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ALBERUNI: India. An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws, and Astrology of India, about A.D. 1030. By Dr. Edward C. Sachau.

ARNOLD (Sir E.): Indian Poetry and Indian Idylls. Containing ‘The Indian Song of Songs,’ from the Sanskrit of the Gita Govinda of Jayadeva; Two Books from the ‘Iliad of India’ (Mahabharata); ‘Proverbial Wisdom,’ from the Shlokas of the Hitopadesa, and other Oriental Poems.

BARTH (Dr. A.): The Religions of India. Authorised Translation by Rev. J. Wood.

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DOWSON (Prof. J.): Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature.

EDKINS (Dr. J.): Chinese Buddhism: A Volume of Sketches, Historical, and Critical. New and Revised Edition.

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HAUG (Dr. M.): Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis.

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O’LEARY (De Lacy): Arabic Thought and its Place in History.

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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE
FATIMID KHALIFATE

BY
DE LACY O’LEARY, D.D.
Lecturer in Aramaic and Syriac, Bristol University
Author of “Arabic Thought and its Place in History”

LONDON:
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1923

Printed in Great Britain by
John Roberts Press Limited, London.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The following pages present a brief outline of the history of the Fatimid Khalifs who were ruling in Egypt at the time of the First and Second Crusades. Too often the student of European history gleans his knowledge of the oriental powers with which the West was brought into contact by the Crusades from western Christian writers, who do not fairly or truly describe those powers, and do not set forth clearly the strong and weak points which are so important in interpreting the actual forces with which the Crusaders were brought into contact. These pages are drawn from the Arabic and Persian historians so as to present a picture which, though inaccurate in some points, nevertheless shows the other side not perceived by the historians who wrote the narrative of the Crusades from a western standpoint. Directly, therefore, they supplement the western history, but are still more important in their indirect bearing as an effort has been made to show the rise and development of the Fatimid Khalifate and sect as a rival to the orthodox Abbasid Khalifate of Baghdad, which is most essential to the right understanding of the world into which the Crusaders penetrated, whilst at the same time it shows a curious and important phase of Muslim tendencies which are not without a bearing on the later history of Islam. The present essay does not claim to be an original study in a field hitherto unexplored, but simply aims at bringing together in an accessible form material which will be of service to the student of mediaeval western history and to those who are interested in the development of Islam, and to do so with such comments as will enable it to be co-ordinated with contemporary European history.

CONTENTS

I
THE SHIʿITES OR SCHISMATICS OF ISLAM

Islam appears first on the page of history as a purely Arab religion: indeed it is perfectly clear that the Prophet Mohammed, whilst intending it to be the one and only religion of the whole Arab race, did not contemplate its extension to foreign communities. “Throughout the land there shall be no second creed” was the Prophet’s message from his death-bed, and this was the guiding principle in the policy of the early Khalifs. The Prophet died in A.H. 11, and within the next ten years the Arabs, united under the leadership of his successors, extended their rule over Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia. To a large extent it was merely an accident that this rapid expansion of Arab rule was associated with the rise of Islam. The expanding movement had already commenced before the Prophet’s ministry, and was due to purely secular causes to the age long tendency of the Arabs,—as of every race at a similar stage of economic and social development,—to over-spread and plunder the cultured territories in their vicinity. The Arabs were nomadic dwellers in a comparatively unproductive area, and had been gradually pressed back into that area by the development of settled communities of cultivators in the better irrigated land upon its borders. These settled communities evolved an intensive agriculture, and thus achieved great wealth and an advanced state of civilization which was a perpetual temptation to the ruder nomads who, able to move over great distances with considerable rapidity, were always inclined to make plundering incursions into the territories of the prosperous agricultural and city states near at hand. The only restraint on these incursions was the military power of the settled communities which always had as its first task the raising of a barrier against the wild men of the desert: whenever the dyke gave way, the flood poured out. In the seventh century A.D. the restraining powers were the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Persia, and both of these, almost simultaneously, showed a sudden military collapse from which, in the natural course of events they would, no doubt, have recovered after a short interval; but the Arabs poured in at this moment of weakness, just as the Teutonic and other groups of central Europe had broken through the barriers of the western half of the Roman Empire; and at that moment, in the course of their incursion, they received a new coherence by the rise of the religion of Islam and, by the racial unity thus artificially produced, became more formidable.

In their outspread over Egypt and Western Asia the Arabs adopted the policy, partly deduced from the Qurʾan and partly based on the tradition of the first Khalif’s conduct in Arabia, of uncompromising warfare against all “polytheists,”—the creed of Islam was a pure unitarianism, and could contemplate no toleration of polytheism,—but of accommodation with those possessed of the divine revelation, even in the imperfect and corrupt form known to Christians and Jews. These “People of the Book” were not pressed to embrace Islam, but might remain as tribute-paying subjects of the Muslim rulers, with their own rights very fully secured. In all the conquered lands the progress of the Muslim religion was very gradual, and in all of them Christian and Jewish communities have maintained an independent continuous existence to the present day. Yet for all this there were very many conversions to the religion of the ruling race, and these were so numerous that within the first century of the Hijra the Arabs themselves were in a numerical minority in the Church of Islam. The alien converts, socially and intellectually developed in the culture of the Hellenistic world or of semi-Hellenistic Persia, were very far in advance of the ruling Arabs who were little better than half savages at the commencement of their career of conquest: and the unexpected inclusion of this more cultured element acted as a leaven in the Islamic community, and forced it to a rapid and somewhat violent evolution. It is wonderful that Islam had sufficient vigour and elasticity to be able to absorb such fresh elements and phases of thought, but that elasticity had its limits, and at a very early date sects began to form whose members the orthodox felt themselves unable to recognise as fellow Muslims.

These early sects which were generally regarded as heretical were, in most cases, reproductions of older pre-Islamic Persian and Mesopotamian religious systems, with a thin veneer of Muslim doctrine, and, in the second century of the Hijra, when they became most prominent, they were strongly tinctured with Hellenistic philosophical speculations which had already exercised a potent influence in Mesopotamia and Persia. In theory these sects were “legitimist” in their adherence to the principle of hereditary descent. Orthodox Islam accepted as a constitutional principle the leadership of an elected khalif or “successor,” a natural development of the tribal chieftainship familiar to the pre-Islamic Arabs. Amongst them the chief was elected in a tribal council, in which great weight was given to the tried warriors and aged men of experience, but in which all had a voice, and choice was made on what we should describe as democratic lines, and this remained the practice in the earlier age of Islam. Such a constitutional theory was no great novelty to those who had lived under the Roman Empire, but was entirely repugnant to those educated in Persian ideas, and who had learned to regard the kingship as hereditary in the sense that the semi-divine kingly soul passed by transmigration at the death of one sovereign to the body of his divinely appointed successor. This had been the Persian belief with regard to the Sasanid kings, and the Persians fully accepted Yazdegird, the last of these, as a re-incarnation of the princes of the semi-mythical Kayani dynasty to which they attributed their racial origin and their culture. Yazdegird died in A.H. 31 (= A.D. 652), and his death terminated the male line of the Persian royal family, but it was generally believed that his daughter, Shahr-banu, was married to Husayn, the son of the fourth Khalif ʿAli, so that in his descendants by this Persian princess the claims of Islam and of the ancient Persian deified kings were combined. Historically the evidence for this marriage seems to be questionable, but it is commonly accepted as an article of faith by the Persian Shiʿites.

At a quite early date the house of ʿAli began to receive the devoted adherence of the Persian converts. That ʿAli himself had been prominent as a champion of the rights of alien converts to equality in the brotherhood of Islam, and still more his harsh treatment by Muʿawiya, the founder of the ʿUmayyad dynasty, caused his name to serve as a rallying point for all those who were disaffected towards the official Khalifate. It is now the general Shiʿite belief that ʿAli, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, was his chief companion and chosen successor, the three preceding Khalifs being no more than usurpers who had kept him out of his just rights, and whose wrong doing he had borne with exemplary patience. ʿAli himself does not seem to have taken so pronounced a view, but he certainly regarded himself as injured by his exclusion from the Khalifate. It is not true to say with Muir (Caliphate, p. 301), that the idea of a divine Imamate or “leadership” was entirely the invention of later times because, as early as A.H. 32, in the reign of ʿUthman, the Jewish convert ʿAbdu b. Saba of Yemen,—a district which had been conquered by the Persian king Nushirwan, and settled by Persians for nearly a century before the coming of Islam, and so thoroughly impregnated with Persian ideas,—preached the divine right of ʿAli. This view he maintained afterwards when ʿAli was Khalif, in spite of ʿAli’s own disapproval, and at ʿAli’s murder in A.H. 40, he reiterated it in a more pronounced form: the martyred Khalif’s soul, he said, was in the clouds, his voice was heard in the thunder, his presence was revealed in the lightning: in due course he would descend to earth again, and meanwhile his spirit, a divine emanation, was passed on by re-birth to the imams his successors.

Certainly the tragedy of Kerbela, which centred in the pathetic sufferings and death of ʿAli’s son, Husayn, as he was on his way to claim the Khalifate, produced a tremendous wave of pro-ʿAlid feeling: indeed a popular martyr was the one thing needed to raise devotion to the house of ʿAli to the level of an emotional religion, though many, no doubt, supported the ʿAlid claims simply because they formed the most convenient pretext for opposing the official Khalifate, and yet remaining outwardly within the fold of Islam.

After the death of Husayn there were three different lines of ʿAlids which competed for the allegiance of the legitimist faction, those descended from (i.) Hasan, and (ii.) Husayn, the two sons of ʿAli by his wife Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, and both therefore representing the next of kin to the Prophet who left no son, and (iii.) the house of Muhammad, the son of ʿAli, by another wife known as the Hanifite. Of these three we may disregard the descendants of (i.) Hasan, who ultimately migrated to Maghrab (Morocco), and became the progenitors of the Idrisid dynasty and of the Sharifs of Morocco: they formed a very moderate branch of the Shiʿite faction, adopted many practices of the orthodox or Sunni party, and had no part in the peculiarly Persian developments of the Asiatic Shiʿites. The first ʿAlid faction to become prominent was (iii.) the partisans of Muhammad, the son of the Hanifite, who were formed into a society by Kaysan, a freedman of ʿAli, for the purpose of avenging Hasan and Husayn. They recognised a succession of four Imams or valid commanders, ʿAli, Hasan, Husayn, and Muhammad, the son of the Hanifite, and maintained that, at Husayn’s death, Muhammad became de jure the Khalif and the divinely appointed head of the Church of Islam. Muhammad himself entirely disowned these partisans, but that was a detail to which they paid no attention. At Muhammad’s death in A.H. 81 this party, “the Kaysanites” as they were called, recognised his son Abu Hashim as the fifth Imam until A.H. 98, when he died childless after bequeathing his claims to Muhammad b. ʿAli b. ʿAbdullah (d. A.H. 126), who was not of the house of ʿAli at all, and who became the founder of the ʿAbbasid dynasty which obtained the Khalifate in A.H. 132. It was under Abu Hashim that the party, now changed in name from Kaysanites to Hashimites, became an admirably organised conspiracy which contributed more than anything else to the overthrow of the ʿUmayyad Khalifs. Throughout the Muslim dominions there was deep and ever-increasing dissatisfaction with the ʿUmayyads, who represented an arrogant parvenu Arab aristocracy, ruling over races who enjoyed an older and richer culture, and were by no means effete. The Hashimites seized hold of this discontent and sent out their missionaries (daʿi, plur. duʿat) in all directions disguised as merchants and pilgrims who relied upon private conversations and informal intercourse rather than public preaching, and thus began that unostentatious but effective propaganda, which has ever since been the chief missionary method of Islam. Hashimite teaching centered in the doctrines of tawakkuf or the theory of a divinely appointed Imam, who alone was the rightful Commander of the faithful and their authoritative teacher, of hulul or the incarnation of the Divine Spirit in the Imam, and of tenasukhu l-Arwah or the transmigration of that Spirit from each Imam to his valid successor, doctrines alien to Islam proper. With the death of the Abu Hashim this party passed over to the service of the ʿAbbasids to whom it was a source of great strength, and at their accession to the Khalifate it ceased to exist as a sect.

The most important sect, or group of sects, of the Shiʿites was (ii.) the faction which recognised Husayn as the third Imam, and his son, ʿAli Zayn al-Abidin (d. 94 A.H.) as his successor, the son of the Imam and of the royal princess of Persia. But at al-Abidin’s death this party split into two, some following his son Zayd (d. 121), others his son Muhammad al-Bakir (d. 113). The former or Zaydite party established itself for a considerable period in North Persia, and still maintains itself in South Arabia. Zayd himself was the friend and pupil of the Muʿtazilite or rationalist leader Wasil ibn ʿAta, and the Zaydites have generally been regarded as more or less free thinkers. The majority of the Shiʿites, however, recognised Muhammad al-Bakir as the fifth Imam, and after his death Jaʿfar as-Sadiq (d. 148) as the sixth, though here again there was a schism, some regarding Abu Mansur, another son of Muhammad al-Bakir, as the sixth Imam. Abu Mansur seems to have been one of the first ʿAlids to endorse the divine rights claimed for them by their followers, and did so in an extreme form, asserting that he had ascended to heaven and obtained supernatural illumination. At this time all the extremer Shiʿites regarded the Imam as an incarnation of the Divine Spirit passed on from ʿAli, and many believed that ʿAli was the true prophet of God whose office had been fraudulently intercepted by Muhammad.

The Mansuris, however, were a minor sect, the majority of the Shiʿites followed Jaʿfar who was Imam at the time of the ʿAbbasid revolution. He was one of those who were deeply influenced by the traditions of Hellenistic philosophy and science, and was the author of works on chemistry, augury, and omens: he is usually credited with being the founder, or at least the chief exponent, of what are known as batinite views, that is to say, the allegorical interpretation of the Qurʾan as having an esoteric meaning, which can only be learned from the Imam who is illuminated by divine wisdom, and who alone is able to reveal its true sense. The inner meaning thus revealed was usually a more or less imperfect reproduction of Aristotelian doctrine as it had been handed down by the Syriac writers. Like his brother, Abu Mansur Jaʿfar fully endorsed the doctrine of a divine Imamate and the transmigration of the Divine Spirit, then tabernacled in himself, and it seems probable that Van Vloten (Recherches sur la domination arabe, 1894, pp. 44-45) is right in suggesting that the general promulgation of these beliefs amongst the Shiʿites was largely due to the labours of the Hashimite missionaries.

The contemporary establishment of the ʿAbbasids made a far-reaching change in the conditions of Islam. The Arabs began to take a secondary place, and Persian influences became predominant. In 135 the noble Persian family of the Barmecides began to furnish wazirs or Prime Ministers to the Khalifate, and controlled its policy for a period of fifty-four years. Nearly all important offices were given to Persians, and a distinct anti-Arab party was formed, known as the Shuʿubiyya, which produced a prolific controversial literature which expressed the hatred stored up under generations of ʿUmayyad misrule: the Arab was held up to derision, his pretensions to aristocratic descent were contrasted with the much more ancient genealogies of the Persian nobles, and he was portrayed as little better than an illiterate savage. In literature, in science, in Muslim jurisprudence and theology, and even in the scientific treatment of Arabic grammar, the Persians altogether surpassed the Arabs, so that we must be careful not to talk of Arab philosophy, Arab science, etc., in the history of Muslim civilization, but always of Arabic philosophy, etc., remembering that it was not the science and philosophy of the Arabs, but that of the Arabic speaking people, amongst whom only a small minority were actually of Arab race: and this applies to the “golden age” of Arabic literature (A.H. 132-232). On the other hand it must be remembered that, indirectly and unintentionally, the ʿUmayyads had helped towards this result. It was under their rule that the Arabic language had been introduced into the public administration, and in due course replaced Greek and Persian in all public business, so that it became the common speech of all Western Asia, or at least a common medium of intercourse between those who used various languages in their private life, and thus the brilliant intellectual and literary renascence was rendered possible by a wide exchange of thought.

We may rightly refer to this period as a renascence, for it meant quickening into new and other life the embers of the later Hellenistic culture, and especially of the Aristotelian philosophy and medical and natural science, which had never quite died away in Western Asia, but had been checked by its passage into Syriac-speaking and Persian-speaking communities, amongst whom the language in which the original authorities were written was only imperfectly known. Thus Hellenism suffered a phase of provincialism, which came to an end when Arabic appeared as a more or less cosmopolitan language, and thought began to be exchanged by different races and social groups. Under the early ʿAbbasids, and especially under the Khalif al-Maʾmun (A.H. 198-218), there was a vast amount of translation from Greek into Arabic until the greater part of Aristotle, of the neo-Platonic commentators on Aristotle, of Galen, some parts of Plato, and other material, were freely accessible to the Muslim world: whilst at the same time translations were made from Indian writers on mathematics, medicine, and astronomy, some directly from the Sanskrit, and others from old Persian versions.

