vigorous and flourishing community of no small political importance. Their religious tenets have been long a secret, though many details have leaked forth; but now there is a “modernist” party, chiefly of the younger men, amongst the Druses, and these desire to reveal their religious beliefs more fully feeling that secrecy has only tended to misrepresentation of their community, and believing that the moral ideals which they hold together with their combination of agnostic and pantheistic doctrine furnishes a religious system likely to gain many converts at the present time. How far these modernists will succeed in divulging their beliefs, and how far their movement will receive the sympathy of the heads of the sect remains to be seen. It is understood that Dr. Bliss of Beirut will be the probable intermediary of communication with the western world if this disclosure takes place.

The second important off-shoot is that of the Assassins. The Syrian branch of the Assassins was completely exterminated, and the great headquarters at Alamut was destroyed by the Turks, but besides these two greater branches there were many minor groups of the sect which have lived out a secluded existence scattered in various parts of central Asia and India, and undoubtedly exist at the present day. As late as 1866 an English judge in Bombay was called upon to decide a succession case according to the jurisprudence of the Assassins. Prof. Browne states, “remnants of the sect, as I was informed by a very intelligent and observant Babi dervish of Kirman, of whom I saw a great deal when I was in Cairo in the early part of the year 1903, still exist in Persia, while in India (under the name of ‘Khojas’ or ‘Khwajas’) and Chitral (under the name of ‘Mullas’), as well as in Zanzibar, Syria, and elsewhere, they still enjoy a certain influence and importance, though it requires a great effort of imagination to associate their present pontiff, the genial and polished Agha Khan, with the once redoubtable Grand Masters of Alamut and the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’—‘Le Vieux’ of Marco Polo’s quaint narrative” (Browne: _Literary Hist. of Persia_, p. 460).

As a political force the Fatimids rapidly vanished. In the great struggle between Franks and Turks they had for a while hindered the co-operation of the Muslims under Turkish leadership, and perhaps had contributed to the weakness which had allowed the establishment of a Frankish kingdom in Jerusalem, though this weakness would be sufficiently explained by the fact that the earlier Turkish migration westwards had just ceased, and the greater movement which followed had not yet begun. When Saladin swept aside the remnants of the Fatimid Khalifate it disappeared without leaving any appreciable mark on contemporary history.

On the religious history of Islam the Fatimids left even less impression. They were entirely excluded from the theological life of the Muslim community, save that they probably contributed to the strong disfavour with which the orthodox regarded philosophical and scientific studies as these took a suspected colour by reason of the sympathy with which the Shiʿites generally, and the Ismaʿilians in particular had regarded them.

XIX

THE FATIMID KHALIFATE IN ITS RELATION TO GENERAL HISTORY

A few words may be added to define more plainly the part taken by the Fatimid Khalifate in the general course of history. So long as the Fatimite movement merely took the form of a sectarian body in Asia it had hardly more than a local interest, and even the formation of a Fatimid Khalifate at Kairawan does no more than illustrate the disintegration of the empire of the Khalifs of Baghdad. But the conquest of Egypt brought the Fatimids into relation with a wider world and induced them, unwisely no doubt, to venture on the conquest of Syria. It is a question how far the power ruling in Egypt ever can be free from Syria: the ancient Pharaohs were drawn into Egyptian expeditions, and the two lands have been closely involved one with the other ever since: nearly always Syria has proved the grave in which the prospects and hopes of Egypt have been buried. In the days of the Fatimids Syria was the battle ground of the Near East, and every country from Byzantium to the Oxus was more or less drawn into the conflicts there, whilst in the later part of the period the whole of Christendom, except Spain, was involved: and every power of East or West found there either severe loss or total ruin. The whole course of the history of the 9-12th centuries of the Christian era shows the gradual sucking in of Muslim and Christian powers to this maelstrom, and in every case with disastrous results.

The whole period of the Fatimid Khalifate, from the first formation of the parent sect or conspiracy to the final downfall before Salah ad-Din, may be divided conveniently into three periods; (i) the rise of the Ismaʿilian sect and the establishment of a Khalifate claiming Fatimid descent at Kairawan, (ii) the conquest of Egypt and the period of more or less prosperous rule over Egypt and Syria, and (iii) the period of decay under the attacks of the Saljuq Turks and the Crusaders to its final downfall.

