Chapter XII: Part 12

The Khalifate at Kairawan and Cairo presents a much better test of the religious tendencies of the Ismaʿilian sect. In this case the sectarian leaders established a strong government and, on the whole, ruled well. The government was founded by those who seem to have believed sincerely in the Fatimid claims, but the great majority of the subject population had no sympathies in that direction: they were quite willing to be ruled by Shiʿites, but had no inclination to turn Shiʿite themselves. The extravagant claims of incarnation etc. which made so strong an appeal to the Persians found the Berbers and Egyptians irresponsive. The Ismaʿilians made an attempt to press them into their sect when first the Mahdi was established at Kairawan, but this policy was soon abandoned and very rarely tried again, though it seems that the regular meetings of the sect and the instructions given by the duʿat were continued until some time after the reign of Hakim. For the most part the Fatimids were quite content with political power and did not interfere with the religious convictions of the people. The condition seems to have been that the Ismaʿilians formed a kind of free-masonry which was, to some extent, the “power behind the throne,” though it was by no means necessary for the officers of state to be members of that brotherhood themselves, and in later times, when the wazirs were practically independent princes, cases occur in which the official government is actually unfriendly towards it. In the later part of the Fatimid period the only mark which distinguished its rule from that of the orthodox Khalif at Baghdad seems to have been that the _khutba_ before the Friday sermon was said in the name of the Fatimid, and that of the ʿAbbasid was not mentioned. The whole sectarian teaching seems to have evaporated steadily in an Egyptian atmosphere which was one of steady indifference. The philosophical teaching which had been the first object of the sect, died away in Asia, and was then transmitted to Spain which formed a kind of _orbis ulterior_ of Islam, leaping over Egypt altogether, as though its premature development in the Ismaʿilian sect had inoculated the Fatimite community against it. The characteristically Persian doctrines of incarnation and transmigration took no hold in Egypt or Ilfrikiya: when they were vigorously preached by Persians in Hakim’s time they only provoked a riot.

We can hardly treat religion as a matter of race, for there seems no good evidence for extending heredity so as to include matters of cultural development: culture, which includes religion, is transmitted by contact not by descent, it is learned not inherited: and it is very doubtful how far psychological pre-dispositions can be inherited. But culture exists in different areas with distinctive characteristics so that it is not easy for persons of one culture-area to appreciate the outlook of those of another, although there is a constant culture-drift passing between the two. In North Africa there is a tendency to pay exaggerated honour, which might be described as actual worship, to the _murabits_ or saints, but it is quite independent of the incarnation theories which prevail in Persia and India, and so we may say that this, the characteristic tenet of the Ismaʿilis as Shiʿites, found itself in Egypt and North Africa in an unsympathetic atmosphere, and was gradually starved out. Perhaps we may take the accession of al-Hafiz in A.H. 524 = A.D. 1131, when the wazir in office was antagonistic to the Ismaʿili doctrines, as the probable date by which the doctrines of the Ismaʿili sect had ceased to have any meaning in Egypt, and consequently that in which the parent Ismaʿili sect was practically obsolete. Whatever may have been the sincerity of its first founders, of those whom we credit with a desire to spread the philosophical theories learned from Greek philosophers and formed into a body of doctrine subversive of the traditional teaching of Islam, or of those who were attached to the incarnation theories of the Persians, it is clear that the purely political element finally gained the upper hand, and in due time discarded all the religious and philosophical thought which, from their point of view, had outlived its utility. In Fatimid Egypt the sect was rather like a free-masonry under royal patronage, and when this patronage came to an end the sect died a natural death. That the teaching of Duruzi and Hamza in the reign of Hakim met with such violent opposition is convincing that Shiʿite teachings were uncongenial to the Egyptians, though it does seem that under Fatimid rule Cairo was much frequented by Persian visitors and pilgrims.

The subsequent influence of the Ismaʿili sect shows itself in off-shoots which do not connect with Egypt or North Africa. So far as we know the first Ismaʿili propaganda in India took place about A.H. 460 = A.D. 1067, about the time when the Fatimid Khalifate in Egypt was just coming to the end of its flourishing period. At that time a missionary named ʿAbdullah came from Yemen and preached in North-West India, and is claimed as the founder of a sect known as the Bohras which is found scattered through many of the trading centres of the Bombay presidency, though some attribute its foundation to a later teacher, the Mullah ʿAli. Many of the Bohras, however, have become Sunni (cf. Nur Allah ash-Shushtari, quoted in Arnold: _Preaching of Islam_, pp. 275-7).