As a result the philosophical speculations of the Greeks began to act as a solvent upon Islamic theology, and from this doctrinal discussions and controversies arose which, on the one side, produced a series of rationalistic heresies, and on the other side laid the foundations of an orthodox Muslim scholasticism. Long before this Hellenistic influences had permeated Persia and Mesopotamia, and these now revived and resulted in a philosophical presentation of religion which, under the veil of allegorical explanations of the Qurʾan, was really undermining orthodox doctrine, and heading towards either pantheism or simple agnosticism. With these tendencies the pro-Persian party was particularly associated. The Khalifs who, in spite of Arab birth, were most devoted to Persian ideas, largely because the Persians were subtle courtiers and were the champions of absolutism, were amongst those most ardent in promoting the study of Greek philosophy; and the Imams, such as Jaʿfar and his brother Zayd, were even more devotedly attached to this type of philosophical speculation which was acting as a powerful solvent on the traditional beliefs of orthodox Islam.

At Jaʿfar’s death another schism took place, indeed the perpetual sub-division into new sects has always been a salient characteristic of the Shiʿiya. Jaʿfar had nominated his son Ismaʿil as his successor, but afterwards disinherited him because he had been found in a state of intoxication and chose as heir his second son, Musa al-Qazam. There were some, however, who still adhered to Ismaʿil, and refused to admit that his father had power to transfer the divinely ordained succession at will; they asserted indeed that the son’s drunkenness was itself a sign of his superior illumination as showing that he knew that the ritual laws of the Qurʾan were not to be taken literally, but had an esoteric meaning which did not appear on the surface. Musa, the seventh Imam as generally reckoned, and his son, ʿAli ar-Rida (p. 202), the “two patient ones,” suffered harsh treatment at the hands of the contemporary ʿAbbasid rulers; they were brought from Madina by Harun ar-Rashid so as to be under the observation of the court, and in 148 Musa was poisoned by the wazir Ibn Khalid. His son ʿAli married the daughter of the Khalif Maʾmun, and was intended to be the heir to the throne. But Maʾmun very nearly provoked civil war by his strong Shiʿite sympathies, and when he perceived how dangerous a storm the projected accession of ʿAli was beginning to arouse, he extricated himself from the difficulty by procuring the Imam’s death. ʿAli al-Qazim was usually reckoned as the eighth Imam, the ninth was Muhammad al-Jawad (d. 220), the tenth ʿAli al-Hadi (d. 254), and the eleventh al-Hasan (d. 260), these two latter being buried at Samarra, which replaced Baghdad as the ʿAbbasid capital from A.H. 222 to 279. The town afterwards fell into decay, but has been colonised by Shiʿites, and is one of the places of Shiʿite pilgrimage. The twelfth Imam was Muhammad al-Muntazir, who in A.H. 260 “disappeared.” The mosque at Samarra is said to cover an underground vault into which he went and was no more seen. The “twelvers,” or Ithna ʿashariya, who to-day form the main body of the Shiʿites, and whose belief is the official religion of modern Persia, suppose that he is still living, and the place where he is to re-appear when he emerges from concealment is one of the sacred spots visited by the Shiʿites.

But, as we have already noted, some of the Shiʿites did not accept Jaʿfar’s transference of the Imamate from his son Ismaʿil to his second son Musa, but recognised Ismaʿil still as heir. Ismaʿil died in 145 whilst his father was still alive, leaving a son named Muhammad. Although Ismaʿil’s body was publicly shown before its burial at al-Bakiʿ, many persisted in believing that he was not dead, and asserted that he had been seen in Basra after his supposed funeral; others admitted his death, but believed that his Imamate had passed to his son Muhammad; others again believed that his soul had migrated to Muhammad, so that they were in reality one person. These adherents of Ismaʿil, or of his son Muhammad, or of Ismaʿil-Muhammad, formed the sect known as the Ismaʿilians or the Sabʿiya, i.e., “seveners,” accepting the six Imams to Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, and adding his son or grandson as the seventh and last.

These “seveners” seem to have been a comparatively minor sect of the extremer Shiʿites. Some members of the sect are still to be found in the neighbourhood of Bombay and Surat. But, about 250 this comparatively obscure sect was taken in hand and organised by a singularly able leader, and became for a time one of the most powerful forces in Islam.

GENEALOGY OF THE FAMILY OF ʿALI

(1) ʿAli d. 41.
+-----------------------------+
| |
marr. (i) Fatima (ii) al-Hanifiya
+---------------------+ |
| | |
(3) Hasan d. 50. (3) Husayn d. 61. Muhammad
| |
Hasan |
+-------------+ |
| | |
Muhammad Abd Allah (4) ʿAli Zayn d. 94.
| | +-------------------+
| | | |
(Sherifs of Idris Zayd (5) Muhammad
Morocco) | | al-Bakir d. 113.
(Idrisids (Zaydites |
of N. Africa) of N. Persia (6) Jaʿfar as-Sadiq
and S. Arabia) d. 148.
+------------------+
| |
(7)* Ismaʿil (7) Musa
| d. 183.
Muhammad |
| (8) ʿAli ar-Rida
(alleged d. 202.
descent of |
Fatimids) (9) Muhammad al-Jawad
d. 220.
(10) ʿAli al-Hadi
d. 254.
(11) al Hasan al
Askari d. 260.
|
(12) Muhammad
al-Muntazar
“disappeared”
A. H. 260.

II
THE ISMAʿILIAN SECT

From the beginning the neo-Ismaʿilian sect showed all the characteristics of the ultra Shiʿite bodies: it accepted the ʿalim l-batin, or the principle of allegorical interpretation which is especially associated with Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, the doctrine of incarnation, and of the transmigration of the Imam’s soul. But underneath all this, borrowed from current Shiʿite ideas, it had a strong element of agnosticism, a heritage of the philosophical ideas borrowed from Greek scientists, and developed in certain directions by the Muʿtazilites. As organised by its leader, whose name was Abdullah b. Maymun, it was arranged in seven grades to which members were admitted by successive initiations, and which diverged more and more from orthodox Islam until its final and highest stages were simply agnostic. According to Stanley Lane-Poole “in its inner essence Shiʿism, the religion of the Fatimids is not Mohammedanism at all. It merely took advantage of an old schism in Islam to graft upon it a totally new and largely political movement” (Lane-Poole: Story of Cairo, Lond., 1906, p. 113). In this passage “Shiʿism” is taken as denoting the sect of the “Seveners,” and the “political movement” is simply disaffection towards the Khalifate. Similarly Prof. Nicholson considers that “Filled with a fierce contempt of the Arabs and with a free-thinker’s contempt for Islam, Abdullah b. Maymun conceived the idea of a vast secret society which should be all things to all men, and which, by playing on the strongest passions and tempting the inmost weaknesses of human nature, should unite malcontents of every description in a conspiracy to overthrow the existing régime” (Nicholson: Literary History of the Arabs, pp. 271-272).

Undoubtedly the ideas involved in the Ismaʿilian doctrines were totally subversive of the teachings of Islam, but so were those of the “philosophers,” and in exactly the same way. The views of Ibn Tufayl (d. 531 A.H.) and of Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595 A.H.) were purely Aristotelian in basis, and on this foundation was built up an agnostic-pantheistic superstructure. Ibn Tufayl particularly makes it quite clear that his teaching is not consistent with the Qurʾan which he treats as setting forth a system of doctrines and ritual precepts suitable for the unlearned who ought not to be disturbed in their simple faith, but quite inadequate for the satisfaction of the more intelligent: the mysteries of the universe, revealed through Aristotle and his followers, furnish a sounder religion, but it is expedient that this be reserved for the enlightened and not divulged to the illiterate who are unable to appreciate or understand its bearing. Such teaching is subversive of orthodox Islam, and consciously so: in the case of ʿAbdullah it may, perhaps, be described as a conspiracy against religion. In one sense it was the final product of the rationalism of the Muʿtazilites.

Admittedly the Ismaʿiliya worked as a political conspiracy against the ʿAbbasids, but this was true of every Shiʿite sect: the ʿAbbasids had used the Shiʿites in seating themselves on the throne, and then discarded them. Still it seems that we have no reason to question the perfect sincerity of the Ismaʿilians in their agnostic principles: those principles were the product of the solvent influence of Greek philosophy upon the religion of Islam: Islamic thought was too simple and primitive to be able to adapt itself to that philosophy in its entirety, hence some such position as that of Ibn Tufayl, or of Ibn Rushd, or of the Ismaʿilians, was inevitable. It was equally a necessary result of the time and circumstances that these rationalists tended towards the Shiʿites. In spite of weird superstitions, especially current in Khurasan, the Shiʿites represent the Muslim element most kindly disposed towards freedom of thought. This seems a bold statement to those familiar with Shiʿites of the present day, but it must be noted that the Shiʿites whom the European most frequently meets are either the devotees who have settled in places like Samarra, or those who seem to be more exclusive than the orthodox Muslims, chiefly because they have as yet had much less intercourse with foreigners. In 2-3rd cent. Islam it was the Shiʿite princes who invariably did their best to foster philosophical and scientific research, whilst, after A.H. 232, the orthodox party, as it gets in the ascendent, becomes distinctly reactionary, and tends to repressive persecution.

The most difficult task for us is to appreciate the strong appeal which the doctrines of incarnation and transmigration made to the Persian and Mesopotamian mind. Both these doctrines had figured prominently in pre-Islamic religions in Western Asia; and both recur in most religious movements from the coming of Islam to the present day in that particular area. We may note a few instances to illustrate this, and show incidentally the strong attraction these doctrines had for the Persian mind.

Abu Muslim was the general who more than any other helped to seat the ʿAbbasids on the throne, and suffered death at the hands of the first ʿAbbasid Khalif, who was jealous,—with good cause, it would appear,—of his excessive power. But Abu Muslim had exercised an extraordinary influence over men during life, and was treated as a quasi-divine hero after death, his admirers regarding him as not really dead but as having passed into “concealment,” some other having been miraculously substituted for him at the moment of execution. This resembles the theory which the pre-Islamic Persian teacher Mani held as to Christ. Mani fully accepted Christ as a religious teacher, side by side with Zoroaster and Buddha, but he could not admit the reality of his death, for a material body capable of death was in his view unworthy of one purely good. He supposed, therefore, that at the crucifixion Simon of Cyrene was at the last moment substituted for Christ, and this Persian idea has actually obtained a place in the Qurʾan (cf. Sura 4, 156).

Not long after Abu Muslim we hear of a pseudo-prophet named Bih-afaridh, a Zoroastrian who had travelled in the far East, and afterwards accepted Islam at the hands of two duʿat who were preaching the cult of Abu Muslim. Very little is known of his teaching, but he certainly maintained the doctrine that the Imam is an incarnation of the Deity, and seems to have attached a particularly sacred signification to the numeral seven. This superstitious reverence for particular numbers was a common feature in the pre-Islamic religions of Mesopotamia, and we shall meet it again in the doctrines of the Ismaʿilians.

Another sect, of similarly pre-Islamic origin, was that known as the Rawandiyya from its origin at Rawand near Isfahan. Its members were king-worshippers in the old Persian sense, and a body of them travelled to Hashimiyya, where the Khalifs then had their residence, and tried to acclaim the Khalif al-Mansur as a god. He not only rejected the proffered adoration, but cast the leaders into prison. This was followed by an attempt to attack the palace, the Rawandis considering that, as the prince had disclaimed deity, he could be no valid ruler. For some centuries the sect, strongly disaffected towards the Khalifate, lingered on in Persia and had many sympathisers.

Under the next Khalif al-Mahdi, came the still more serious rebellion of al-Muqannaʿ, the “veiled prophet of Khurasan,” who asserted his own deity. He was killed in A.H. 169, but his followers, as usual, believed that he had not really suffered in person, but had passed into concealment and would in due course return again: they continued to form a distinct sect for some three hundred years.

Another pseudo-prophet of the same type was Babak al-Khurrami, who was executed in A.H. 222 or 223. He also declared himself to be an incarnation of the Divine Spirit, and asserted that the soul within him had already dwelt in his master Jawidan.

We might continue to extend the series very considerably by enumerating the various prophets and sects which reproduce these same general characteristics. The latest example occurs in the Babi movement, which still flourishes and has many converts in this country and in America. The first teacher of the Babists, Mirza ʿAli Muhammad (A.D. 1820-1851) claimed only to be a Mahdi or fore-runner of One who was to come, but his successor, Mirza Husayn ʿAli, declared himself to be the expected One, the incarnation of the Divine Spirit, which is an emanation of the Deity and is fairly equivalent to the Reason, Word, or Spirit of the Plotinian philosophy. In later times this doctrine has rather fallen into the background, perhaps as the result of western influences, but the earlier phase shows a repetition of the traditional Persian position. All these sects show common matter in the doctrines of incarnation, of transmigration, and of an esoteric teaching to be revealed only to the elect. Such were the extremer Shiʿite sects of mediaeval times, and such are their descendants of modern times. Even in Persia to-day, side by side with the more orthodox “Twelvers” of the state church and off-shoots such as the Babists, the latest of a long series of mystical developments from the Shiʿite stock, are the ʿAli Allahis who believe in the deity of the Imam ʿAli, and combine with this belief many elements from the ancient Zoroastrian religion, a survival of the older mediaeval Shiʿism which caused so much trouble to the Khalifate of Baghdad.

In the teaching of most of the Shiʿites it is believed that some deceased Imam was an incarnation of deity, and it is he who, not really dead as men suppose, has passed into concealment, to return again in the fulness of time, when this evil age in which the true Khalifate no longer exists has passed away. Meanwhile there is no valid Khalif or Imam upon earth, but only some Shah or king who acts as vicegerent of the hidden Imam until his return.

This digression serves to show us how strongly Persian thought always has inclined towards the idea of a divine incarnation in the honoured religious teacher, and towards that of transmigration of the soul from one such teacher to his successor. In the 3rd century A.H. probably no sect which did not hold such theories could have obtained a favourable hearing amongst the Persians who found Islam of the Arab type unsatisfying, and every radical religious movement was necessarily compelled to assume at least the externals of Shiʿism.

The Shiʿite party organised by ʿAbdullah is known by various names. It is called Ismaʿilian as representing the party adhering to Ismaʿil, the son of Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, and his son Muhammad, as against those who continued the succession of the Imamate through Musa; but the name is not strictly accurate as it seems that there was an Ismaʿilian sect proper existing before ʿAbdullah, and that his re-organisation was so drastic that we may regard the continuity as being severed; and it seems certain that some part of the earlier sect continued to exist independent of his reforms. It was, no doubt, its attachment to a deceased or “hidden” Imam which made it a more promising field for the advocates of a speculative philosophy than any sect whose Imam was living and might dissociate himself from the doctrines held. It was also called the Sabʿiya or “Seveners” because it accepted seven Imams, and also because it attached a sacred significance to the numeral seven; there were seven prophets, seven Imams, seven Mahdis, seven grades of initiation (afterwards changed to nine), etc. In many respects Sabʿiya is the most accurate name, but it is open to the same objection as Ismaʿilian. More commonly its members are called Fatimites as recognising Fatimid Imams who claimed descent from ʿAli and Fatima: but this, although convenient because of its frequent use amongst mediaeval Arabic writers, is peculiarly inaccurate. The Ithna ʿashariya or sect of “Twelvers” was equally Fatimite, and so were the Zaydites, indeed these last were the true Fatimites as holding that any person descended from ʿAli and Fatima might be a valid Imam: but common usage allows the use of “Fatimites” for the sect organised by ʿAbdullah. Another name is Batinites or advocates of an allegorical interpretation, but this also applies to other Shiʿite groups. Sometimes they are called Qarmatians, but this name is only applicable to one branch of the sect which originated in the district of Sawad between Basra and Kufa, and should be reserved for that branch which at a later period became alienated from the main Ismaʿilian body.

The new sect carried out its propaganda by means of missionaries (daʿi) on the lines developed by the Hashimites. In this, as in most of its external features, it reproduces the characteristics usual amongst the mediaeval Shiʿites.

The organiser of the sect or masonic fraternity was ʿAbdullah, who is stated to have been the son of one Maymun. Sometimes ʿAbdullah is surnamed al-laddah (“the oculist”), as is done by Abu l-Feda, but more often this surname is given to his father Maymun. Maqrizi, referring to the Fatimids, says, “this family was traced to al-Husayn, the son of ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, but men are divided in the matter between two opinions: some treat it as true, but others deny that they are descendants of the Prophet and treat them as pretenders descended from Daysan the Dualist, who has given his name to the Dualists, and (say) that Daysan had a son whose name was Maymun al-Qaddah, and that he had a sect of extreme views. And Maymun had a son ʿAbdullah, and ʿAbdullah was learned in all the canon law and customs and sects” (Maqrizi, i. 348).

