advent_of_the_fatimids

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2 The Advent of the Fatimids

with it a new era. A largely conservatively Sunni province of

the once unified 'Abbasid caliphate almost overnight became

Shi'i and would no longer pay allegiance in any form to the

supreme ruler in Baghdad.'

The even$ just recalled occurred in early Rajab zg6/late

March gog. The victory which had brought Aba 'Abdallih and

his Berber army to power gave him instant dominion over the

whole ofAghlabid territory, including the areas of modem Tu-

nisia, Algeria, portions of Libya, and Sicily. In realizing this

achievement, however, he was not acting for himself but on

behalf of an Imam who was at that triumphant moment still

under house arrest, two months' march away, in the distant

Maghribi town of Sijilmisa. The revolution~oughtby the da'i,though at last in possession of a vast political domain with its

attendant resources, was thus incomplete. Without its Imam it

lacked the real reason for its existence; the appeal, the da'wa,

on which it was based, and for which it was created, dependedon the safe arrival of the Imam and the eventual proclamation

of his caliphate and the right of his

Fatimid ancestors and de-

scendants to rule the Islamic world. But that was not to happen

for almost another ten months. Only in late Rabi' I1 zgy/Janu-

ary of 910. did the Imam finally reach Raqqida where he was

proclaimed caliph with the messianic regnal name of al-MahdL2

The interveningmonths were, however, critically important forthe new government. Abfi 'Abdallih, though long accustomed

I . For the broad general background to the Fatimid victory, see in

particular Moham edTalbi, LEmirat Aghlabi&(r84-296/8oo-gog) (Paris,

19 66 ); Farhat Dachraoui, Le Calijat Fafimidc a u Maghreb, 2 9 6 - 3 6 4 9 0 9 -973: hutoire, politique et institutions (Tunis, 1 9 8 1 ) . and most especially

Heinz Halm, Das Rdch dw Mahdi: Der Auptieg der Fatimiden (875-973)

(M unich, l g g ~ ) ,Eng. trans. M. Bonner, TheEm fireoflheMahdi: TheRiseof theF aiimids (Leiden, 19 96 ).

e. The most recent general study of the beginning of the Ismaili

movement and its relationship to the advent of al-Mahdi a s imam-caliphis Halm's Reich des Mahdi but see also the important article by W.

Madelung, 'Das Imamat in der fnihen ismailitischen Lehre ,' Derls lem,

37 (1 96 1) : 43 -1 35 , and Farhad Daftary, The Ism li'ib: Their Histoly and

Doctriner (Cambridge, ig g o ), especially 91-1 45 .



















































































































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