The Khojah sect proper was founded by a daʿi named Nur ad-Din who was sent from Alamut about A.H. 495 (= A.D. 1101), or perhaps later, and so is an off-shoot of the Assassins (cf. p. 214 supra), Nur ad-Din changed his name to the Hindu Nur Satagar and made many converts from the lower castes of Gujerat. About A.D. 1430 the head of this Khojah sect was Pir Sadr ad-Din who adapted its teachings to suit Hindu ideas; according to him Muhammad was Brahma, ʿAli was Krisna in his tenth incarnation (avatar), thus accepting the previous nine incarnations of Hindu mythology and adding this extra one as an adaptation to Shiʿite ideas, and Adam was Siva. This Hindu rendering of Ismaʿilian ideas was detailed in a book which he produced and called the _Dasavatar_, which serves as the sacred book of the modern Khojahs and is read beside any member of the sect on his death-bed. In this semi-Hindu teaching it is difficult to trace any real continuity with historic Islam, and it is rather grotesque to find that the members of the sect, numerous in the chief trading towns of western India, have in recent years taken a leading part in Islamic agitations against British rule.

These Indian Khojahs represent the Assassin branch of the Fatimite wing, but there are other representatives of the same branch scattered all over the Muslim world, though nowhere forming an established community quite in the same way as in West India. The Bohras, or such of them as have not turned Sunni, represent the older parent stock of the Ismaʿilians. The Druzes of Mount Lebanon maintain the off-shoot formed during the later years of al-Hakim, and these show a clearer continuity than any other relic of the sect which set the Fatimid Khalifate upon the throne of Egypt.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(A.) Original authorities accessible in translations or extracts.

Abraham the Syrian.

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Ed. Fluegel, Leipzig, 1871. Written circ. 378 (= A.D. 988), invaluable for earlier Shiʿite history. Many authors such as Akhu Muhsin, Ibn Razzam, etc., are known only by citations in the Fihrist.

Gregory Bar Hebraeus _or_ Abu l-Faraj.

d. A.D. 1286. His great history was planned in three parts, of which part i. “the history of the dynasties” deals with political history. Syriac text edited by Bedjan, Paris, 1890. The Arabic translation by the author is enriched with matter which does not occur in the Syriac, ed. Pococke, Oxford, 1663; Arabic text Beirut, 1890.

Al-Kairawani. Muhammad b. ʿAli r-Rayni al-Kairawani.

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d. 809. Ed. Bulaq, 1284 (= 1867) in 7 vols. Prolegomena, text and French tr. in vols. 16-21 of Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la bib. nat.

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d. 681. Wrote Wafiat ul-Aiyan (Biographical Dictionary), strongly anti-Fatimid. Ed. Wüstenfeld, Göttingen, 1835. Eng. Trans. (cited in references) by De Slane, 1835-40.

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d. 875. Ed. J. D. Carlyle, Maured Allatafet Jemaleddim. Cambridge, 1792 (very defective).

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Maqrizi, Ahmah b. ʿAli b. ʿAbdu l-Qadir al-Maqrizi (dz. 845).

Chief authority for the history and antiquities of Cairo. Favourably disposed towards the Fatimid Khalifs from whom he claimed descent.

Ed. Bulaq, A.H. 1270. Portions translated in De Sacy’s Chrestomathie. Part by Bouriant (but nothing relating to the Fatimids as yet reached in this translation. Pub. 1895, etc. in progress). Ed. Wiet, Cairo, 1911, etc. (a corrected text).

Wuestenfeld: Macrizi’s Geschichte der Copten. (Text and trans.) 1845.

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Only portions accessible, no full text published.

Dozy, Historia Abbadidarum, ii. 1846.

Dozy, Historia Siciliae, Arabice et Latine, 1790.

Hist. de la Sicilie, trad. par J. J. A. Caussin, Paris, year x (1802).

Osama.

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(Contains Osama’s own memoirs: invaluable for the reign of az-Zafir and the history immediately following.)

al-Qalqashandi.

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(B). Modern Writers.

De Goeje: Mémoires sur les Carmathes du Bahrain et les Fatimides. Leide, 1886.

Dozy: Essai sur l’histoire de l’Islamisme. Leide, 1879.

Dussand, R.: Histoire et religion des Nosairis. Paris, 1900.

Guyard: Fragments relatifs à la doctrine des Ismaélis. Paris, 1874.