The reference to “Daysan the Dualist” is pure fable. This Daysan appears frequently in Arabic history as the legendary founder of the Zindiqs, a name given to the followers of the pre-Islamic cults of Mesopotamia and Persia, who found it convenient to make external profession of Islam. Thus Masʿudi (Muruj adh-Dhahab, viii. 293) says that “many heresies arose after the publication of the books of Mani, Ibn Daysan, and Marcion, translated from Persian and Pahlawi by ʿAbdullah ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and others.” Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ was a converted Zoroastrian who took a leading part in translating Persian and Syrian works into Arabic under the first two ʿAbbasids, and was generally regarded as privately adhering to his earlier religious views.

It will be noted that Zindiqism is mentioned as propagated by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, and is traced to Ibn Daysan amongst others, and this is precisely the same as the one whom Maqrizi names as the reputed progenitor of Maymun. Evidently the charge which lay at the bottom of this latter statement originally meant that Maymun was a Zindiq, and so could be described as a follower of Ibn Daysan, not that he actually was Ibn Daysan’s son, which would be an absurd anachronism. For the name Ibn Daysan refers to a perfectly genuine historical person: the Ibn Daysan of the Arabic writers was the Bar Daisan of Syriac literature, a convert from paganism to Christianity who died about A.D. 222, and whose followers formed an important sect at Edessa for several centuries, though in Muslim times he appears as a semi-legendary character. We possess a work probably written by one of his pupils called “A treatise on Fate” in the Christian writers, from which two lengthy extracts appear in Eusebius: Praep. Evangel. vi. 9, one of which is cited also in Clementine Recognitions ix., but is headed “Book of the Laws of Countries” in the Syriac text discovered by Cureton, and published by him in 1855. Various references are made to Bar Daisan in Euschius, Epiphanius, and other Church Fathers, as well as in the dialogues ascribed to Adamantius, but our best information as to his teaching is to be obtained from Moses bar Kepha (Patrol. Syr., I., ii. 513-5), whose summary is fully endorsed by the controversial essays of St. Ephraim, who settled at Edessa in 363 when the Bar-daisanites were a real force there. Bar Daisan’s doctrine, which is a kind of Christianized Zoroastrianism, is described by Prof. Burkitt in his introduction to Mitchell’s edition of St. Ephraim’s Prose Refutations.

Marcion represents an earlier and more definitely Christian system which at one time had a very wide extension, and probably was the medium through which Bar Daisan learned Christianity. It was a kind of dualistic system with two powers, the Good God and the Evil One. The Evil One was the creator whom the Jews worshipped as God, and the Good God sent his Son on earth to save men from this delusion: as in Zoroastrianism the two rival powers maintain an unceasing strife until the day of judgment when the good God will be finally victorious. From St. Ephraim we learn that the Marcionites long retained their hold in Northern Mesopotamia side by side with the Bar-daisanites.

Mani shows very much these same views in a Zoroastrian setting, but with a strong element of Marcionite Christianity. Mani’s work came some twenty years later than Bar Daisan, and he, in his early days, had been a disciple of the Mandeans, the Gnostic sect which Justin Martyr calls “the baptists” βαπτισταί (Justin M. Dial. 80) from their frequent ablutions, who were settled in the marsh land between Basra and Wasit on the lower Euphrates. All three, Bar Daisan, Marcion, and Mani, draw largely from the same source the eclectic mixture of old Babylonian religion, of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Christianity, which developed in the lower Euphrates valley, though Marcion claimed to be, and no doubt believed himself, an orthodox member of the Catholic Church, whilst Mani was no less confident in regarding himself as a Zoroastrian. The whole of the different religious ideas of the Euphrates valley were welded together by an element of Greek philosophy of the neo-Pythagorean type, which seems to have filtered in through the Jews who were settled there in force, and had shared in the common life of the Hellenistic world at the time when the neo-Pythagorean school was taking form, and showing marked sympathy towards the various forms of Eastern religious speculation. All this kind of eclectic speculation, half religious and half philosophical, lived on, and was still alive in the third cent. of the Hijra; indeed, it had spread and formed a new centre at Harran, quite distinct in its character, but obviously drawing from the same sources, and, moreover, it quickened into new life when the speculations of the neo-Platonic school were introduced through a Syriac medium. Traditionally all this type of thought prevalent in Mesopotamia was connected with the names of Marcion, Mani, and Bar Daisan, though probably very few Muslims had any clear idea of the respective parts these three characters had played, but simply cited them as heresiarchs of exceptional notoriety.

But Maymun was without doubt a real character. Abu l-Feda refers to him as a native of Qaraj or Ispahan, who professed to be a Shiʿite, but was really a Zindiq, i.e., a follower of the heresies of Marcion, Bar Daisan, and Mani, or else a materialist (Abu l-Feda, Annales Moslem., ii. 311). Used in this sense “materialist” means an Aristotelian, i.e., one who believed in the eternity of matter and so did not accept the Qurʾanic teaching of creation ex nihilo. Ibn Khaldun states that Maymun migrated to Jerusalem with a number of his disciples and became well known as a magician, fortune teller, astrologist, and alchemist (cf. Quatremère: Journ. Asiatique, Aug., 1836). The Fatimid advocates, as represented by the Druze writers, fully admit the descent of the Fatimids from Maymun, but claim that he was of the family of ʿAli (cf. De Sacy: Chrestom., ii., note 3 on page 95), which seems as though Maymun’s position as an ancestor of Abdullah’s family was beyond question.

In the passage already quoted Maqrizi describes ʿAbdullah as “learned in all the canon law and customs and sects,” so that it seems that he, the fortune teller’s son, was credited with being the original teacher and founder of the sect. Perhaps Maymun himself was the founder of a minor off-shoot of the Ismaʿilian body,—we hear of followers who went with him to Jerusalem,—and ʿAbdullah succeeded him as head of this group but, himself a student of philosophy like so many other Shiʿites, and participating in rationalistic opinions, used his position to form a kind of free-masonry, in which he developed more fully the principles already indicated by Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, and so made the Aristotelian and neo-Platonic teaching somewhat modified in a Persian guise, the “hidden meaning” of the Qurʾan. Probably he too was responsible for the efficient organizing of the sect, although its missionary propaganda was, as has been noted, reproduced from that of the Hashimites. He is said to have been the author of a book called al-Mizan, “the balance” (Abulfeda: Ann. Mus., ii. 310). According to Nuwairi, who used the history of Abu l-Hasan b. ʿAli Akhu-Muhsin, himself a descendant of Ismaʿil b. Jaʿfar and a contemporary of the chief activity of the Ismaʿilian sect, ʿAbdullah assumed Shiʿite views, not because he wanted to get men to recognise the Imamate of Ismaʿil or his son Muhammad, but simply as a device to attract adherents: such was Akhu-Muhsin’s view, no doubt a prejudiced one, but of some weight as undoubtedly the judgment of many contemporaries. It is, however, quite as probable that the ʿAlid theories were derived from the existing sect of which Maymun had been head, and were left unaltered by his son when he took it in hand.

In order to make proselytes, ʿAbdullah’s missionaries used to propose obscure questions about the Qurʾan and the doctrines of traditional Islam, with the object of showing that as generally held these doctrines were contrary to reason, and so required an explanation. The revelation of Islam, they said, was difficult, and hence there was much diversity of opinion and many sects and schools of thought, all of which caused an infinite amount of disedification and much trouble. The reason of these diverse opinions is that each man follows his own private judgment and forms his own conjectures, with the result that many end in utter unbelief. But God would not give a revelation full of such obscurity and ambiguity as the only guidance for men. It must be that there is some available guidance, some authoritative teacher who can explain the doctrine so that it may be both clear and certain, and such an infallible teacher implies an Imam. The daʿi then gave illustrations of the obscurities and difficulties which men are not able to understand by the light of their own reason. The pilgrims at Mecca throw stones and run between the two hills, Safa and Merwa,—what is the purpose and meaning of this? Why is it that a woman who has omitted a fast and prayer because prevented by reasons of personal impurity is required to fast afterwards to make up for her omission, but is not required to make up for the omitted prayer? Why did God take six days to create the world when he could quite well have created it in an hour? What does the Qurʾan mean when he refers in a figurative manner to the “way”? What is the meaning of the reference to the two angels who write and take note?—why cannot we see them? What really are the torments of hell? What mean the words “and over them on that day eight shall bear up the throne of thy Lord”? (Qur., 69, 17). What is Iblis?—Who are Yajuj and Majuj (Qur., 18, 93), and Harut and Marut (Qur., 2, 96)? Why have there been created seven heavens, and seven earths, and why are there seven verses in the Fatha? and many similar questions all designed to show that the Qurʾan is full of references to things which are not explained and need explaining, but to which the orthodox teachers are unable to give an explanation. All these are the conventional arguments which are commonly employed to prove that revelation is incomplete without an authorised teacher.

They then continued to ask other questions which throw a curious light on the kind of problems which interested the Muslims of the day, or which could be thought as deserving of attention. Why have men ten fingers and ten toes?—why are four fingers on each hand divided into three phalanges, whilst the thumbs have only two each?—why has the face seven openings?—why are there twelve dorsal vertebrae and seven cervical vertebrae? etc., constantly suggesting some mystic meaning as lying under particular numbers. They cited “on earth are signs of men of firm belief, and also in your own selves; will ye not then consider them?” (Qur., 51, 20-21): “God setteth forth these similitudes to men that haply they may reflect” (Qur., 14, 30), and “we will shew them our signs in (different) countries and among themselves, until it become plain to them that it is the truth.”

These suggestions produced doubt in the minds of many hearers, and gave the impression that the missionary had thought more deeply on the problems of religion than the ordinary teachers; and so the hearers were induced to ask the daʿi to instruct them and reveal the answers to some of the problems he proposed. Forthwith he would begin a discourse dealing with some of these questions, and then suddenly check himself: the religion of God is too precious to be disclosed to those who are not worthy and who may, perhaps, treat it with contempt: God has always required a pledge of those to whom he has disclosed his mysteries. Thus we read, “And remember that we have entered into covenant with the prophets and with thee, and with Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and Jesus the son of Mary; and we formed with them a strict covenant” (Qur., 33, 7), and again “some there were among the faithful who made good what they had promised to God” (id., 23),—“O believers, be faithful to your engagements” (Qur., 5, 1),—“be faithful in the covenant of God when ye have covenanted, and break not your oaths after ye have pledged them: for now ye have made God to stand surety for you” (Qur., 16, 93), and many similar passages. “So now,” the daʿi said, “pledge yourself, putting your right hand in mine, and promise me with the most inviolable oaths and assurances that you will not betray our secret, that you will assist no-one against us, that you are laying no snare for us, that you will use the truth only in speaking with us, and that you will not join any of our enemies against us.” By this means they discovered how far the would-be proselyte was ready to be submissive and obedient, and accustomed him to act in absolute conformity with his superiors. If the proselyte readily took this pledge, the missionary next said, “Give us now an offering from your goods and first fruits which shall be a preliminary to the disclosure which we are about to make to you of our doctrine, and a pledge which you will give for it.” By this they tested how far the proselyte was prepared to make sacrifices to join the sect, and how far he could be trusted to be a loyal and devoted member. Thus the proselyte was admitted to the First Grade which consisted of those who accepted the principle that the Qurʾan has both an external literal sense and an inner esoteric meaning which needs the help of an interpreter. The inner meaning was termed batin, or iman, “faith,” as distinguished from the external islam, and this distinction was justified by the words of Qur. 40, 14. “The Arabs of the desert say, ‘we believe.’ Say: ‘Ye believe not, but rather say, ‘we profess Islam’; for the faith has not yet found its way into your hearts.’”

The Second Grade. When the disciple had fully adopted the ideas taught in the first grade, and was convinced that men have fallen into error by accepting the traditional teachings of Islam, the daʿi used the ordinary arguments to persuade them that there was need of an authoritative teacher, and without such a teacher men are unable to please God or obey His laws. Great stress was laid upon the unreliability of private judgment and the need of guidance and authoritative teaching.

Third Grade. The daʿi next proceeds to point who can be accepted as the desired teacher and infallible guide, the Imam of Islam. There have been seven such Imams, as worthy of reverence by their religious characters as by their number, for the most important things in the universe, such as the planets, the heavens (Qur. 2, 29; 67, 3), the earths (id. 65, 12, of Bukhari Sahih 59, 2) are invariably in sevens. He then enumerates the seven Imams, the first six being ʿAli to Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, the seventh al-Kaʾim, “the chief,” whom some understand to be Jaʿfar’s son Ismaʿil, others his grandson Muhammad, whilst others again regard these two as but one. He next endeavoured to show that the other Shiʿites, who regard Musa as the seventh Imam, cannot be correct as they do not limit the Imams to the sacred number seven, but continue until twelve are reckoned in all. He then was accustomed to speak against the character of Musa, the son of Jaʿfar, asserting that Ismaʿil had deep knowledge of secret things, whilst Musa possessed no such supernatural enlightenment: he told anecdotes which placed Musa in an unfavourable light, and even attributed to him grave sins, so that it was impossible to regard him as the true Imam. Moreover it was agreed that, since Husayn, the Imamate can only be passed by direct succession, so it is not possible that it could be taken from one and given to his brother. The Ismaʿilians alone have inherited the accurate knowledge of secret mysteries bequeathed by Jaʿfar as-Sadiq to his son Ismaʿil.

Fourth Grade. In this grade instruction was given in the history of God’s revelation. The age of the world is divided into seven stages, each under the guidance of a prophet whose teaching surpassed that of his predecessors and abrogated it. Between each pair there were but “silent” guides who did not add to nor alter the revelation of the prophet who inaugurated that age. Each of these seven prophets had a coadjutor who was his authorised exponent to mankind at large. These seven prophets and coadjutors were—

• (i.) Adam, with coadjutor Seth.
• (ii.) Noah, with coadjutor Shem.
• (iii.) Abraham, with coadjutor Ismaʿil.
• (iv.) Moses, with coadjutor, at first Aaron, then Joshua.
• (v.) Jesus, with coadjutor Simon Sifa (Cephas).
• (vi.) Muhammad, with coadjutor ʿAli.
• (vii.) al-Kaʾim, with coadjutor ʿAbdullah.

Thus the seventh prophet al-Kaʾim, i.e., Ismaʿil or his son Muhammad, has abrogated the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad, and has given a new revelation. At this point, therefore, the convert was entirely separated from orthodox Islam which accepts Muhammad as the “seal of the prophets,” that is to say, the final completer of revelation, and was taught to regard his religion as obsolete.

Fifth Grade. In this grade it was taught that the traditional practices of the religion of Islam were merely temporary, a concession to the uninstructed multitude who could not yet understand the spiritual principles of iman: they were useful as an educative influence with the ignorant, but the Qurʾanic precepts on which some of them were based had an esoteric meaning quite other than their literal form, whilst the traditional rules which had added so much detail to the laws of the Qurʾan were baseless and negligible. The disciple was taught to replace the external precepts of Islam by inner convictions. If he was a Persian he was reproached with the servile submission which the Persians had rendered to an Arab Khalif: if he were an Arab he was instructed that the privileges of the Arabs have now been transferred to the Persians. In addition to this he was taught certain principles of geometry and the properties of numbers, all applied in a mystical manner to the claims of the Imamate. He was further informed that each prophet had twelve hujjaj corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac, to the twelve months of the year, to the twelve tribes of Israel, and to the twelve nugabaʾ whom Muhammad chose from the ansar or “helpers” at Madina. These numerals “seven” and “twelve” which have been shown to possess sacred meanings, were now cited to explain why men have twelve dorsal vertebrae, seven cervical vertebrae, etc. It is as well to note that when these teachings were first put forth the other Shiʿites who followed Musa and his successors had not yet made up the number of twelve Imams.

Sixth Grade. The missionary did not admit the postulant to this grade until he was perfectly assured as to his discretion and secrecy. In it the teaching that the ritual precepts of Islam as generally understood, were abrogated, was carried to its logical conclusion, and the convert was instructed to abandon the observance of prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, and all the other external practices of religion; or at least to observe them only in so far as they served as a bond of social usage or as expedient as a concession to their uninstructed companions. At the same time the teacher professed the utmost veneration for the men who had established these practices, and for the wisdom which had led them to do so. The daʿi then described to his pupil the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and other philosophers, and exhorted them not to follow the traditions of religion which have been passed down as mere hear-say, but to test them by the methods of philosophy and to accept only those things which are endorsed by reason. Changing his former attitude, he then began to criticize the Imams unfavourably, and to contrast them with the philosophers to their disadvantage.