(i) _The Formation of the Fatimid Khalifate._ (A.H. 260-356 = A.D. 873-966.)

This was the period during which the Ismaʿilian sect was founded, spread to North Africa, and a Khalifate was established at Kairawan. It was a time during which the Khalifate of Baghdad was passing through a course of rapid decay: under no other circumstances would such progress on the part of the Ismaʿilis have been possible. The Khalif Harunu r-Rashid died in 193 (= 808) whilst actually proceeding against a rebellious son in Khurasan. His death was followed by a civil war at the end of which his rebellious son was established as Khalif, but soon afterwards in 205 (= 820) Khurasan was practically lost to the Khalifate and passed into the hands of the independent dynasty of the Tahirites, who ruled nominally in the Khalif’s name but paid him no obedience. Tahir himself was an Arab, but his supporters were mainly Persians, and this begins the period of Persian political supremacy which lasted until the rise of the Turks in the middle of the 4th cent. The Saffarids who ruled in Khurasan from 260 to 290 A.H. were purely Persian, and so were the Samanids who arose in 288 and ruled until 400. All these maintained themselves in the east, but in 320 (= 932) the Buwayhids, a Daylamite tribe from the shores of the Caspian Sea came down into the very heart of the Khalifate, and from 344 until 447 controlled Baghdad, holding the Khalif as an ornamental figure to adorn the pageant of state. Not only were these Buwayhids Persians but, like the Saffarids and Samanids, they were Shiʿites, not themselves recognising the Khalif as the true ruler of Islam, but using him simply as a tool to give effect to their rule over those who did. This was the golden period of Arabic philosophy and literature.

In North Africa the Aghlabid dynasty of Zairawan went down before the followers of the Fatimid Mahdi, who increased in power and prosperity until they conquered Egypt in 356. Only in the far West the rival Khalifate of Cordova held its own, minor independent states were formed in the further parts of North Africa, and in Sicily a popular movement declared for the orthodox Khalif of Baghdad.

During all this time Islam hardly enters into the political history of Europe, save in Spain. The Byzantine Empire held its own owing to the weakness of Islam: the Latin Empire was in process of disintegration and new states were being formed in the west. Almost contemporaneously two sturdy races begin to appear at points far removed, the Turks who are gradually filtering across the Oxus into Persia and becoming Muslims, and the Northmen who are settling on the sea-board of the North-West of Europe and becoming Christians.

(ii) _The Golden Age of the Fatimids._ (A.H. 356-469 = A.D. 966-1076.)

During the period of the decay of the Abbasid Khalifate the Fatimids were able to seize an important part of the Abbasid dominions and make themselves rulers of Palestine and Syria, with more or less intermittent control over Arabia. At this time the three leading powers in the Near East were the Khalifate of Baghdad, the Fatimid Khalifate of Egypt, and the Byzantine Empire, but of these three the Fatimid Khalifate of Egypt was the most vigorous and aggressive. Under Karl the Great the Western Empire had assumed a kind of protectorate over the Christians in Palestine, but in Fatimid times this had become obsolete. The two rival Khalifates were separated by a wide gulf of religious difference, how wide cannot be appreciated without following the history of the formation and development of the Fatimid Khalifate. Both made overtures to the Greeks, but the relations of Byzantium with the Muslim world generally turned on questions connected with Fatimid rule: Fatimids and Greeks faced one another in North West Syria, and it was only in Sicily that the Greeks had to deal with the Baghdad Khalifate. Before the beginning of this period Crete which had fallen into the hands of the Muslims in A.D. 825, was recovered (in A.D. 961): Sicily, conquered by the Muslims between A.D. 827 and 878, remained in their hands but, after the Fatimid conquest of North Africa it revolted and gave in its allegiance to the Khalifate of Baghdad. North Africa was divided amongst various Muslim groups, and Spain was fully occupied with its own problems. In A.D. 1038 Byzantium lost control over North Syria, so that on the whole the Greeks were receding before the Muslims. In A.D. 1029 (= A.H. 419) there was, however, a _modus vivendi_ reached between the Fatimids and the Greeks by which, in return for help during famine, the Muslims were allowed to have a mosque in Constantinople provided prayer was offered there for the Fatimid Khalif, and, apparently, the Christians were allowed freedom to visit Jerusalem. The persecution of Christians under Hakim had culminated in the destruction of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in A.D. 1009, but this was re-built soon afterwards: the persecution was an isolated incident: in Muslim lands generally neither Christians nor Jews suffered any serious disabilities, the penal laws were long obsolete, and the only penalty enforced was against a Muslim who became a convert to another religion. An additional tax had to be paid by non-Muslims, but this was in lieu of military service from which they were exempt.