Von Kremer: Kulturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen. 1875-7.

Lane Poole: Story of Cairo. Lond., 1906.

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Mann, J.: The Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs. Oxford, 1920.

Quatremère: Sur la dynastie des Khalifes Fatimites. (Journal asiat. for August, 1836. 3rd series, No. 2.)

Ravaisse: Essai sur l’histoire etc. d’après Makrizi.

Rivoira: Moslem architecture. Eng. trans. Oxford, 1918.

De Sacy: Exposé de la religion des Druzes. Paris, 1838 (2 vols.).

De Sacy: Chrestomathie (vols. i. and ii.).

Wuestenfeld: Geschichte d. Fatimiden Chalifen. Göttingen, 1881. (A series of extracts, not a connected history.)

Wuestenfeld: El-Macrizi’s Abhandlung. 1847.

Zaydam, G.: Umayyads and Abbasids. Lond., 1907.

INDEX

A

ʿAbbas, 229

—wazir, 230

Abdan, 45

ʿAbdullah, founder (or reformer) of Ismaʿilite sect, 16, 17, 21, 32

ʿAbdullah b. Essaig, minister to the Aghlabids, 66

Abu ʿAbdullah, missionary in N. Africa, 57 sqq.

—suspected, 69

—executed, 71

Abu Khatam’s sect, 48

Abu Najah, the monk and minister of finance, 220

Abu Raqwa, Umayyad claimant in

—invades Egypt, 149 sqq.

—N. Africa, 147 sqq.

—defeated, 151

—death, 152

Aghlabid dynasty in N. Africa, 59, 247

Ahmad, son of Abdullah, 33

Ahmah, wazir to al-Hafiz, 222-223

Al-Adid, 235

Al-Afdal, 216-220

Al-Amir, Khalif, 218

—assassinated, 220-221

Al-ʿAziz, Khalif, 115 sqq.

—death, 121-122

Aleppo, 175, 176, 195

Al-Faʿiz, Khalif, 233

Al-Hafiz, Khalif, 222

Al-Hakim, Khalif, 121, 123 sqq.

—peculiarities, 133

—mosques, 137-8

—disappears, 185 sqq.

—reports that he is still alive, 188

ʿAli, 4, 5

ʿAli Allahi, 16

ʿAlid lines of descent, 5, 11

Al-Jarjarai, 193, 196

Al-Mahadiya founded, 77

Al-Mansur, Khalif, 90, 91

Al-Moʿizz, Khalif, 93 sqq.

—goes to Egypt, 109

—his rule in Egypt, 113

Al-Mustali, Khalif, 210 sqq.

Al-Mustansir, Khalif, 88

Al-Qaʾim, Khalif, 88

Al-Yazuri, 196, 197, 198, 200, 203

Amalric, 239-242

Anushtegin, 191-196

Arab race, 1

Armenians in Egypt, 206, 223-224

As-Salih, 233, 235-236

Assassins, sect of, 209, 210 sqq., 244-245

Az-Zafir, Khalif, 227

Az-Zahir, Khalif, 189

B

Babists, 15

Badr the Armenian, 206, 208

Bahrayn taken by the Qarmatians, 49-50

Baldwin, 218-219

Barjawan, 124, 126, 130

—assassinated, 131

Barqa taken by Abu Raqwa, 148-149

Batinite doctrines, 7, 12, 176

Berbers, 55-56, 74 sqq.

B. Qorra, 147-148

Buraniyya sect, 48

Byzantium, treaty with, 191

C

Cairo founded, 102 sqq., 114

Christians, 2, 116, 141, 143-145, 155-158, 170, 179-180, 197-198, 226

—allowed to emigrate, 171

Cluniac movement, 252-254

“Companions” cursed, 142

—cursing stopped, 154, 169

Crusades, 216-218, 224, 236, 238-239, 241, 255

D

Daʿi or missionary of Shiʿite sect, 6, 7

—arguments used by Ismaʿilian daʿi, 21 sqq.

—Chief Daʿi, 135

Darazi, Persian teacher who visited Egypt, 176

Daylamites, 83

Daysan, 18

Dirgham, 236, 238

Druses, 43, 178-179, 187, 244

E

Egypt attacked, 78, 94

—Shiʿites in, 79

—disorder in Egypt, 97-98

—invaded by the Fatimids, 99 sqq.