Seventh Grade. Some of the missionaries were not themselves instructed in the doctrines of the highest grades, and only a select number were able to initiate converts into this seventh stage. This serves as the probable explanation of some events in the history of the sect which appear strange at first sight such, for example, as the estrangement of the most faithful and successful missionary Abu ʿAbdullah who, no doubt, revolted when he found the difference between the actual beliefs of the Mahdi ʿUbayd allah, and the doctrine which he himself had learned and taught. In initiating a disciple into this highest grade the daʿi first pointed out that there are in this world always correlatives, of which one is the cause, the other the result, as giver and recipient, teacher and taught, etc. Thus the Qurʾan tells us of God that “when he decreeth a thing he only saith ‘be’ and it ‘is’” (Qur., 3, 42), in which God, the First Cause, is the greater, the thing created only derives its being from him: and again, “all things have we created after a fixed decree” (Qur., 54, 49), and again, “he who is God in the heavens is God in earth also” (Qur., 43, 84). Hence, following a teaching of the philosophers, it is clear that from a Being who is only One, only one thing can proceed: but the world contains many things, so it cannot be the work of the One, but needs at least two Beings. Moreover, creation is not the bringing into being that which did not previously exist, but only the arrangement and disposing of things. At bottom this was intended to be a statement of the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of matter, and shows striking resemblances with the speculations of the Muʿtazilites. Thus Abu Hudhayl (d. circ. 226) held that before the creation the world existed, but in a state of perfect quiescence; creation was the introduction of change and movement, and this theory, in one modification or another, recurs in all the speculations of the later Muʿtazilites. Very similar is the teaching of al-Farabi (d. 339), who was himself a member of the Ismaʿilian sect, and held that the world proceeded from God in an instant of the immeasurable eternity which preceded time, but remained at rest until at creation God introduced movement and so produced time and change.

Such was the teaching of the seven grades which formed the original constitution of the sect. Later on two higher grades were added which, for the sake of completeness, we may consider here although they were no part of the original scheme.

Eighth Grade. In this the disciple learned that there are two Principles, the original and primary Cause, without name or attribute, the pre-existent (as-sabiq) who seems to be very much the same as “the first God” of Plotinus, and a Second proceeding from this First Cause, due to a thought in the pre-existent, i.e., as an emanation, just as the spoken word proceeds from the thought in the mind of the speaker. Of the pre-existent nothing can be stated but what is negative. The “Second” seems to be very similar to the Reason or Active Intelligence as defined by the philosophers on the basis of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ explanation of the teaching in Aristotle’s de Anima; not, as in the Zoroastrian system, a rival power, but an emanation which is an intermediary between the unknowable God and man. The true prophet, the daʿi declared, is shown, not by working miracles which impress the vulgar, but by the establishment of political institutions which equip a stable and well disposed government, and by the teaching of spiritual doctrines which give an explanation of the phenomena of nature. Then, as Nuwairi and Maqrizi state, the Qurʾan, the resurrection, the end of the world, the last judgment, and such like doctrines of Islam are explained away as having allegorical meanings: according to the batinite doctrine, all these things signify only the revolutions of the planets and of the universe in regular rotation, or the production and destruction of things according to the arrangement and combination of elements, as explained in the teachings of the philosophers.

Ninth Grade. In this grade the disciple was taught the doctrines of the philosophers and what they have stated about the heavens, the stars, the soul, the intelligence, and other like things: in all he was made grades which were a later addition were more definitely based on the teachings of the Greek philosophers which had been popularised in the Muslim world. At the same time the disciple learned that Abraham, Moses, and the other prophets were only founders of legal and social systems; they had received their learning from Plato, and the other philosophers who consequently are more important than the prophets commonly revered. He was especially taught to abhor the Arabs because they had been responsible for slaying Husayn, for which crime they were deprived of all rights to the Khalifate and Imamate, which were transferred to the Persians.

Maqrizi says that the members of ʿAbdullah sect who attained to the highest grade became muʿattil and ibahi (Maq. i. 348). Strictly speaking the former term denotes one who denies that the universe has a creator, and therefore implies that the initiated held the doctrine common to most of the Arabic “philosophers” of the eternity of matter. This teaching was one of the leading charges brought by the orthodox Muslims against Aristotle. The second term seems to mean “one who admits as (or makes) allowable,” and implies what would be described as antinomianism. Maqrizi continues that the initiated “did not any longer recognize any moral law, nor expect either punishment or future reward” (id.). The historian Nuwayri gives the same account of the Qarmatian branch of the Ismaʿilian sect. Such antinomianism is not at all unknown amongst Muslim devotees: thus Maqrizi (ii. 432) in another passage refers to the Qalandariya darwishes as a type of Sufis who disregard fasting and prayer, and have no reluctance to use any form of self-indulgence, saying that it is sufficient that their hearts are at peace with God. These darwishes were of Persian origin and appeared in Syria in the 7th cent. A.H., but their order had its beginning in the 5th cent. Antinomian ideas appear with the later Murjiʿites of the 2nd cent., and are represented in the doctrines of Jahm b. Safwan, who was put to death about 131, and was, characteristically enough, a Persian convert in rebellion against the Arab Khalif. Amongst these Murjiʿites we find the doctrine to assume the system of those who believed in the eternity of matter. Thus it will be seen the two highest taqiya or “concealment,” which afterwards became common amongst the Shiʿites, the doctrine, namely, that profession of faith means only the confession of the soul to God, it being allowable that the true believer outwardly conforms to any religion.

Nuwayri also gives the form of contract proposed to a convert at the time of his initiation. This appears in two parts, to each of which the convert gives assent. They may be summarised thus:

(1) A promise before God, and before his Apostle, his prophets, angels, and envoys, to inviolable secrecy as to all the convert knows about the missionary, about the representative of the Imam in the district where he lives, as well as regarding all other members of the sect. A pledge to accept all the orthodox teachings of Islam, and to observe all its rites, both matters which, as we have seen, were required of the lower grades and disregarded by the higher ones.

(2) A pledge to loyalty towards the missionaries and the Imam, and the invocation of the curse of Iblis if this pledge is broken. “If you have any reservation, in will or thought, this oath nevertheless has full binding force upon you, and God will take no satisfaction other than the complete fulfilment of all it contains and of the agreements made between you and me.”

This oath, it will be observed, is intended for those initiated into the first grade, and so conforms to the idea of orthodox Islam, though including the Shiʿite doctrine of an Imam, but covers all that is to be taught later with a veil of secrecy. The plan was to adapt the earlier teaching to the beliefs and capacity of the proselytes, and this method is further illustrated by the kitab as-siyasa or “book of policy,” a manual for the guidance of the duʿat, which Nuwayri describes on the authority of Abu l-Hasan.

According to this the teacher is told to emphasize his zeal for Shiʿite theories if he has to deal with a Shiʿite, to express sympathy with ʿAli and his two sons, and repugnance towards the Arabs who put them to death. If he has to deal with a Sabian, emphasis was laid on the reverence paid to the numeral seven. If his conversation was with a Zoroastrian, his principles are at the basis very similar to those of the Ismaʿilians, and with him the daʿi may commence at the fourth grade. If his business is with a Jew, he should explain that the Mahdi Muhammad b. Ismaʿil is the Messiah expected by the Jews and speak much against the Muslims and Christians, especially about their erroneous beliefs as to the unique birth of Christ, making it plain that Joseph the carpenter was undoubtedly his father. With Christians, on the contrary, it is advised to speak ill of the Muslims and Jews, explaining that the Ismaʿilians recognise the Christian creed, but giving it an allegorical interpretation, and showing that the Paraclete is yet to come, and is the true Imam to whom they are invited to come. In dealing with dualists or Manichaeans the daʿi may begin at the sixth grade of initiation, or if the convert seems worthy of confidence, the whole doctrine may be revealed at once. With one of the “philosophers” who, in true Muslim fashion, are treated as a distinct sect, emphasis is to be laid on the fact that the essential points of the Ismaʿilian faith are based on the teachings of philosophy, and the sect agrees with them in everything concerning the prophets and the eternity of the world; but some of the philosophers differ from the Ismaʿilians in admitting a Being who rules the world, though confessing that he is unknown. With “dualists,” i.e., Muslims of the sect so called (cf. De Sacy: Druses, p. lxviii., note 3), victory is sure; it is only necessary to dwell on the doctrine of the pre-existing and the second. With orthodox Sunnis the missionary is to speak with respect of the early Khalifs, avoid eulogies upon ʿAli and his sons, even mentioning some things about them which call for disapproval: great pains should be taken to secure Sunni adherents as they form most useful defenders. When dealing with a Shiʿite who accepts Musa, the son of Jaʿfar, and his descendants, great care is necessary: the daʿi should dwell on the moral laws of Islam, but explain the sacred associations of the number seven. With some it is impossible to venture further and show that the religion of Muhammad is now abrogated, with others it is possible even to show that the ritual laws of the Qurʾan are obsolete, with a few he may proceed to admit that the Kaʾim is really dead, that he comes back to the world only in a spiritual manner, and explain allegorically the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Each is to be dealt with according to his beliefs, and care must be taken not to offend his religious prejudices. The daʿi is advised to study the history of ancient legislators, their adventures, systems and sects, so as to have a fund of illustration which will arrest the attention of their pupils.

Such was the system formed by ʿAbdullah, probably somewhere before A.H. 250, and by him grafted on the already existing sect of Shiʿites, which upheld the claims of Ismaʿil, the son of Jaʿfar. In the reign of Maʾmun (A.H. 198-218) ʿAbdullah had joined the revolt of Ishaq b. Ibrahim at Karkh and Ispahan, and formed a close friendship with the wealthy Muhammad b. Husayn b. Jihan-Bakhtar ad-Didan, a Persian prominent for his intense hatred of the Arabs, and it was he who first supplied ʿAbdullah with funds to begin his propaganda (cf. Quatremère in Journ. Asiat., Aug., 1836). It is not easy to form any clear scheme of the chronology of the sect in its early days, nor to follow the details of its history: conspiracies and secret societies do not leave much in the way of documentary evidence of their first formation. That ʿAbdullah was associated with a rebellion in the reign of Maʾmun is hardly likely; it seems rather that Muhammad b. Husayn ad-Didan (Dandan, or Zaydan) was so associated, and he afterwards befriended ʿAbdullah. This Muhammad was secretary to Ahmad ibn ʿAbdu l-ʿAziz ibn Abi Dolaf, who became prince of Karaj in A.H. 265. No doubt ʿAbdullah was a younger contemporary, assisted by the old anti-Arab agitator. Certainly ʿAbdullah was established at Basra, whither he had removed from Persia, before 261 (Fihrist, 187), lodging there with the family of ʿAgil ibn Abi Talib. Thence he went to Syria, presumably finding suspicion aroused at Basra, and made his headquarters at Salamiya in the territory of Emessa (Maq. i., 348-9: ii., 11), and from there sent out missionaries who preached the claims of Muhammad b. Ismaʿil b. Jaʿfar as the “concealed” Imam, and of ʿAbdullah himself as the Mahdi or “guide,” who was to prepare men for the Imam’s return to earth (Maq. i., 348). At Salamiya he had a son named Ahmad, and when he died Ahmad succeeded him as head of the sect.

Ahmad, like his father, sent out missionaries, and one of these was instrumental in founding the important branch known as the Qarmatians, a branch so important and prominent that some, e.g., Jamal ad-Din, have regarded the Ismaʿilians as their off-shoot. The fact seems to be that there were at first members of one body, then circumstances gave the Qarmatians a political opening in Syria and ʿIraq, and, in a position of independence, they developed their doctrines more openly than the rest of the sect and, being drawn from the peasant class, these assumed a grosser form: whilst the other or parent community found a career in Africa but, as they became there a ruling minority with a subject majority of orthodox type, they were induced to observe some semblance of orthodoxy.

ʿAbdullah was succeeded as head of the Ismaʿilian sect by his son Ahmad. According to the Fihrist he was succeeded first by his son Muhammad, then by a second son Ahmad, the latter being also described as the son of Muhammad, and so grandson of ʿAbdullah (Fihrist, p. 137). This Ahmad may be the one who was at Basra for some time, then at Kufa, whence in 266 or thereabouts he sent missionaries to Yemen; possibly he was the Ahmad al-Qaiyal who wrote a book on the Imamate, which was refuted by Razi (d. 320).

After Ahmad came his son Husayn, who died not long afterwards, leaving a son named Saʿid, who subsequently took the name of ʿUbayd Allah, and was the Mahdi who established the Fatimid State in North Africa, dying in A.H. 323 (= A.D. 934). That he was originally called Saʿid is generally admitted, but he appears variously as Saʿid son of Husayn son of Ahmad, and Saʿid son of Ahmad, and Saʿid son of Abu Shalaghlagh. The explanation given for these different names is that Ahmad had two sons, of whom the elder, Husayn, died whilst Saʿid was still young, and the son was adopted by his uncle Muhammad, the second son of Ahmad, who was also known as Abu Shalaghlagh.

There is a story that Saʿid or ʿUbayd Allah was the son of an obscure Jewish smith, whose widow was married to Husayn, son of Ahmad, and that he was adopted by his step-father. This is one of the three forms of what we may call the “Jewish legend,” the attempt to trace the Fatimid dynasty to a Jewish source. These three attempts are: (i.) that Maymun b. Daysan the oculist was a Jew; (ii.) that ʿUbayd Allah was really the son of a Jewish smith; and (iii.) that he was killed in prison at Sijilmassa, and afterwards personated by a Jewish slave. Probably the “Jewish legend” was associated with the fact that the renegade Jew, Ibn Killis, was the one who encouraged the Fatimids to invade Egypt and did most to organise their government there, and with the undoubted favouritism which the early Fatimids showed the Jews.

A new development in the teaching of the sect took place under Husayn, or possibly commenced under his father Ahmad. ʿAbdullah had been content to describe himself as the “Mahdi” or guide, who was to lead men to the Imam, who was Ismaʿil, or his son Muhammad; he made no claim to be himself a descendant of the Imam. Probably it was a later theory that the Imam was “concealed” only in the sense that he had to hide himself from the ʿAbbasid Khalif. Later still, when a Fatimid Khalif was actually ruling in Cairo, the claim to descent from ʿAli through ʿAbdullah and his family became a matter of heated controversy.

Historians differ very much as to how far the Fatimids succeeded in proving their ʿAlid descent, and contemporary opinion was quite as varied. Abu l-Hasan Muhammad Masawi, commonly known as Radi, born at Baghdad in 359 and dying in 406, was himself an undoubted descendant of Husayn the son of ʿAli, and was official keeper of the records of ʿAlid genealogy. As Abu l-Feda notes (Ann. Mosl., ii. 309) he, in one of his poems, fully admits the legitimate descent of the Fatimids of Egypt from ʿAli, and the actual passage is extant (cf. Diwan of Radi, Beirut, p. 972): but in 402 this same Radi joined with other ʿAlids and certain canonists in a proclamation denouncing the Fatimids and declaring their claimed genealogy as baseless. It is natural to suppose that in this he was actuated by fear or complaisance, and this difficulty meets us throughout; the whole question was so much a matter of current political controversy that it was practically impossible to get anything like an unbiassed opinion. Maqrizi, the leading Egyptian authority of a later age, was strongly pro-Fatimid, but he claims the noble rank of sayyid on the ground of descent from ʿAli through the Fatimids, and so is prejudiced in their favour. He argues that the ʿAlid descent of the Fatimids was never attacked by the acknowledged ʿAlids who then existed in considerable numbers (Maq. i., 349), an argument which is far from being true.

Elsewhere Maqrizi defends the Fatimid claims by saying that the ʿAlids were always suspected by the ʿAbbasid Khalifs, and so “they had no resort but to conceal themselves and were scarcely known, so that Muhammad b. Ismaʿil, the Imam ancestor of ʿUbayd Allah, was called the ‘concealed’” (Maq. i., 349). But this tells the other way: it admits that the ʿAlid genealogy was not well known: and the mere fact that ʿAbdullah was sought for by the Khalif simply shows that his pretensions were known to be dangerous, as a Mahdi with a body of followers would necessarily be, and is no proof of the validity of the descent afterwards claimed by ʿAbdullah’s descendants. The obscurity of the ʿAlid genealogy afterwards favoured the Fatimid claims, but it does not seem that that claim was part of their original programme. The first idea was to support the claims of the vanished Imam, claims selected in all probability because of the convenient fact that he had vanished, and to represent ʿAbdullah and his descendants simply as Mahdis, viceroys to guide and direct the people of Islam until the day came for the concealed Imam to be revealed again.

After the Fatimid claims had been laid before the world the ʿAbbasids brought forward many calumnies (Maq. i., 349). The strongly anti-Fatimid Ibn Khallikan relates a story that when the first Fatimid Khalif to enter Egypt, al-Moʿizz, came to Cairo, the jurist, Abu Muhammad ibn Tabataba, came to meet him, supported by a number of undoubted members of ʿAli’s family, and asked to see his credentials. Al-Moʿizz then drew his sword and cried, “Here is my pedigree”: and scattering gold amongst the by-standers added, “And this is my proof.” The story is an improbable legend, and even Ibn Khallikan rejects it on the ground that when al-Moʿizz entered Cairo, Abu Muhammad the jurist (d. 348) had been many years in his grave (Ibn Khall. iii., 366).