The real stirring of history lay in the extreme east and west, in the rise of the Turks and of the Normans, both gradually converging upon western Asia and at the close of this period are both approaching Syria, bringing even greater disasters to their co-religionists than to those whom they regarded as their foes. During the period under present consideration both were already in this arena in small numbers, employed as mercenaries by all the three Near Eastern powers, Turkish soldiers of fortune serving under the Khalifs of Baghdad and under the Fatimids of Egypt, Northmen serving in the employ of the Emperors of Byzantium, but neither Turks nor Northmen had as yet moved in in sufficiently large numbers to become independent factors in politics.

The first assertion of the Turks appears in the career of Mahmud of Ghazna. Turkish soldiers had been employed by the Samanide of Khurasan, and one of these, Alptekin, was made governor of Khurasan, but at a disputed succession in the house of Samani he unfortunately took the side of the candidate who proved unsuccessful and so had to flee the country. With a body of followers he established himself in the mountain fortress of Ghazna (in A.H. 350 = A.D. 961), and there he and his son Sebektakin held their own, nominally as vassals of the Samanids, really as an independent brigand state. The third ruler of Ghazna, Mahmud, declared himself independent in 390 (= 999), and received investiture directly from the Khalif of Baghdad, assuming the title of Sultan, a title which he was the first to introduce into the community of Islam. Mahmud of Ghazna is one of the brilliant figures of history, but one whose importance can easily be over-estimated. In a series of twelve expeditions to India he won both fame and booty, but was not in any real sense a conqueror of India. In A.H. 407 (= A.D. 1016) he extended his power northwards to the shores of the Caspian Sea, and here before long he was brought into contact with other kinsmen of his own, Turks living across the Oxus, and it was the advance of these Turks led by the Saljuq tribe which, in his son’s days, cut off the Sultanate of Ghazna from Persia and the West and compelled the Ghazni dynasty to turn its attention eastwards. This led to the foundation of a Muslim state in India which, under the successive rule of Turks, Afghans, and Mongols, had a continuous existence to the time of the Indian Mutiny in the 19th cent. Although Mahmud and his followers were Turks he gave the civil administration mainly into the hands of Persian officials, and thus Persian became the court language of Muslim India, though Arabic was sometimes employed in important charters,—both foreign languages to rulers and subjects; and thus, when the native Hindi began to be used as a literary medium it appeared as a language which, though thoroughly Hindi in structure and grammar, had a vocabulary full of Persian and Arabic words, and in this form is known as Urdu or Hindustani. Thus Indian history, through the pushing eastwards of the Ghazni Turks by the advance of the Saljuqs, connects with the history of the West.

The Persian dynasties of the Saffarids, Samanids, and Daylamites were Shiʿite in religion, but the Turks were Sunni, that is to say “orthodox” in the sense of adhering to the traditional school which was in communion with the official Khalifate of Baghdad, so that when they came westwards they came as its champions, in contrast to the Normans who were unfriendly towards the Greek Church.

The Saljuq Turks migrated from Turkistan to Balkh about 345 (= A.D. 956), and there accepted Islam. They settled on the farther side of the Oxus about 20 parasangs from the town of Balkh, and there they were found by Mahmud of Ghazna. He removed then to the near side of the Oxus and distributed them through the province of Khurasan where, as they were broken up into small groups, they were harshly treated, and plundered until a body of 2,000 fugitives fled to Ispahan for protection. The governor there wished to employ them in the army, but Mahmud sent orders that they were to be imprisoned and their property confiscated, and followed up these orders by sending a force to scatter them. After this they took to brigandage under a leader named Tughril, and finally were pardoned by Mahmud on condition that they reduced the whole province of Khurasan to obedience to him. This work they took in hand but, in the days of Masud, the successor of Mahmud, they were able to establish their own independence and compelled the Sultan of Ghazna to abandon all control over Persia and turn his attention eastwards (Ibn Khall. iii. 224-226x).