F

Fadl, general under al-Hakim, 149, 152-153

Famine in Egypt, 190, 204-205

Fatimid claims, 34 sqq.; cf. ʿAlid lines of descent

—claims ridiculed, 116

—manifesto against, 166

Fatimid architecture, 106

—decline of Fatimids, 254

—end of Fatimid rule, 243-245

Forbidden vegetables, 141-142, 164

Fustat, 102

—fired by al-Hakim, 183

H

Haftakin, 111 sqq.

—prisoner, 119

Hamdan, 39, 40, 43

Hamza, 178, 179, 181

Hasan al Akhram, 178

Hasan b. Mufarraj revolts, 163

Hasan-i-Sabbah visits Egypt, 208 sqq., 212

Hasan Qarmatian leader, 47

Hashimites, 5

Hijaz, recognition of Fatimids in, 202-203

“House of Wisdom,” 139-140

Husayn Ahwazi, 39

Husayn b. Jawhar, 131, 132, 153-160

I

Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, 18

Ibn ʿAmmar, 124

—downfall, 126-127

Ibn Hawshab, 51 sqq.

Ibn Killis the Jew, 99, 114, 120

Ibn Nestorius, 120

Ibn Sallar wazir, 227

—revolts, 227-229

—murdered, 229-230

Idrisids, 76, 99

Ikhshids, 81, 83, 93, 107

Ikhwanu s-Safa, 139

Ismaʿil, 9

Ismaʿilian sect, 12 sqq., 29

—doctrine, 257-258

—off-shoots, 212, 260 sqq.

J

Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, 16, 37, 45, 161, 257

Jawhar, 98

—invades Egypt, 99 sqq.

Jerusalem, church of the Resurrection destroyed, 157

—city taken by the Turks, 207

—by the Crusaders, 216

—kingdom of, 216, 255

“Jewish legend,” 34, 47, 68

Jews, 2, 155-160, 170, 179-180

K

Kafur, 93 sqq.

—a patron of literature, 95

Kahira, cf. Cairo

Kairawan, 61, 64, 76, 85

—Khalifs of, 74 sqq.

Kasam, 47

Katama tribe, 57

Kaysanite sect, 5

Khalif, title of, 3

Kharijites, 56, 75

—revolt of, 88-89

“King” as title of the wazir, 224

L

Legitimist ideas of the Persians, 3, 14, 15

Licence issued by al-Hakim to non-Muslims, 145

M

Madina officials sent to remove articles from, 161

Maghrab, 55

Mahmud of Ghazna, 168, 249-250

Mani, 19

Mansuri sect, 7

Marcion, 19

Maymun, 18, 20

Muslim expansion, 2

N

Nasir ad-Dawla, 204-205

Nasir ad-Din, 229

—murders az-Zafir, 230-232

Nasir-i-Khusraw visits Egypt, 198 sqq., 209

Nizar’s revolt, 211-212

North Africa, 52 sqq.

—deserts the Fatimids, 200-201

Nuwayri’s account of oath taken by Ismaʿilis, 30

O

Okayl Arabs revolt, 164

Oman resists the Qarmatians, 50

Osama, 225 sqq., 230

P

Patriarch imprisoned by al-Hakim, 158

—released, 180-181

Persians, 3, 7

Princess Royal al-Hakim’s sister, 182-184, 189

Palestine and Syria lost to the Fatimids, 219

Q

Qadi, office of, 134

R

Raqada, 64

—taken by Abu ʿAbdullah, 67, 69

Rudwan, 224-225

S

Sabʿiya, Ismaʿilian sect, 10, 17

—grades, 21 sqq.

Saladin, 238-239, 243, 256

Saljuq Turks, 201, 207, 215, 219, 251, 254

“Seveners,” cf. Sabʿiya

Shawar, 236-243

Shiʿites, 4, 16

—sects, 6; cf. Ismaʿilians

—claims, 42

Shirkuh, 236, 238, 239, 241

Sicily revolts, 77

Syria, 102, 117, 126-127, 129, 136, 163, 174, 175, 191-195, 234

—lost to the Fatimids, 219

T

Tekin, 79 sqq.

Transmigration, 14

Tripoli, 77

Turks, cf. Saljuq

“Twelvers,” 10

U

ʿUbayd Allah, 33, 61 sqq.

—journey to N. Africa, 62

—imprisoned, 62

—liberated, 67 sqq.

W

Wine, laws against, 165

Y

Yahya’s sect, 48

Yemen, Ismaʿilians in, 51 sqq.

Yusuf, 184

Z

Zaqruya, 46

Ziadat Allah, 60, 62 sqq.