The weakest part of the Fatimid claim, as we have remarked, lies in the great diversity of forms the claim takes in different writers. When ʿUbayd Allah or Saʿid, ʿAbdullah’s great-grandson, established himself in Africa, the genealogy began to call for serious attention, and came to be examined, not by uncritical members of the sect, but by all the historians and genealogists of the Muslim world. It then appeared in no less than nine divergent forms.

(1) Traced through Jaʿfar as-Sadiq the sixth Imam, then through his son Ismaʿil, his son Muhammad “the concealed,” then Jaʿfar al-Musaddiq—Muhammad al-Habib—and then ʿUbayd Allah. Thus Maqrizi and Ibn Khaldun. According to this ʿAbdullah and Ahmad do not appear in the descent at all.

(2) Traced through Jaʿfar to Muhammad “the concealed” as in the preceding, then ʿAbdullah ar-Rida (the accepted of God),—Ahmad al-Wafi (the perfect),—al-Husayn at-Taki (the pious),—and ʿUbayd Allah the Mahdi. This appears in Ibn Khallikan and Ibn Khaldun, and seems to have been more or less the official version. According to this ʿAbdullah, the father of Ahmad, was the son of Mohammad “the concealed,” not of Maymun. Similarly the pro-Fatimid author of the Dastur al-Munajjimin (MS. of M. Schefer, cited by de Goeje, Qarmates, pp. 8-9), who says that Muhammad b. Ismaʿil took refuge in India; he had six sons, Jaʿfar, Ismaʿil, Ahmad, Husayn, ʿAli, and ʿAbdu r-Rahman, but does not mention ʿAbdullah nor say which of these sons was the Imam: he then refers to the three “mysterious ones” as succeeding Muhammad. Tabari (iii., 2218, 12) says that Muhammad b. Ismaʿil had no son named ʿAbdullah.

(3) As before, but Maymun as son of Muhammad “the concealed,” then ʿAbdullah—Muhammad—Ubayd Allah; thus in Abu l-Feda. Maymun is made the son of the seventh Imam (which is impossible), and the Mahdi is represented as ʿAbdullah’s grandson (see below).

(4) Ismaʿil, son of Jaʿfar,—Muhammad “the concealed,”—Ismaʿil,—Ahmad,—Ubayd Allah. This also occurs in Abu l-Feda, and in ʿUbayd Allah’s “Genealogy of the ʿAlids” (MS. Leiden, 686—cited by de Goeje, Qarmates, p. 9) Muhammad had three sons, Ismaʿil II, Jaʿfar, and Yahya; Ismaʿil had a son named Ahmad, who dwelt in the Maghrab.

(5) Ismaʿil—Muhammad “the concealed,”—Ismaʿil II,—Muhammad,—Ahmad,—ʿAbdullah,—Muhammad,—Husayn,—Ahmad or ʿAbdullah,—Ubayd Allah the Mahdi. This is the genealogy given in the sacred books of the Druses, and rests on the theory that there must have been seven “concealed Imams” intervening between Jaʿfar as-Sadiq and the Mahdi. It is merely an instance of the mystic value attached to the sacred numeral. Like (3) it gives Muhammad for Ahmad which is a permissible variant.

(6) The five preceding genealogies are distinctively Ismaʿilian in character, but there are others which show adaptations of the “Twelvers” accounts, and these cannot be much more than later attempts to connect the Fatimid line with that recognised by the other Shiʿites. First we have the idea that the descent from Jaʿfar as-Sadiq was through Musa, not Ismaʿil, then following the next three Imams ʿAli ar-Rida—Muhammad al-Jawad—ʿAli al-Hadi (see above)—al-Hasan al-Askari—Ubayd Allah the Mahdi. According to this the Fatimite Mahdi in Africa was the son of the eleventh Imam of the “Twelvers,” and thus replaced Muhammad al-Muntazar.

(7) The same line as the preceding, but admitting Muhammad al-Muntazar as twelfth Imam who “disappeared” in 260, and asserting that ʿUbayd Allah who appeared in North Africa was this same Muhammad emerging from concealment, after an interval of 29 years.

(8) The same line as far as ʿAli al-Hadi, then Husayn, presumably a brother of Hasan al-Askari, and ʿUbayd Allah as son of this Husayn. This is given by Ibn Khallikan on the authority of a reference in Ibn al-Athir. All these three last genealogies must be dismissed as later suggestions since it is clear that the Ismaʿilian sect rejected the Imams of the “Twelvers” after Jaʿfar as-Sadiq: but it may be that Ahmad’s first claim was simply to be an ʿAlid, and not necessarily the son of the house of Ismaʿil.

(9) Finally we have another theory, mentioned by Ibn Khallikan, that the Mahdi was descended from Hasan, a brother of Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, and so an ʿAlid but not an Imam, and from this Hasan came ʿAbdullah, Ahmad, Hasan, and then ʿAli or ʿUbayd Allah the Mahdi. Back to ʿAbdullah this was the generally asserted genealogy of the Mahdi’s family, but Hasan, the brother of Jaʿfar, replaces Maymun.

The chief point is that there were so many alternative forms of the genealogy, and close scrutiny shows very weak points in every one of them. To the fully initiated this was a very small matter, as no importance was attached to the claim to the Imamate or to the descent from ʿAli at all. No doubt all these pedigrees served their purpose in dealing with the different types of proselytes, and their very diversity tends to prove that they were actually accepted and circulated in a sect which adapted its teachings to suit the opinions of the different classes with which it came into contact. It was not until the Fatimids became a political power that any need was felt to bring these various genealogies into any kind of agreement, and then, no doubt, the variant forms circulated by the different missionaries were a source of embarrassment.

III
THE QARMATIANS

We turn now to the formation of the important branch of the Ismaʿilian sect known as the Qarmatians, which is particularly interesting as we have detailed accounts of its formation which show how the propaganda worked, and illustrate the ease with which an armed group could set up an independent robber state in this period of the decay of the Khalifate. Of the history of their founding there are two leading narratives slightly divergent in details,—which De Goeje (pp. 13-17) calls A. and B. A. given by De Sacy (Druses, pp. clxvi., etc.) is that of Nuwayri, who drew his information from Akhu Muhsin, who obtained it from Ibn Razzam, and the substance, drawn from the same sources, appears in the Fihrist. B. (in De Sacy clxxi., etc.) is really the account given by Tabari, and is based on the description given by a person who had been present at the examination of Zaqruyah the Qarmatian by Muhammad b. Dawud b. al-Jarrah. The A. account is as follows.

One of Ahmad’s missionaries named Husayn Ahwazi was sent to labour in the district of Kufa known as the Sawad. As he was travelling he met a man named Hamdan b. Ashhath al-Qarmati, who was leading an ox with forage on its back. Husayn asked him the way to a place named Kass-Nahram, and Hamdan replied that he was going there himself. Then Husayn asked him where was a place named Dawr, and Hamdan told him that was his home. So they went on together. Then Hamdan says: “You seem to have come a long way and to be very tired: get on this ox of mine.” But Husayn declined, saying that he had not been told to do so. Hamdan remarked: “You speak as though you acted according to the orders which some one had given you.” Husayn admitted that this was so. “And who,” Hamdan asked, “it is then from whom you receive these orders and prohibitions?” Husayn replied: “It is my master and yours, the master of this world and of the world to come.” After some reflection Hamdan said: “There is only God most High who is master of all things.” “True,” replied Husayn, “but God entrusts control to whom he pleases.” Hamdan then asked, “What do you intend to do in the village to which you have asked to be directed?” “I am going,” said Husayn, “to bring to many people who dwell there a knowledge of the secrets of God. I have received orders to water the village, to enrich the inhabitants, to deliver them, and to put them in possession of their masters’ goods.” Then he began to persuade Hamdan to embrace his teaching. Hamdan said: “I beseech you in the name of God to reveal to me what you possess of this wisdom: deliver it to me, and God will deliver you.” “That,” said Husayn, “is a thing I cannot do, unless I previously get from you an undertaking and bind you in the name of God by a promise as an oath like that which God has always exacted from his prophets and apostles. After that I shall be able to tell you things which will be useful to you.” Hamdan continued to urge, and at last Husayn gave way, and as they sat by the roadside Husayn administered the oath to him and asked his name. Hamdan replied that he was commonly known as the Qarmat, and invited Husayn to take up his abode with him. So Husayn went to his house and gained many converts from Hamdan’s kinsmen and neighbours. There he stayed for some time, arousing in his host and others the strongest admiration of the ascetic and pious life he led, fasting by day, and watching by night. He worked as a tailor, and it was generally felt that the garments which had passed through his hands were consecrated. When the date harvest came a learned and wealthy citizen of Kufa named Abu ʿAbdullah Muhammad b. ʿUmar b. Shabab Adawi, hearing good reports of him, made him guardian of his date garden, and found him scrupulous in his attention and honesty. Husayn revealed his doctrines to this employer, but he saw through the piety which had impressed the villagers and understood that he was a conspirator. Before his death Husayn appointed Hamdan as daʿi in his place. This is an outline of the narrative of the origin of the Qarmatians, so called as the followers of Hamdan the Qarmat, according to the Sherif Abu l-Hasan as reported in the history of Nuwayri.

Gregory Bar Hebraeus gives a different account which appears also in Bibars Mansuri and in another part of Nuwayri who cites the authority of Ibn Athir, and this is the second account which de Goeje calls B. According to it a Persian of Khuzistan established himself in the Nahrayn or district between the rivers, near Hufa, and soon drew attention by the asceticism and piety of his life. When anyone went and sat by him he used to discourse about religion and try to induce his hearers to renounce the world; he taught that it was a matter of obligation to pray fifty times a day, and that it was his office to guide men to the true Imam whose abode he knew. Some merchants purchased the produce of the garden in which this recluse had taken up his abode, and enquired for a trustworthy watchman to look after their property. The gardener introduced the recluse to them, and they gave him charge of the produce. When they came to take away their dates they paid the watchman, and he, on his part, paid the gardener for the dates supplied to him, deducting a rebate for the stones. The merchants saw this reckoning going on, and supposed that he had been selling some of their dates, so they struck him, saying, “Is it not enough that you have eaten our dates?—is it for you also to sell the stones?” The gardener then spoke up and told them the facts, and when they perceived their error they made their apologies and conceived a very high opinion of his rectitude and probity. Some time later he fell ill, and the gardener sent for a certain villager commonly known as Qaramita, a word which in the Nabataean language means a man with red eyes. This villager’s real name is not given, but Tabari adds that Muhammad b. Dawud b. al-Jarrah said to someone that he was called Hamdan. He was an owner of oxen which were used to carry the produce of Sawad to the city of Kufa. He took the sick man to his house and there the devotee stayed until he was quite well, and whilst there taught the Qaramita the doctrines of the sect to which he belonged, and also instructed the villagers. From amongst his converts he chose twelve nakibs, in imitation of Moses and Jesus, and sent them out as missionaries. He required his followers to pray fifty times a day, and as a result the work of the villagers fell into arrears. A certain Haysam who possessed property in the village perceived this and made enquiry as to the reason; this led him into contact with the devotee who was induced to reveal to him his peculiar doctrines. Haysam perceived their subversive character and took him to Kufa where he locked him up in his house, but a female servant who was moved by the captive’s apparent piety stole the key and set him free. In the morning the room was found empty, and this was reported as a miracle. Soon afterwards the devotee re-appeared to the villagers and told them that he had been set free by angels, and then he escaped to Syria. After his departure the Qaramata continued to preach and expand the doctrines which he had learned, and in this was assisted by the other nakibs. According to Ibn Athir, cited by Nuwayri, this Qaramat or Hamdan was a man who “affected a religious life, detached from the world and mortified,” and “when anyone joined his sect Hamdan took a piece of gold from him, saying that it was for the Imam. From them (i.e., his followers) he chose twelve nakibs whom he charged to call men to his religion, saying that they were the apostles of Isa b. Maryam.”

The A. text refers to Husayn’s death, the B. text says that he went to Syria. Tabari speaks of the devotee as coming from Khuzistan, but Akhu Muhsin says that he was sent by Ahmad from Salamiya. De Goeje (p. 18) suggests that he may have been Ahmad’s son Husayn. According to the Kitab al-Oyun (MS. Berlin, 69—cited by de Goeje) Saʿid, the son of Husayn, the son of Ahmad, the son of ʿAbdullah, was born at Salamiya in 259 or 260. But evidently there is some error here. Husayn was the grandson, not the son, of Abdullah, and the head of the sect did not leave Askar Mokram before 266: probably not until after the repression of the slave rebellion in 270. No open revolt of the Qarmatians took place until 286.

In his Chronicle Bar Hebraeus applies to the sect of the Nusayri all that he says about the Qarmatians, and so the books of the Druses in their references to the Nusayri prove that they hold very much the same doctrines as the Ismaʿilians. It is supposed that the Nusayri sect is a survival of an ancient pagan community (cf. René Dussand: Hist. et religion des Nosairis, Paris, 1900). This fits in with the advice given to the missionaries that Manichaean converts may be admitted to a higher grade without hesitation.

After this rather confused account of the foundation of the sect of Qarmatians we find ourselves on surer ground. It is clear that Hamdan surnamed the Qarmati was the convert chosen to act as head of the branch founded near Kufa, and he seems to have been diligent in sending out missionaries throughout the whole district of Sawad, where success was easy as the oppressed Nabataean villagers were still groaning under the tyranny of the Arab colonists of the two camp-cities, Kufa and Basra. Not only were the peasants won over in large numbers, but many of the dissatisfied Arab tribes were also gained: these, it will be understood, were those tribes which had had no share in the wealth acquired by the Khalif and his followers. At first Hamdan required each proselyte to pay a piece of silver, corresponding to the fitr or legal alms which Muslims are expected to pay at the end of Ramadan. Then he exacted a piece of gold from each person on attaining the age of reason, a tribute which he called hijra or “flight,” perhaps because intended for the maintenance of a place of refuge called the “house of flight.” Later again he demanded seven pieces of gold which he termed bulgha or “livelihood.” He prepared a choice banquet, and gave a small portion to each of those who gave him the seven pieces of gold, saying that it was the food of the dwellers in paradise sent down to the Imam. He next levied a fifth of all their possessions, basing his claim on the words of the Qurʾan, “And know ye, that when ye have taken any booty, a fifth part belongeth to God and to His Apostle” (Qur. 8, 42). Next he required them to deposit all their goods in a common fund, a reminiscence of the communism taught in pre-Islamic times by the Persian prophet Mazdak, and justified this by the passages, “Remember God’s goodness towards you, how that when ye were enemies, He united your hearts, and by His favour ye became brethren” (Qur. 3, 98), and “Hadst thou spent all the riches of the earth, thou couldst not have united their hearts; but God hath united them, for He is Mighty, Wise” (Qur. 8, 64). He told them that they had no need of money because everything on earth belonged to them, but he exhorted them to procure arms. All this took place in the year 276.

The daʿi chose in each village a man worthy of confidence, and in his charge they placed the property of the inhabitants. By this means clothes were provided for those who were without, and all had their needs supplied so that there was no more poverty. All worked diligently, for rank was made to depend on a man’s utility to the community; no one possessed any private property save sword and arms. Then it is said the daʿi assembled men and women together on a certain night, and encouraged them to indulge in promiscuous intercourse. After this, assured of their absolute obedience, he began to teach them the more secret doctrines of the sect, and so deprived them of all belief in religion, and discouraged the observance of external rites such as prayer, fasting, and the like. This was the distinctive mark of the Qarmatian branch: the initiated were no longer a small minority living in the midst of their fellow sectarians who still adhered to the external forms of Islam, but amongst the Qarmatians all were initiated to the fullest extent in all the teachings of the sect. Before long they began to steal and to commit murders, so that they produced a reign of terror in the vicinity. Then the daʿis felt that the time was ripe for open revolt, and selected a village in the Sawad called Mahimabad, near the river Euphrates, and within the royal domain as their rallying place or “house of flight”: thither they carried large stones, and in a short time surrounded it with a strong wall and erected a building in the midst, in which a great many persons could be assembled and where goods could be stored. This took place in 277.

At this time the Khalifate was weak, and this favoured the lawless movements of the villagers who now came to be known as Qarmatians from their leader. Their head, Hamdan the Qarmati, meanwhile kept up constant correspondence with the leaders of the sect at Salamiya. After the death of Ahmad his son and successor wrote a letter to Hamdan, but he was not satisfied with its contents: he observed that this letter differed considerably in expression from those which he had previously received, and contained matters which did not seem to agree with the teaching he had received, so he concluded that the responsible heads had changed their policy. To make sure he sent a trusty follower named Abdan to Salamiya to find out how matters stood. Abdan arrived there, learned about the death of Ahmad and the succession of his son Husayn, and had an interview with this latter. In that interview he asked who was the Imam to whom they owed obedience, and Husayn replied by the counter question, “Who then is the Imam?” Abdan replied, “It is Muhammad the son of Ismaʿil the son of Jaʿfar, the master of the world, to whose obedience your father called men, and whose hujja he was.” Husayn showed some annoyance at this reply, and said: “Muhammad the son of Ismaʿil has no rights in all this; there has never been any other Imam than my father who was descended from Maymun b. Daysan, and to-day I take his place.” By this reply Abdan discovered the real nature of the sect, or at least its present policy. He then returned to the Qarmati and told him what he had discovered, and by his orders all the duʿat were called together and informed of what Abdan had discovered and advised to stop their propaganda. As a result the preaching came to an end in the districts about Kufa, but they were not able to check it in remoter parts, and they ceased all correspondence with the leaders at Salamiya.