The Saljuqs were now so prominent that al-Qaʾim the Khalif of Baghdad sent to Tughril as a loyal Sunni to deliver him from the tyranny of the Buwayhids. In response Tughril marched to Baghdad and formally restored the temporal power of the Khalif in 447 (= A.D. 1055), though this soon meant simply that the Khalif was under the guardianship of a Saljuq Turk instead of a Daylamite Buwayhid; though there was this much gain, that the Saljuqs were theoretically orthodox supporters of the Abbasid Khalifate.

The Saljuqs were now established as the champions and defenders of the Baghdad Khalifate. Under Tughril’s successor, Alp Arslan, they came into direct conflict with both the Fatimids and the Greeks. By 457 (= A.D. 1068) they were in possession of Georgia and Armenia, and had become a very serious and pressing menace to the Byzantine Empire. A few years later the Emperor Romanus IV. was totally defeated by them in 460 (= A.D. 1071), and all Asia Minor lay open to the Turks, though the Saljuq position there was insecure until they took Antioch from the Greeks. Alp Arslan was succeeded by Malah Shah who, in the course of 467-477 (= A.D. 1074-1084) established the Saljuq power in Asia Minor, and in 469 conquered Jerusalem from the Fatimids, so that practically the Saljuq Sultan, theoretically the Commander-in-Chief serving under the Khalif of Baghdad, was the master of all Western Asia. This brings us to the close of the second period and to the end of the golden age of the Fatimids.

Meanwhile in the West the Normans, destined to be the protagonists of the Saljuq Turks, were becoming a leading power in another way. In 1038 we find them serving in Sicily, in 1040 they were conquering Apulia, and soon afterwards they began minor encroachments on the Byzantine Empire. Their chief settlement, Normandy, dates from 911, and it is significant that this was one year after the foundation of the Abbey of Cluny, from which proceeded a religious reformation which found its warmest supporters in the Normans. When Pope Leo IX. made an expedition against the Normans in Apulia and was defeated by them, his greatest surprise came in finding his victorious enemies ready to pay him a reverent loyalty far beyond anything he had previously experienced. The recently converted Normans were no less definite in their orthodoxy as Christians than the recently converted Saljuqs in their orthodoxy as Muslims.

It is, no doubt, impossible to regard the Crusades as entirely religious in their spirit and character, but it is equally impossible to ignore the fact that religious motives played a very large part in their history. We may venture to say that they commenced under the influence of the Cluniac reformation, and that most of those who took part in the First Crusade, if they had any regard for religion at all, accepted the Cluniac standards: whilst the Second Crusade was still more definitely associated with the Cistercian order, itself an after-math of the Cluniac reformation. The attitude of the Latin clergy towards the Greek Church was exactly the same as that of the Cistercian missionaries towards the native Keltic clergy of Ireland a few years later: wherever religion enters into the programme of the Crusaders it is always treated according to Cluniac standards, and everything is disapproved which does not conform to those standards. The Normans and Burgundians formed the most loyal contingent of those who contended for Cluniac ideals, and they, the Normans especially, formed the real nucleus of the First Crusade. The Crusading movement cannot be separated from the Cluniac reformation.

In referring to the Cluniacs we do not confine the term to those who were actually monks in the Abbey of Cluny, nor even to those in the priories which were in obedience to Cluny, but extend it to all those portions of the Latin Church which followed the leadership of Cluny in the way of church reform and saw the ideal Christianity in the Cluniac programme, an ideal of which we have the fullest expression in the writings of S. Peter Damian. These reformers were loyal to the Papacy, but to an idealised Papacy reconstructed on Cluniac lines; they were outspoken in their criticism of the actual Papacy and its entourage as it existed in the 10th cent. Incidentally Rome ceased to be the chief place of pilgrimage, not because there was any repugnance felt towards Rome or the Papal court, but because, in conformity with the spirit of Cluny, a greater emphasis was laid upon the suffering Christ, and thus greater prominence was given to the sites connected with the Passion: thus Palestine tended to become a “Holy Land,” and Jerusalem itself the chief object of the pilgrim’s devotion. Thus, early in the 11th century, the thoughts of the leading and most vigorous element in the Latin Church began to turn towards Jerusalem and predisposed men to regard the liberation of the holy sites of Palestine from infidel rule as a work of piety.

