FATIMIDS IN THE MAGHREB
(910-1171)
`Alī ibn Abī Tālib al-Hāshemī, Caliph 656-661 (see RASHIDUN 4)
married
Fātimah az-Zahra bint Muḥammad al-Hashemī, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad
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Ḥusayn ibn `Alī al-Hāshemī, Third Shia Imam
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`Alī Zayn al-`Ābidin ibn Ḥusayn al-Hāshemī, Fourth Shia Imam
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Muḥammad al-Bāqir ibn `Alī al-Hāshemī, Fifth Shia Imam
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Ja`far aṣ-Ṣādiq ibn Muḥammad al-Hāshemī, Fifth Shia Imam
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Ismā`īl ibn Ja`far al-Hāshemī
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Muḥammad ibn Ismā`īl al-Hāshemī
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(The exact link here is difficult to establish - a reflection on the ideological significance of descent from the Prophet)
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`Abdallāh, Leader of the Ismā`īlī cell in Salamiya
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Ahmad ibn Abdallāh, Leader of the Ismā`īlī cell in Salamiya
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Ḥusayn ibn Ahmad
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Abū Muḥammad `Ubaydallāh al-Mahdī bi-Allāh Sa`īd ibn Ḥusayn al-Fātimī
910 – 934 Abū Muḥammad `Ubaydallāh al-Mahdī bi-Allāh Sa`īd ibn Ḥusayn al-Fātimī, First Fatimid Caliph. Leader of a farflung society of Shi'ites from Salamiya in Syria from 899, he formally declared himself Imam, the rightful successor of the Prophet - a step which his successors at Salamiya had avoided, since (among other things) they were from a collataral line. His followers were violently divided on this issue, the Abbasids were outraged and determined to eliminate him.
So the Imam fled west, through Egypt, to a cell which had been established by one of his operatives, Abu `Abdallāh, in Ikjan (now in Eastern Algeria). The Imam arrived there in 905, finding that Abu `Abdallāh had united the various berber tribes of the region into a competent force, but that they were in conflict with the rulers of North Africa, the Aghlabids, who were loyal to the Abbasids. The Imam fled on to Sijilmasa in the Moroccan desert. The conflict with Abu `Abdallāh was too much for the ailing Aghlabids - their government collapsed in 909 and the Emir fled to Egypt, leaving North Africa to the Fatimids.
In 910, with things settled, Abu `Abdallāh brought the Imam to Raqqada, the Aghlabids' capital, where the Imam declared himself Caliph, titling himself Al-Mahdī, "the Saviour." Within two years Al-Mahdī had killed Abu `Abdallāh and all his closest supporters. Having turned his subordinate's victory into his own, he began to march east. In 913 he took Tripoli, in 914 Barka and then Alexandria in Egypt. The Abbasids quaked, but the Fatimid forces were blocked by the river Nile and had to retreat to Alexandria. Eventually Abbasid forces arrived and forced the Fatimids back into the Maghreb.
In 919 the Fatimids returned with ships which were defeated by the Abbasid navy at Abukir. Again the Fatimids were unable to cross the Nile. The Abbasids recaptured Alexandria in 921, while the Fatimid forces were in southern Egypt, forcing them to retreat back to Africa through the Sahara. Casualties were high.
Several further invasions of Egypt were unsuccessful, but the Fatimids well and truly consolidated their hold over everything to the west. A new capital, Al-Mahdiyya (modern Mahdia, Tunisia), was built in 921. By the time of al-Mahdī's death in 934, Fatimid rule stretched from the Atlantic nearly to the Nile and from the Sahara to southern Italy.
1) Abū'l-Qāsim al-Qā`im bi Amr Allāh Muḥammad al-Fātimī, Second Fatimid Caliph (see below).
934 – 946 Abū'l-Qāsim al-Qā`im bi Amr Allāh Muḥammad al-Fātimī, Second Fatimid Caliph. Probably son of his predeccessor, he led the army against Egypt in 914 and 919-921 and was well-prepared for rule when his father died in 934. He dispatched yet another expedition to Egypt almost immediately. Reaching the Nile, the Fatimid forces induced the Abbasid navy to revolt. Success seemed certain when a talented Abbasid general, al-Ikhshid, appeared and drove the Fatimids out of Egypt. The general subsequently took power as an independent ruler, so while the Fatimid invasion had failed to seize Egypt, they had inadvertantly succeeded in destroying Abbasid power on the banks of the Nile.
In 943, the Fatimids' external ambitions were interrupted - a Kharijite Berber, the Man on the Donkey, launched an all-out revolt against Fatimid rule in North Africa. Qayrawan, the original base of Fatimid power and Raqqada, the old Aghlabid capital, were lost and Al-Mahdiyya beseiged. The conflict slowly turned in the Fatimids' favour, but was still on-going when Al-Qā`im died in 946.
1) Abū Ṭāhir al-Manṣur Ismā`īl al-Fātimī, Third Fatimid Caliph (see below)
947 – 953 Abū Ṭāhir al-Manṣur Ismā`īl al-Fātimī, Third Fatimid Caliph. From 943, he led the long war against the Man on the Donkey for the survival of the Fatimid Caliphate. So deep was the peril that he refused to assume the title of Caliph until the war was over, at which time he took the throne name Al-Manṣur, "the Victor." The rest of his reign was a slow process of reconsolidation, capped by the foundation of a new capital, al-Mansuriyya (near Kairouan, Tunisia). At his death in 953, the Fatimid Caliphate was safe once more - and ready to grow further.
1) Abū Tamīm al-Mu`izz Ma`add al-Fātimī, Fourth Fatimid Caliph (see below).
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