Then one of the sons of Ahmad who had been on a visit to Talakan tried to see the Qarmati on his return journey, but was unable to find him. He therefore called on Abdan and reproached him for ceasing to correspond with Salamiya. Abdan replied that he had left off preaching and desired to sever his connection with the sect as he had discovered that they were not really loyal to the house of ʿAli, but were supporting an Imam of the family of Maymun: he only asked God’s pardon for what he had previously done in error. When the visitor saw that he had nothing to hope from Abdan, he turned to another daʿi named Zaqruya b. Mahruya and discussed with him Abdan’s attitude. Zaqruya received him well, and it was agreed that he should be established as chief daʿi in the district and, in return would resume the former relations with Salamiya. To this Zaqruya assented, but objected that, so long as Abdan was alive all efforts would be fruitless, as all revered him as a leader. They agreed therefore to get rid of Abdan. For this end Zaqruya collected a number of his neighbours, informed them that the hujja or earthly representative of the Imam was dead, and that his son was now occupying his place. The people expressed the greatest respect towards the new hujja, and declared their readiness to carry out his commands. He told them that they were to kill Abdan as he had proved to be a rebel and apostate. Next night Abdan was killed. When, however, it came to be known that it was Zaqruya who had brought about his death the Qarmates were indignant, and Zaqruya had to flee for his life and hide himself, and advised the representative from Salamiya who seems to have remained with him, to leave the neighbourhood. This took place in 286.

During the rest of that year, and the year following, the Qarmatians were busy hunting for Zaqruya who was compelled to move from place to place, and finally retired to a subterranean retreat. When he went into the village near his hiding place a woman who lived in the house used to make bread on the stone which covered the entrance to the concealed cave so as to disarm suspicion.

In 288 the search seemed to be relaxed, and then Zaqruya sent his son Hasan to Syria with a companion named Hasan b. Ahmad, and told them to preach to the Arabs of the B. Kalb tribe, inviting them to recognise Muhammad b. Ismaʿil as the Imam. These two envoys obtained many followers. The envoy who had made plans with Zaqruya had meanwhile gone back to Talakan, and now, annoyed at Zaqruya’s silence, went to the Sawad and discovered his place of concealment. When Zaqruya told him of the success of his mission to the Arabs he was delighted and determined to join the envoys himself. Zaqruya approved this plan and sent with him his nephew Isa b. Mahwayh, surnamed Mudatthar, and another young man surnamed Mutawwak, at the same time writing a letter to his son bidding him render obedience to the leader of these new comers whom he termed Sahib al-Nakat. When they reached the B. Kalb they were welcomed and received with every profession of loyalty, and the tribe prepared for war. This took place in 289. The resulting conflict with the authorities was, however, unsuccessful: the sectaries were not able to repeat their brigandage which the weakness of the central authority had been unable to prevent about the Sawad, and the leader, the kinsman of the Mahdi at Salamiya, was killed, and the Arabs scattered.

Nuwayri says that this leader had struck money, both gold and silver, and that the coins were inscribed on one side: “Say, the truth has come and falsehood has disappeared” (Qur. 17, 83): and on the other: “There is no God but God; Say, ‘for this I ask no wage of you, save the love of my kindred’” (Qur. 42, 22).

After this leader’s death Hasan, son of Zaqruya, took command of the Qarmatians and assumed the name of Ahmad. The general Muhammad b. Sulayman had a great victory over him and, as he was unable to reconstruct his forces, he left for Baghdad where, he said, he had many followers, and put his son Kasam in charge as his deputy, promising to write to him. This was, however, only a pretext as he intended to seek safety in flight, but was caught by Mudatthar and Mutawwak and put to death.

This check caused the Arabs to keep quiet for some time. Then they received a letter from Zaqruya saying that he had heard of the death of Hasan and Isa by revelation, and that after their death the Imam was going to be revealed and would triumph with his followers. Kasam was now getting anxious, and thought it well to visit his grandfather Zaqruya in the Sawad; but Zaqruya disapproved the course of events and rebuked him severely, sending another disciple, an ex-schoolmaster named Muhammad b. Abdullah, to replace him. At first this new commander met with success, then came reverse and he was killed. At this news Zaqruya sent back Kasam to collect the remnants of the party which he did and brought them to ad-Derna, a village in the Sawad. Here they were joined by Zaqruya, who was hailed by the Arabs as their wali, and all the Qarmatians in the Sawad came out to join them. The rising in the Sawad was a mere jacquerie of Nabataean peasants, and the Qarmatian movement proper never rose much above this level. At the head of his men Zaqruya attacked the caravan of pilgrims on their way to Mecca in 294, plundered it, and slew twenty thousand pilgrims. The Khalif then sent out forces to put down these troublesome brigands, the Qarmatians were severely punished, Zaqruya was taken prisoner and sent in chains to the Khalif, but died of his wounds on the way (Abu l-Feda: Ann. Mosl., ii. 299).

In 295 a man named Abu Khatam founded a new sect of Qarmatians in the Sawad, and these were known as the Buraniyya after Burani, who was the most active daʿi in organising them. Abu Khatam forbade his followers to use garlic, leeks, or radishes, and prohibited the shedding of any animal’s blood; he made them abandon all the religious observances of Islam, and instituted rites of an entirely new character. We shall find these prohibitions of particular vegetables in the ordinances of the Fatimid Khalif Hakim later on, but there justified by certain Shiʿite theories. At the end of the year Abu Khatam drops out of sight entirely. The movement is of interest only in showing the tendency of the Ismaʿilians to form new schisms.

Another off-shoot of the Qarmatians established itself in the Bahrayn, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. In 281 Yahya, a son of the Mahdi, whom de Sacy supposes to have been the same individual who advised Zaqruya and who was killed near Damascus in 289, the one of whom we have already heard as the Sahib an-Nakat, although no mention of his real name is given in any account of Zaqruya’s rising, came to al-Katif and lodged in the house of a Shiʿite called ʿAli b. Maʿli b. Hamdan. He told his host that he had been sent by the Mahdi to invite the Shiʿites to recognise him, the representative of Ismaʿil, as the Imam, and to announce that the public appearance of the “concealed one” was near at hand. ʿAli gathered together the Shiʿites of the locality, and showed them the letter which Yahya had given him to be read to them: they promised obedience and declared themselves ready to take up arms as soon as the Mahdi’s representative appeared amongst them. Very soon all the villagers of the Bahrayn were induced to join in these undertakings. Yahya then went away and returned with a letter, which he stated that he had obtained from the Mahdi authorising him to act as their leader, and calling on them to pay him six pieces of gold and two-thirds for each man. This they did, and then Yahya brought a new letter bidding them give him a fifth of all their goods, and this they did also.

Ibn al-Athir says that Yahya went to the house of Abu Saʿid al-Jannabi, one of these Shiʿites, and that his host gave him food, and then told his wife to go in to Yahya and not refuse him her favours. News of this, however, came to the governor of the town, and he had Yahya beaten and his hair and beard shorn off as a punishment for the scandal caused. After this Abu Saʿid fled to his native town of Jannaba, and Yahya went out to the Arab tribes of Kalab, Oqayl, and Haras, who rallied round him, so that he found himself at the head of a considerable force in 286. It will be noted that the desert tribes, even though the most purely Arab, were always ready to join revolutionary movements, anti-Arab as well as other; in fact they were simply marauders, and fell in with any plans which offered promise of a period of successful brigandage, irrespective of any political or religious movements involved.

Nuwayri supposes either that Abu Saʿid had previously learned Qarmatian ideas in the Sawad, or had been initiated by Hamdan and appointed daʿi for the district of al-Katif. Most of his followers were drawn from the lowest classes, butchers, porters, and such like. The Sharif Abu l-Hasan says that Abu Saʿid regarded the daʿi Zaqruya as a rival and felt a jealousy towards him, so that, having contrived to get Zaqruya into a house belonging to him, he starved him to death.

When he had gathered a considerable following Abu Saʿid established himself at the town of al-ʾAhsa, besieged Hajar, the capital of the Bahrayn, for a matter of two years, during which his followers were considerably increased, and finally captured the town by cutting off its water supply. Some of the inhabitants escaped to the islands in the river near by, others embraced Abu Saʿid’s doctrines, whilst others were put to death. The town was pillaged and ruined, and thus al-ʾAhsa afterwards replaced it as the capital of the Bahrayn. According to Ibn Khallikan Abu Saʿid first appeared as kabir or “great man” of the Qarmatians in 286. In 287 they made an attempt on Basra, and though they defeated the forces sent by the Khalif to repel them, they were unable to take the city (Ibn Khall., i. 427).

Abu Saʿid then attempted to get possession of Oman, but was obliged to abandon this scheme. He was slain in 301 with several other Qarmatian leaders, and was succeeded by his son Abu l-Kasam Saʿid, who held the leadership until his second son Abu Tahar, who had been designated successor, was old enough to take up the task, which happened in 305. The Qarmatian risings which take a position of considerable prominence in later history all took place under the successors of Abu Saʿid, who may be regarded as the founder of the Qarmatians as a revolutionary force, although there had been an earlier beginning of the sect as an off-shoot of the Ismaʿilians under Hamdan and his missionaries.

According to Ibn Khallikan Abu Saʿid entered Syria in 289, and in 291 he was slain in his bath by one of his eunuchs. He left six sons. It was Abu Tahar who marched on Basra in 311, occupied it without serious resistance, and plundered the city. But to these doings of the Qarmatians we shall return later.

IV
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FATIMIDS IN NORTH AFRICA

The political career of the Fatimids centres in North Africa and Egypt, and commences with the activity of Ibn Hawshab, who himself never visited those parts. This man, whom Maqrizi calls Abu l-Kasam Hasan b. Farash b. Hawshab, and Abu l-Fera and Bibars Mansuri, referred to as Rustam b. Husayn b. Hawshab b. Zadam an-Najjar (“the carpenter”), was a follower of Ahmad whom we have seen as succeeding his father ʿAbdullah, and accompanied him on a pilgrimage to the sacred sites of the Shiʿites, the tombs of Hasan and Husayn and of several of the later Imams, all in the neighbourhood of Kufa and Samarra,—ʿAli’s own tomb is not known for certain, but is commonly believed to be at Najaf, near Kufa. Whilst there they noticed a wealthy Shiʿite of Yemen named Muhammad himself remarked by his tears and display of grief (Maqrizi i. 349). According to this Yemenite’s own account he had just read the Sura of “The Grotto” (Qur. 18), when he noticed an old man with a young companion close at hand. The old man sat down, his companion sat near, but kept on observing Muhammad, until at last he left the old man and drew near him. Muhammad asked him who he was; he gave his name as Husayn, and hearing this sacred name Muhammad could not restrain his tears. The old man observed this very attentively, and bids the young man ask him to join them. When Muhammad did so he asked who and what he was. The man replied that he was a Shiʿite, and gave his name as Hasan b. Faraj b. Hawshab. The old man said that he knew his father, and that he was a “Twelver.” Did the son hold the same views? Hasan replied that he always had held them, but that of late he had felt much discouragement (cf. extract in Quatremère, Journal asiatique, for Aug., 1836). From this a conversation commenced, and as a result Hasan was converted to acceptance of the Ismaʿilian creed. Further, Ahmad drew the conclusion that Yemen would offer a promising field for Shiʿite propaganda, and decided to send Ibn Hawshab to act as daʿi in Yemen, and about A.H. 270 (= A.D. 883) he appears there as settled in the district of the B. Musa tribe at Sana (Maq. i. 349). At first he claimed to be simply a merchant, but his neighbours soon penetrated his disguise and urged him to act openly as a Shiʿite missionary who, they assured him, would be in every way welcome (Bibars Mansuri). Thus encouraged he declared himself a Shiʿite agent, and soon gathered a considerable band of followers drawn, not only from the immediate vicinity, but also from the Qarmatians of Mesopotamia. As soon as they were strong enough Ibn Hawshab’s companions took up arms and began raids upon neighbours who had not accepted the Shiʿite creed and met with much success in obtaining plunder.

From the earliest period of Muslim history North Africa has been the favourite field of exploitation of every sect and political party which found itself in opposition to the official Khalifate, and there has always been very close intercourse between that area and South Arabia; indeed, there are even common peculiarities of dialect between the two. Thus we find that as soon as the new Ismaʿilian sect was established in Yemen, Ibn Hawshab sent two missionaries, Hulwani and Abu Sufyan (Maq. ii. 10) to preach in the province of Ifrikiya, the modern Tripoli and Tunis, where their work seems to have lain particularly amongst the aboriginal Berber population, for the Berbers were always more disposed to any heresy or rebellion which would give them a good pretext for making war against the ruling Arabs. Nothing is known of the subsequent history of these two missionaries save that after a brief career during which they seem to have made a deep impression, especially on the Katama tribe, they died. This Katama tribe lived in the broken territory north-west of the town of Constantine, in what would now be north-east Algeria.

As we shall have to refer more than once to the geography of North Africa it will be convenient here to make a brief statement of its political divisions and condition in the fourth century A.H. By North Africa we understand the whole territory lying between the land of Egypt on the east and the Atlantic on the west, bounded by the Mediterranean on the north and by the great desert on the south. Previous to the Arab invasion this land was inhabited by the Berbers or Libyans, the same who, under the name of Lebu, had constantly threatened Egypt in the days of the Pharaohs. As a race these Berbers seem to have progressed little since neo-lithic times, and were still in the condition of nomadic tribes like the Arabs of the pre-Islamic period. Their language was not Semitic, but it has many very marked Semitic affinities and, although language transmission is often quite distinct from racial descent, it seems quite probable that in this case the race bore a parallel relation to the Arab stock. This would be best explained by the supposition that both were derived from a neo-lithic race, which at one time spread along the whole of the southern coast of the Mediterranean and across into Western Asia, but that some cause, perhaps the early development of civilization in the Nile valley, had cut off the eastern wing from the rest, and this segregated portion developed the distinctive characteristics which we term Semitic.

Along the coast there had been a series of colonies, Greek, Punic, Roman, and Visigothic, but these left no permanent mark on the Berber population, language, or culture. Although at the time of the Arab invasion the country was theoretically under the rule of Byzantium, and the invaders had to meet the resistance of a Greek army, the early defeat of the Greeks brought an immediate end to Greek influence in the country, and left the Arabs face to face with the Berber tribes.

The Arab invasion of North Africa followed immediately after the conquest of Egypt, but the internal disputes of the Muslim community prevented this invasion from resulting in a regular conquest, much less in settlement. It was not until the second invasion took place in A.H. 45 (= A.D. 665) that we can regard the Arabs as really beginning the conquest of the country and its settlement. For centuries afterwards the Arab hold was precarious in the extreme, and many Berber states were founded from time to time, some of which had an existence of several centuries. As a rule there was a pronounced racial antipathy between Arab and Berber, but this was mild compared with the tribal feuds between different Berber groups, and Arab rule was only possible by temporary alliance with one or other of the quarrelling factions. Strangely enough the religion of Islam spread rapidly amongst the Berbers, but it took a peculiar development which shows the survival of many pre-Islamic religious ideas and observances. The worship of saints and the reverence paid to their tombs is a corruption of Islam which appears in most lands, but in the West it takes an extreme form, although there are tribes which reject it altogether. Similar worship, often in a revolting form, is paid to living saints or murabits (marabouts), who are allowed to indulge every passion, and to disregard the ordinary rules of morality: very often these reputed saints are no more than insane persons, for the Berbers, like many other primitive people, regard insanity as a form of divine inspiration. Such saints, even those living to-day, are credited with miraculous powers, and especially with the power of surpassing the limitations of time and place, and so to pass from one place to another in an instant of time, and to be in two places at once.

These ideas, of course, are no legitimate development of Islam, to which they are plainly repugnant, but represent the survival of older pagan beliefs which Islam has not been able to eradicate. At the same time, as we have noted, there are tribes which are completely free from these ideas, and there is, especially in the towns, an element which is strictly orthodox in its rejection of alien superstitions, and there have been many learned theologians and jurists of the Berber race, for the most part of a reactionary and conservative school of thought. The conquest of Spain was carried out by Muslims, amongst whom the Berbers were in the numerical majority, and the Berber element always predominated in Spain, where some of the most brilliant philosophy, literature, and art of the Islamic world was produced.