In 1074 Pope Gregory VII., himself a product of the Cluniac movement, laid a programme of reform before a council assembled at Rome; the liberation of Jerusalem did not actually figure in this programme, but later in the same year (on Dec. 7) we find it expressed in a letter to Henry IV. (cf. Gregor. Pp. VII. _Epist._ II. 31, in Jaffe: _Mon. Greg._, pp. 14415, but a previous suggestion had been made by Silvester II. as far back as 999). No doubt the news of the Saljuq advance into Asia Minor had something to do with his proposal, the report of vast numbers of “Christians living beyond the seas” slain by “the pagans” so that the Christian community was reduced to nothing (id. p. 145), but the chief point was that Gregory and his party looked at the world through a Cluniac medium and so to them Palestine was the “Holy Land,” and it was a terrible thought that the sacred sites of Christ’s passion were in the hands of unbelievers. The violent storms aroused by the reforming programme of 1074, however, prevented any action being taken in this direction.

(iii) _Third Period. Fatimid decline._ (A.H. 469-564 = A.D. 1076-1168.)

When Urban II. became Pope in 1087 events had moved forward with startling rapidity. In 1076 Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of the Saljuqs, and the Byzantine Empire was practically deprived of all its Asiatic possessions, so that both Egypt and Byzantium were at bay. In this desperate crisis the Greeks made an appeal to the West, and this was laid before two councils assembled in the year 1095, the one at Piacenza in March, the other at Clermont-Ferrand in November, and from these councils proceeded the First Crusade.

At the moment the three great powers in the Near East were the Byzantine Empire, the Fatimid Khalifate, and the Saljuq Sultanate, but of these the two former were on the defensive and steadily losing ground; the Fatimids had just suffered the loss of Jerusalem, the Greeks had lost North-West Syria and practically all of Asia Minor. The Saljuqs were the leading military power and held the Khalifate of Baghdad absolutely in subjection, but they already showed signs of decline, their empire was beginning to be divided amongst provincial rulers known as _atabegs_, and these were getting to be more or less independent of the central authority: it was the old story of the Khalifate over again. Both in Cairo and in Baghdad the real power was in the hands of the wazir or prime minister.

In 1097 the First Crusade came east: its advent was hailed by Byzantium and by the Fatimids, both believing that it would prove a check to the Saljuqs. The Greeks were the first to be undeceived, and soon found that the Crusaders were extremely undesirable neighbours. The Fatimids were anxious to join in alliance with the Crusading forces but wanted to recover Jerusalem. It was a purely religious motive which prevented this,—the Crusaders were unwilling to leave the Holy Sepulchre in Muslim hands.

So far as the history of Western Asia is concerned the Crusaders produced very great results, but these were purely destructive in character. They checked the Saljuqs and effectively broke their power, though that power had already commenced its decline before the Crusaders’ arrival: but this only made way for a new Kurdish power. The Crusades as a religious war provoked an anti-Crusading movement, quite distinctly religious in its character, on the Muslim side,—a Holy War to resist the champions of the Cross. The first mover in this was Zengi atabeg of Mosul, and it was continued by his son Nur ad-Din. In the employ of these atabegs of Mosul was a Kurdish soldier named Ayyub who, at the death of Zengi in 541 (= A.D. 1146) moved to Damascus, and eight years later became governor of the city. From him were descended the Ayyubites, Shirkuh and his nephew Salah ad-Din, the instruments by which the Fatimid Khalifate was finally destroyed. It was not the rise of a new power but merely the development of one of the minor local states formed from the disintegrating Saljuq empire.

The immediate result of the Crusades lay in the formation of Latin states in Palestine and Syria, at Jerusalem, Edessa, and Antioch, and in the final exclusion of the Fatimids from Syria, but none of these states had any stable foundation. Only in quite minor issues can we find any permanent traces of the Crusaders’ presence in Asia. In the East their memory lives as a legend of tyranny and religious intolerance, whilst a few Arab tribes preserve a tradition of Crusading blood. In the West it may be possible to argue that only the Carmelite Friars show any enduring trace of the Crusades: almost every influence which has been traced to the Crusades seems to have been due to intercourse between Muslim and Christian in Spain, or to Frederick II. in Naples and Sicily,—though, of course, it might be argued that Frederick himself was a product of the Crusading age: yet it must be remembered that Frederick came more under the influence of Jews and Muslims expelled from Spain by the intolerance of the Muwahhid rulers.

The work of Salah ad-Din who put an end to the Fatimid Khalifate of Egypt and to the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, restored the semblance of authority to the ʿAbbasid Khalifate of Baghdad, but the following period 567-656 (= A.D. 1171-1258) saw no real reconstruction of the Khalifate: existing conditions were merely bolstered up whilst internal decay proceeded on its course. In 656 (= A.D. 1258) the Khalif finally went down before the Mongol invasion which was simply destructive in its results. It was not until two centuries later that the Ottoman Turks sweeping westwards evolved a new order from these elements of decay and founded an empire which has lasted some 500 years, receiving from the last exiled representative of the ʿAbbasids such title as he could give to the historic Khalifate, and practically re-organising the Sunni Muslim world on strictly orthodox and traditional lines so that, in spite of occasional dissentients, it generally won the esteem and loyalty of the world of Islam.

XX.

THE LATER HISTORY OF THE ISMAʿILIAN SECT

The Fatimid Khalifate had its origin in a religious sect which professed to represent the true Islam transmitted through a line of seven Imams who alone understood the real meaning of the religion proclaimed by the Prophet Muhammad: the first of these was the Prophet’s son-in-law ʿAli, and the last Ismaʿil the son of Jaʿfar as-Sadiq or his son Muhammad, with whom, according to the earlier teaching, the line ended as the Imam passed into concealment, the leaders of the sect keeping the teaching alive and preparing the way for his return to the visible world. At a later date the leaders claimed themselves to be the Imam’s descendants, the “concealment” being no more than a hiding from the persecuting Khalifs of Baghdad, and so they were the continuers of the sacred tradition, and on this claim rested the Khalifate of Kairawan and of Egypt. It is, of course, extremely difficult to make anything like a fair estimate of the religious work and influence connected with such a movement, and especially because it professed to cover its religious teaching with a veil of secrecy, and also because, during the duration of the Fatimid Khalifate in Egypt, the historians are almost exclusively occupied with recording the political activities of the rulers and make only occasional and allusive references to the sect as a religious body. It seems possible to distinguish three different elements in the sect, (i) the philosophical element which is one of the results of Greek philosophy and especially of the teaching of Aristotle as interpreted by the neo-Platonists and represented in an oriental dress after passing through a Syrian and Persian medium. Such teaching is traditionally associated with Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, and seems to have been the real doctrine of the sect at its first formation, but that was revealed only to the initiated, and apparently it was never checked or restated in the light of the more accurate study of the text of Aristotle which was the work of the “philosophers” of the fourth century A.H. (ii) The definitely Shiʿite doctrine of the incarnation of the divine spirit in the Imam passed on by transmigration from ʿAli to his descendants. And (iii) the purely political element which cared nothing about philosophical speculation or Shiʿite doctrine, but saw in the sect promising elements of a conspiracy against the ʿAbbasid Khalifate. But it does not seem true to say that the whole movement was wholly political, as though there were no reality in the attachment to philosophical or Shiʿite ideas.

When the Ismaʿilian sect emerged first into the open arena in the Qarmatian rising the doctrinal element, especially (i), had effectively undermined all adherence to orthodox Islam; how long the Qarmatians remained attached to Shiʿite claims we do not know, but they do not seem to have attached much importance to them. In history the Qarmatians appear as simply anti-Muslim and offensively irreligious: they give evidence of no ideals whatever beyond the ordinary aspirations of brigands, though we must bear in mind that the only account of them is such as their enemies have given us. In fact they seem to have been simply a robber band released from all pretence of religious beliefs and inspired by a hatred of Islam due, no doubt, to oppression at the hands of Muslim rulers.