North Africa was always the home of the lost causes of Islam. Whenever the Khalifs of Baghdad tried to exterminate some obnoxious sect or dynasty, the last survivors took refuge in the remoter parts of the West, and there managed to hold their own, so that even now those parts show the strangest survivals of otherwise forgotten movements. But North Africa always gave its readiest welcome to those sects which show a strongly puritan character: though anyone in revolt against the Khalif or other recognized authority could count on a welcome in North Africa for that very fact.

In race, language, and religious ideas the Berbers of the North are one with the Berber tribes of the great desert which spreads to the watershed of the Benwe and connects, by regular trade routes following the ridges which traverse North Africa from north-west to south-east, with the Horn of Africa. But these desert dwellers of the south do not enter into the subject of our present enquiry.

The Arab conquerors settled along North Africa and down to the desert edge in sporadic groups, their tribes as a rule occupying the lower ground, whilst the older population maintained itself in the mountainous districts. But this does not mean that the Berbers were held at bay as a subject people: the Katama, for instance, possessed some of the best territory in North Africa, and were practically independent of the Khalif. During the invasion of 45 the city of Kairawan was founded some distance south of Tunis. The site was badly chosen, and it is now little more than a decayed village, but for some centuries it served as the political capital of Ifrikiya, the province which lay next to Egypt and embraced the modern states of Tripoli, Tunis, and the eastern part of Algeria to the meridian of Bougie. West of this lay Maghrab or “the western land” which was divided into two districts, Central Maghrab, extending from the borders of Ifrikiya across the greater part of Algeria and the eastern third of Morocco, and Farther Maghrab, which was the land beyond to the Atlantic coast.

The Berber tribes were spread over all these provinces. In the eastern part of Ifrikiya the chief were the tribes of Hwara, Luata, Nefusa, and Zuagha: in Central Ifrikiya the Warghu and Nefzawa: in western Ifrikiya the Nefzawa, Katama, Awraba, and a number of smaller tribes to the south: the chief tribes of Central Maghrab were the Zuawa (or Zouaves), Magbrawa, and B. Mzab: and in Farther Maghrab the B. Wanudin, Ghomara (in the Rif of Morocco), the Miknasa, etc. No satisfactory result has ever been attained by those who have tried to identify the ancient Numidians, Mauritanians, and Gaetuli with existing tribes; evidently, as in Arabia, there have been new groupings and new formations, which forbid the tracing back of the mediaeval tribal divisions to ancient times; perhaps it was Islam which finally rendered permanent the divisions as they existed in the first century of the Hijra. Amongst these Berber tribes were spread the tribes of Arab invaders and settlers which, even in the 10th century A.D. extended in scattered groups from the borders of Egypt to the Atlantic. For the most part each race preserved its own language, the Arabic dialects being distinguished by archaic forms, and a phonology somewhat modified by Berber influences; but there are several instances of Berber tribes which have adopted Arabic, and some of Arabs and mixed groups which have adopted the Berber language. For the most part the Arabs have had no reluctance to mingle with the Berbers, but the attitude of the Berbers varies, and some groups rigidly exclude intermarriage between themselves and the Arabs or any others.

The Kharijites, the oldest and most turbulent dissenting sect of Islam, the reactionaries who opposed the modification of Muslim customs under Hellenistic influence, had appeared in Maghrab early in the 2nd century of the Hijra after their suppression in Asia, and were still a living force there in the fourth century, when their very name was almost forgotten elsewhere. A small group of the less extreme branch of that sect, the Ibadites, still survives in strict isolation in South Algeria. The Idrisids, a dynasty descended from the house of Hasan the son of ʿAli, founded by Idris who escaped from the attempted extermination of his kinsmen at Madina in 169, ruled an independent state in Farther Maghrab in the fourth century. The Umayyads dethroned by the ʿAbbasids in 132, had a representative who escaped to North Africa, and then crossed to Spain where they founded a Khalifate at Cordova which, in the fourth century, had become a great and flourishing power. Indeed the Maghrab was too remote from the Khalifs of Baghdad ever to be under effective control: one after another punitive expeditions marched across North Africa, the disaffected were defeated, the remnant took refuge in the hills, and in the course of a few years or even months the former condition returned again. Obviously those western lands offered a promising field to the agitator, whether political rebel or sectarian leader, and Ibn Hawshab’s missionaries had evidently struck a promising vein in the Berber tribe of Katama.

Amongst those who attached themselves to Ibn Hawshab in Yemen was a certain Abu ʿAbdullah Hasan (or Husayn) b. Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Zakariya, afterwards surnamed ash-Shiʿi, a native of Sana and a zealous Shiʿite who had been inspector of weights and measures in one of the districts attached to Baghdad. He was a man not only of superior education and intelligence, but astute and with as good knowledge of how to deal with men. Before long he became one of Ibn Hawshab’s most trusty companions and, when the news came of the death of the two missionaries who had been sent to Africa, Ibn Hawshab determined to send him as daʿi, and provided him with the funds necessary for his enterprise. Later on we find him in Africa assisted by his brother, but we are without information as to whether this brother was sent to join him later or set out with him (Maqrizi ii. 11, Ibn Khallikan i. 465).

Abu ʿAbdullah’s first step was to go to Mecca and to find out where the Katama pilgrims were lodged. As soon as he discovered this he engaged a lodging near by and sat as close to them as he could, listening to their conversation. Before long they began to talk about the prerogatives of the house of ʿAli, a subject on which they had been instructed by the two missionaries who had already visited their country, and Abu ʿAbdullah joined in their conversation. When he stood up to go away they begged to be allowed to visit him, and to this he assented. They were delighted with his learning and began to frequent his society, and one day they asked him where he intended to go when he had finished his pilgrimage to Mecca. He replied that it was his intention to go to Egypt, so they begged him to join them as they would have to pass through Egypt on their homeward journey. They set out together, and the good opinion they had formed of him was greatly increased as they observed his piety, his regularity in the exercises of religion, and his ascetic character. During all this time he mentioned no word of his real intentions, but constantly directed the conversation to the subject of the land of Katama, and asked many questions about the neighbouring tribes and their relation with the governor of Ifrikiya. On this last subject the Katamites explained that they did not regard the governor as having any authority over them, his residence was ten days’ journey from their country, and his control was nil. He further enquired if they were accustomed to bear arms, and they replied that this was their usual occupation.

When they reached Egypt Abu ʿAbdullah said farewell to the Katama tribesmen but, as they expressed deep regret at the idea of leaving him, they asked what business he had to attend to in Egypt. He replied that he had no business there but simply intended to become a teacher. “If that is all,” they said, “our country will offer you a better field, and you will find more who are disposed to become your pupils, for we know your worth.” So as they pressed him warmly, he consented to continue in their company, and went on until they met some of their fellow tribesmen who came out to meet them. All these had come under the influence of the two former missionaries and were devoted Shiʿites and, when they heard the account given by the returning pilgrims, they welcomed Abu ʿAbdullah with every demonstration of respect.

At length, about the middle of Rabiʿ I. 288 (Feb., 900 A.D.) they reached home, and every one of his companions pressed the missionary to be his guest. He declined all these offers of hospitality and asked them to inform him where was the valley of al-Khiyar (the righteous men). This enquiry greatly astonished them as no one could remember that such a name had ever been mentioned in his presence: they admitted, however, that there was such a place and described its situation, and he then told them that he would take up his abode there and visit each of them from time to time. He then set out with some guides to Mount Inkijan where the valley is situated, and when they arrived there he told his companions, “Here is the ‘Valley of the righteous men’ and it is on your account that it is thus named, for one reads in the traditions that ‘the Mahdi will be obliged to make his migration, and will be helped in his flight by the Righteous Men who will be on earth at that time, and by a nation whose name is derived from kitman’; it is because you will rise up in this valley which has been named ‘The valley of the Righteous Men’” (Maq. ii. 11). The derivation of the Berber name Katama from the Arabic kitman “secret” was, of course, no more than a play upon words.

Very soon the dwellers in the vicinity began to spread Abu ʿAbdullah’s reputation, men came from all parts to visit him, and he completely swayed a large body of Berber tribesmen amongst whom the Katama tribe was most prominent. He made, however, no further mention of the Mahdi, and did not seem to interest himself in the subject. But he connected his work with that of the two former missionaries and said: “I am the man entrusted with the sowing of whom Abu Safyan and Hulwani spoke to you,” and this increased their attachment towards him and his importance in their eyes (Maq. id. 37). Some, however, regarded him with disfavour, for evidently there were Berber tribes which had not adopted Shiʿite doctrines: but the Katama tribe under its chieftain Hasan b. Harun supported him, and took up arms against those who tried to interfere with his work. This inter-tribal dispute was the beginning of a long conflict, which ultimately made the Shiʿites dominant in North Africa. Supported by the Katama and a number of Kabyle tribes Hasan attacked and captured the town of Tarrut, and then advanced against Meila.

Already reports of the religious teacher of Mount Ankijan had spread through the province of Ifrikiya, and had reached Ibrahim b. Ahmad the Aghlabi Emir. These Aghlabids were hereditary governors of Ifrikiya established at Kairawan about 184 by the ʿAbbasid Khalifs, to whom they paid tribute and were subject. Desirous of obtaining more accurate information Ibrahim had sent to the governor of Meila to make enquiry about Abu ʿAbdullah and his doings, but the governor had sent back to Kairawan a somewhat contemptuous account of him, in which he was described as a religious fanatic, a devotee revered as a saint by the ignorant people, and so the political possibilities of his activity were overlooked.

The taking of Tarrut and the advance on Meila, which city, after a brief resistance, was betrayed by some of its inhabitants, made a change in this attitude. Ibrahim sent an army under his brother Ahwal against Abu ʿAbdullah and his followers, and defeated them, after which Ahwal returned home fully convinced that the rising had been finally disposed of. From this defeat Abu ʿAbdullah retired to Mount Ankijan where he established a “house of flight,” and there he gathered his partisans around him. As soon as he heard of Ahwal’s retirement he began a series of forays, pillaging the surrounding districts and annoying those who did not join the Shiʿite sect. At this Ahwal made a new expedition, but this time he suffered a repulse, not severe enough to force him to retreat, but compelling him to be satisfied with a defensive police duty in the neighbourhood which was, however, effectual in checking the Shiʿite raids. But this did not last long. In 291 (= A.D. 903) Ibrahim the Aghlabi died, and the governorship passed to his son Ziadat Allah, a man indolent and entirely devoted to pleasure, who recalled his brother Ahwal from his military duties.

This, of course, opened new opportunities for Abu ʿAbdullah, and very soon his followers were ranging at will through the whole province of Ifrikiya, and he boldly declared that the Mahdi was now near at hand and would soon appear in Africa, and would prove his sacred mission by working miracles (Maq. ii. 11). Common report affirmed that Abu ʿAbdullah himself had done many wonders, even making the sun rise in the west, restoring the dead to life, and other marvels. Not only had he now a very large following amongst the Berber tribesmen, but many of the officers serving under Ziadat Allah were well disposed towards the Shiʿite claims, and were secretly in correspondence with Abu ʿAbdullah.

At this juncture, in 291, the Shiʿites were practically supreme in all the country west of the suburbs of Kairawan, and now Abu ʿAbdullah sent messengers over to the Mahdi inviting him to cross into Africa. Ismaʿil had just died at Salamiya, and shortly before his death advised his son Saʿid to migrate to a distant land. As soon as his father died Saʿid and his son Abu l-Kasam Nizar set out from Salamiya intending to go to Yemen, but hearing of the success in North Africa changed their course in that direction, probably meeting the messengers from Abu ʿAbdullah on the way (cf. Ibn Khaldun ii. 515-516). The journey was beset with great perils, especially in the passing through Egypt. At that time the governor of Egypt was Abu Musa Isa b. Muhammad Nushari, who had been appointed after the death of Ibn Tulun in 292, and held office until the government was usurped by Khalanj in 293-4, after which the Khalif al-Muqtadi restored him to office which he held until his death in 297. Saʿid, or ʿUbayd Allah as he now preferred to call himself, arrived during this latter period of office, and the governor had grounds of suspicion about him without very clear information. The refugees left Misr, the old capital lying to the south of the present Cairo, but the governor followed and overtook them. He attempted no violence, but joined their company and induced them to rest with him in a garden, his guard meanwhile surrounding the place. He tried every means to win their confidence, and so to find out who they were and what was the object of their journey: he tried to coax ʿUbayd Allah to join him in taking refreshment, but ʿUbayd Allah declined on the pretext that he was then observing a fast: then he tried to get information by judicious questions, but in vain. At length he allowed ʿUbayd Allah to go on his way. He offered the travellers an escort, but this was politely declined. Then the governor assembled his men to return home, but many of them showed their discontent that the travellers had been allowed to escape, and on second thoughts the governor himself regretted that he had not detained them for further enquiry, and sent a body of men after them, but they had made good use of their start, and it proved impossible to overtake them. Some said that the governor had been bribed by ʿUbayd Allah, and this seems to be likely enough.

After this escape ʿUbayd Allah, his son, and Abu l-ʿAbbas, the brother of Abu ʿAbdullah, went on to Tripoli. The next town on their way would be Kairawan, and ʿUbayd Allah was distinctly anxious about venturing there, so he sent forward Abu l-ʿAbbas to obtain information. Now it appears that Ziadat Allah had much clearer grounds of suspicion than the Egyptian governor, and Abu l-ʿAbbas was not able to escape suspicion, and was taken prisoner. Ziadat Allah does not seem to have been so much interested in the prisoner himself, but made every endeavour to find out some details about the companions with whom he was travelling. Abu l-ʿAbbas denied that he had travelled with any companions, or that he had any knowledge of a fugitive from Syria: he asserted that he was simply a merchant passing through Ifrikiya on his own business. But Ziadat Allah’s suspicions were not allayed: Abu l-ʿAbbas was detained in custody, and a messenger was sent to Tripoli to secure the arrest of the other travellers. The messenger, however, returned with the reply that ʿUbayd Allah had already left the city before the order for his arrest had arrived. Again the suggestion is made that the governor of Tripoli had been won over by bribes. It is supposed that ʿUbayd Allah had been able to take with him a great part of his considerable wealth, and that it was easy for him to corrupt the provincial governors. Certainly he had information of what had befallen Abu l-ʿAbbas in Kairawan. At first he retired to Kastilia, but when he made sure that there was no possibility of Abu l-ʿAbbas getting free and joining him there, he went on to Sijilmassa (Maq. ii. 11).

At the time of his arrival in this town the ruling prince, al-Yasa b. Midrar, had no grounds of suspicion, and received the travellers very kindly. ʿUbayd Allah made him valuable presents, and they soon became intimate. One day, however, as they were sitting together, a letter from Ziadat Allah was put into al-Yasa’s hand, and in it the Aghlabi related the suspicions he had formed about ʿUbayd Allah. The governor immediately ordered the arrest of ʿUbayd Allah and his son, questioned them closely about their relations with Abu l-ʿAbbas, and the suggestion that they were in some way associated with Abu ʿAbdullah, but ʿUbayd Allah denied any knowledge of either of these. The father and son were then separated and confined in separate quarters, and the son, Abu l-Kasam, was examined apart, but no information of any sort could be obtained from him.

Meanwhile, since the departure of the messengers from Abu ʿAbdullah to ʿUbayd Allah, the former had continued his career of conquest. Meila, Satif, and other towns immediately near the Katama territory were taken, and the governor at Kairawan was no longer able to disguise from himself that the Shiʿite revolt was threatening the very basis of Arab authority in Ifrikiya. Under these circumstances Ziadat Allah assembled a council of canonists to advise him about the Shiʿite claims. The meeting took place in the house of the prince’s chief adviser, Abdullah b. Essaig, and, after considering the religious character of Abu ʿAbdullah’s movement, and especially the report that “he cursed the Companions,” i.e., that he was a Shiʿite who cursed the first three Khalifs as usurpers who had excluded ʿAli from his rights, regardless of the fact that they had been the companions of the Prophet, they decided that Abu ʿAbdullah and his followers must be publicly denounced as heretics. Fortified with this decision which was necessary to stop the tendency of his own people to favour the Shiʿites, the Aghlabid assembled an army of 40,000 men whom he placed under a kinsman named Ibrahim b. Habashi b. ʿUmar at-Tamimi, and sent them against the Katama. Ibrahim took up his quarters at Konstantina l-Hawa, on the western edge of the Katama country, and there he stayed six months without actually attacking the Shiʿites, but serving as a check upon their movements. As soon as he appeared Abu ʿAbdullah retired to his usual retreat, “the house of flight,” and no further advance was made on either side. As Ahwal had already proved, this kind of patrol work was the most effective. But Ibrahim desired a decisive punishment of the revolted tribes, and rashly resolved to move out and attack Kerma, one of the cities occupied by the Shiʿites. On the way Abu ʿAbdullah met and defeated him, and he had to flee with the remnants of his army to Kairawan.

Matters were now becoming extremely serious, and Ziadat assembled a new force which he entrusted to Harun b. Tabni. Harun marched upon Daralmoluk and took it, but immediately afterwards Abu ʿAbdullah arrived with his main band, and a general engagement ensued, in which Harun was killed and his forces completely routed. After this victory Abu ʿAbdullah marched upon Banjas, which capitulated, and then was in a position to threaten Kairawan itself. We have now reached the year 295, and at this point Ziadat Allah raised a third army and took command himself. He advanced to Elaris, but there his courtiers began to remonstrate with him: if any disaster took place and he were involved it would mean the downfall of the Aghlabid dynasty, a result which would not necessarily proceed from the defeat of a subordinate general. Persuaded by his entourage Ziadat Allah appointed his kinsman Ibrahim as commander-in-chief, and himself retired to Raqada to the south-west of Kairawan, and gave himself over entirely to a life of pleasure.

Meanwhile Abu ʿAbdullah was extending his authority over the whole country. He was invited to Bagaya which he occupied, then took by force the small towns of Majana, Sash, and Maskanaya. His politic clemency at Bagaya produced a good impression, and did much to assist him in gaining over other towns. His success caused great alarm to Ziadat Allah, and he consulted ʿAbdullah b. Essaig, who advised him to retire to Egypt and leave a general in charge of the army, but Ibrahim persuaded him to abandon this idea. Soon afterwards Abu ʿAbdullah advanced to Merida, where were many refugees from the towns already taken. The inhabitants asked for terms, and Abu ʿAbdullah’s lieutenants agreed, the leader himself being absent. When the envoys from the citizens returned and the gates were opened to admit them, the attacking army made a sudden rush, forced their way in, and pillaged the city.

Abu ʿAbdullah now resolved to attack Raqada where Ziadat Allah was established. As he marched towards that town Ibrahim tried to intercept him, and for this purpose left al-Arbes where he was encamped, and occupied Derdemin, which lay near the route which Abu ʿAbdullah would have to take. On his way the Shiʿites sent a detachment to take Derdemin, without apparently being aware that this was now Ibrahim’s headquarters. The detachment was repulsed and put to flight. Abu ʿAbdullah was unable to understand why the detachment did not return, and went after them with reinforcements to find out. On the way they met their comrades in full flight from Derdemin, but at their arrival the fugitives stopped, turned back, and with the help of the new-comers inflicted a severe defeat on Ibrahim. This was followed by the submission of Qafra and Qastilia, the latter place being a general depot for Ziadat Allah’s munitions, provisions, and money, all of which fell into the Shiʿites’ hands. For the moment, however, Abu ʿAbdullah refrained from further advance: he settled at Bagaya and established his headquarters there, and then retired for a time on his own account to Mount Ankijan.

Ibrahim then decided to take the offensive and laid siege to Bagaya, news of which quickly brought Abu ʿAbdullah back from his retirement, bringing 12,000 newly enrolled tribesmen with him. But Bagaya was offering such a sturdy resistance to Ibrahim that the besieger was both astonished and discouraged, and, hearing of Abu ʿAbdullah’s approach, retired again to al-Arbes.

In the spring of the following year, A.H. 296, the two armies of Ziadat Allah and Abu ʿAbdullah both took the field. The historians state that the former numbered 200,000 men, the latter many more. It must, of course, be remembered that figures of this sort by oriental writers are hardly deserving of the least attention. An engagement took place with results unfavourable to Ibrahim, who forthwith retired to Kairawan, the strongest military stronghold in Africa. As a consequence of this Abu ʿAbdullah was enabled to enter al-Arbes, and a great massacre of the inhabitants took place, some 3,000 it is said being killed in the principal mosque. The following morning Abu ʿAbdullah retired to Bagaya. Next day the news reached Ziadat Allah. For some time ʿAbdullah b. Essaig endeavoured to conceal it from the citizens, but when he offered 20 dinars to each volunteer willing to serve in the cavalry, and 10 dinars to each recruit for the infantry, the citizens perceived that the state was reduced to the last extremities and a panic ensued, many of the nobles and their dependents leaving for Raqada. Ziadat Allah himself packed up his valuables, and with the favourite ladies of his harim set out for Egypt. ʿAbdullah b. Essaig was put in charge of the prince’s goods, and these were loaded on thirty camels, but unfortunately they missed their way as they started in the dark, and arrived at Susa where the governor impounded them, and they finally fell a prey to Abu ʿAbdullah. ʿAbdullah b. Essaig himself tried to escape by sea, but a storm drove his ship ashore at Tripoli just as Ziadat Allah, angry at missing his goods, was stopping there. The unfortunate minister was brought before the prince as a deserter, but made so good a defence that Ziadat Allah decided to pardon him; the courtiers, however, intervened, and he was beheaded.

After reaching Egypt, Ziadat Allah passed on to Rakka and sent forward messengers to the Khalif asking permission to present himself at Baghdad. A reply came forbidding him to attend at court and ordering him to await further instructions at Rakka. He stayed there a whole year which he spent in pleasure, and then received instructions to return to Africa, the governor of Egypt being directed to prepare supplies to equip him for an expedition against the Shiʿites. In accordance with these orders he travelled back to Egypt, where the governor told him to wait for the supplies at Dhatu l-Hammam. He waited there a long time in vain, and then, as he was now in broken health he started out for Palestine, but was taken worse on the way and died at Ramla. With him the Aghlabid dynasty of hereditary governors of Ifrikiya, under the ʿAbbasid Khalifate, came to an end.

When Abu ʿAbdullah heard of the Emir’s flight he went at once to Wady an-Namal, and sent forward 1,000 men under Arunaba b. Yusus and Hasan b. Jarir to Raqada. The news soon reached Kairawan, and a deputation was sent out to congratulate the Shiʿites. These emissaries thought to ingratiate themselves by making contemptuous and hostile reflections upon the late ruler, but Abu ʿAbdullah rebuked them, stating that Ziadat Allah had lacked neither courage nor intelligence, but that defeat had overtaken him because it was the will of God. His gracious reception of the envoys from Kairawan caused great annoyance to the Katama tribesmen, to whom he had made a promise that they would be allowed to plunder the city.

In Rajab I. 296 Abu ʿAbdullah, at the head of 300,000 men, entered Raqada to find the town entirely deserted by its inhabitants. He established himself in one of the empty mansions, and the leaders of the Katama occupied others (Maq. ii. 11). He then sent to Tripoli to fetch his brother Abu l-ʿAbbas and Abu Jaʿfar, as well as ʿUbayd Allah’s mother, who had apparently accompanied her son, though we hear no more about her. Abu ʿAbdullah was a fervent Shiʿite and established a strict puritan rule in Kairawan, death being the penalty for drinking wine or bringing it into the city. The Shiʿite formula was used in the call to prayer, which implied the addition of the words “come to the excellent work” to the orthodox call, and the names of ʿAli, Fatima, Hasan, and Husayn were inserted in the Khutba or public prayer at the Friday service. As in modern Persia the supreme authority was attributed to the concealed Imam, and the civil government based its rights on the claim to act as his deputy until the day of his revealing. In Kairawan the proper deputy would naturally be the Mahdi ʿUbayd Allah, but no public announcement was made of this as yet. The Khatibs of Kairawan and Raqada were ordered to omit the name of the ʿAbbasid Khalif from the khutba, but no other ruler’s name was inserted in its place. A new coinage was prepared, and this similarly bore no prince’s name; simply it had the inscription on one side, “I have borne my witness to God,” and on the other “May the enemies of God be scattered.”

During these events ʿUbayd Allah remained still imprisoned at Sijalmasa, but now the time had arrived for his supporters to rescue him. Abu ʿAbdullah’s two brothers, Abu l-ʿAbbas and Abu Zakir, who had hitherto taken no very prominent position, were left as deputies at Raqada, and Abu ʿAbdullah with a large body of followers marched towards Sijalmasa. The object most desired was of course the liberation of ʿUbayd Allah, and the danger was that the governor might put him and his son to death before the Shiʿites could rescue them. It was necessary, therefore, to avoid irritating al-Yasa the governor. Abu ʿAbdullah halted his army at some distance from the city, and sent forward envoys bearing a letter in which he assured al-Yasa that he desired no conflict, but only asked that ʿUbayd Allah and his son might be set free. Al-Yasa only threw the letter on the ground and had the envoys put to death. A second letter produced a similar result, and then Abu ʿAbdullah advanced and camped his men before the city, intending to make an attack on the following day. During the night al-Yasa escaped with all his portable goods and relatives. Next morning the inhabitants sent out and informed Abu ʿAbdullah, who went at once to the prison whence he liberated ʿUbayd Allah and his son. Leading the Mahdi out he showed him to the people, saying: “This is the Mahdi to whose obedience I invited men.” He then set him and his son on horses and paraded them through the streets, crying, “This is your lord,” frequently interrupting his cry with tears of joy. He conducted them to a tent which had been made ready for them, and sent a body of men in pursuit of al-Yasa (Maq. ii. 11-12). The fugitive governor was overtaken, brought back, and executed.

Ibn Khallikan gives another account of the taking of Sijalmasa, in which it is related that, before leaving the city al-Yasa executed ʿUbayd Allah, and when Abu ʿAbdullah entered his cell he found only the dead body and a faithful Jewish slave. Knowing that the absence of the Mahdi would be fatal to the whole Shiʿite scheme, he seized the slave, compelled him to silent acquiescence, and leading him out declared, “This is the Mahdi” (Ibn Khall. ii. 78). This is another form of the “Jewish legend,” to which we have already referred (cf. [p. 47, above]).

For forty days ʿUbayd Allah remained at Sijalmasa, and then, towards the end of Rabiʿ II. 297 he was conducted by Abu ʿAbdullah to Raqada. Here he assumed the title of “al-Mahdi, Commander of the Faithful,” and on the following Friday was prayed for under that title in the mosques of Raqada and Kairawan. On the same day the Sherif and the duʿat held a public meeting, at which they tried to persuade the people of Raqada to become professed members of the Ismaʿilian sect. In this, however, they were only partially successful, although lavish rewards were offered to those who joined, and many of those who definitely refused were imprisoned, some even put to death. In fact we are now in quite different surroundings: the Mahdi was a successful adventurer, and had every prospect of establishing a principality quite as stable, and more independent than that of the Aghlabids: the religious pretensions of the Shiʿite party were only an embarrassment. From this time forward the Ismaʿilian sectaries form a privileged class, on the whole disliked and despised by the people generally, who were quite ready to submit to the Mahdi’s government, though deriding its spiritual claims; and the tendency is for the ruler rather to disembarrass himself of the sectaries.

Ziadat Allah’s harim was then presented to the Mahdi who, after selecting such women as met with his approval for himself and his son, distributed the remainder amongst the chief men of the Katama.

As soon as ʿUbayd Allah had entered Raqada the citizens had waited on him to obtain the renewal of the amnesty accorded by Abu ʿAbdullah. He replied to them, “Your lives and your children are safe.” They asked him if he would give them a similar assurance as to their property, but this he refused. This caused great anxiety amongst the citizens, who gathered that their property was regarded as at the disposal of the Shiʿites. At first ʿUbayd Allah showed a much more violent Shiʿism than Abu ʿAbdullah, although we seem justified in supposing that he was merely an adventurer who was entirely without religious convictions, whilst Abu ʿAbdullah seems to have been a devout Shiʿite: but this is by no means the only instance in history where religious persecution was carried out most severely by unbelievers. He caused the “Companions,” i.e., the three Khalifs preceding ʿAli, to be reviled openly, just as ʿAli himself had formerly been cursed publicly every Friday in the mosque of Damascus; and he strictly prohibited the canonists from teaching or using any system of jurisprudence other than that attributed to Jaʿfar as-Sadiq.

Year 298 (= A.D. 910). Abu ʿAbdullah had proved himself a loyal and efficient helper, and had done more than any other to establish the Mahdi in Africa. It seems that he was a sincere Shiʿite, and acted throughout in perfect good faith and in attachment to the Mahdi with whom he had corresponded, but probably had never seen before he entered the prison at Sijilmasa. In 298 these feelings changed. One account is that Abu ʿAbdullah and the chiefs of the Katama began to feel doubts about the Mahdi’s claim because he proved unable to work any miracles, and ability to perform miracles had always been assumed as one of the evidences of a Mahdi’s claims. Working miracles always has been and still is the primary essential of a murabit (marabout) in North Africa, and there need be no reason to doubt that the non-fulfilment of the probably extravagant Berber expectations must have caused serious disappointment amongst the Katama. Then again, the Berbers, like the Arabs, are naturally fickle and insubordinate; in the ordinary course of things they would be sure to murmur before long against any ruler, especially against one near at hand. Did Abu ʿAbdullah share their feelings? or did he excite them for his own ends? Ibn Khallikan states that when the Mahdi was firmly established at Kairawan, Abu l-ʿAbbas reproached his brother that “You were master of the country and uncontrolled arbiter of its affairs, yet you have delivered it over to another and consent to remain in the position of an inferior,” and at this Abu ʿAbdullah began to regret that he had handed everything over to the Mahdi and commenced plotting against him (Ibn Khall. i. 465). But it must be remembered that Ibn Khallikan shows a very marked anti-Fatimid bias. It seems more likely that both Abu ʿAbdullah and the Berbers were really disappointed to find the Mahdi an ordinary mortal. The matter was debated in the presence of the chief sheikh of the Katama, and Abu ʿAbdullah expressed his doubts, saying: “His actions are not like those of the Mahdi to whom I used to try to win you: I am afraid I have been mistaken in him, and have suffered a delusion similar to that of Ibrahim al-Khalit when the night closed over him and he saw a star and said, ‘This is my lord’ (Qur. vi. 76). It is therefore incumbent on me and you to examine him, and to make him show those proofs which are known to the genealogists as those to be found in the Imam” (Arib b. Saʿid, Nicholson, pp. 120-121). As a result the Sheikh of the Katama waited upon ʿUbayd Allah and asked for the performance of a miracle as a proof of his claim to be the Mahdi. The reply was the immediate execution of the Sheikh. This gave serious alarm to Abu ʿAbdullah and his brothers, who held a meeting by night in the house of the youngest brother Abu Zakir. This night meeting may have been merely a conference to discuss changed conditions, or it may have been in the nature of a conspiracy. Such meetings continued for some time, and very probably treasonable plans were suggested, even if not seriously adopted: at any rate suspicion was aroused, the brothers were watched, and full information of their proceedings was carried to the Mahdi. One morning Abu ʿAbdullah appeared at court with his garment turned inside out, the Mahdi took no notice. Next day the same thing happened, and so on the third. On the last of these occasions the Mahdi asked him why he wore his garment so. He replied that it was an oversight; he had not noticed that it was turned the wrong way. The Mahdi continued, “Did you not pass the night at the house of Abu Zakir?”—he replied, “Yes,”—“Why did you do so?”—Abu ʿAbdullah answered that he did so because he was afraid. The Mahdi remarked that one only feared when there was cause to believe that there was an enemy. He then showed that he was fully aware of the meetings, that he knew the names of those present, and the subject of their conversation. As a punishment he declared that the three brothers should be expelled from Kairawan, and that Abu Zakir, who seems to have been the moving spirit, should be sent to Tripoli as governor. There had been a revolt of the Hawarite tribe in Tripoli, and so it seemed that Abu Zakir was to be sent on military service as a punishment, replacing the governor who was his uncle. At Kairawan this seemed a just and proper measure, for conspiracy could hardly be passed over, but the penalty involved no disgrace or apparent severity. So Abu Zakir set out for Tripoli bearing a letter to the governor. But unknown to him the letter contained orders for his instant execution. As soon as the governor read the letter he sent for Abu Zakir and showed it to him; the nephew admitted that it was the will of God and submitted to be beheaded. News of this was sent by carrier pigeon to the Mahdi, who perceived that it was now time to get rid of the other two brothers before they took the alarm. He invited them to a repast, but sends two officers, Garwaih al-Mulusi and Jaʿbar al-Mili, to conceal themselves behind the castle of as-Sachu and way-lay them as they passed. They did so and killed them with pikes. The bodies laid uncared for at the brink of a cistern until after the following noon, then the Mahdi orders them to be taken up and given a public funeral at which he himself officiated. In explanation of his action the Mahdi wrote a letter to the Shiʿites of Asia in which he said: “Ye know the position in which Abu ʿAbdullah and Abu ʿAbbas stood with regard to Islam; but Satan hath caused them to stumble, and they have been punished with the sword. Farewell” (Arib b. Saʿid, Nicholson, p. 128).

But the murder of Abu ʿAbdullah was not taken easily by all the Katama tribe, and a riot followed the funeral. At this the Mahdi showed the personal courage which, equally with a total absence of scruple or gratitude, became characteristic of his dynasty. Mounting his horse he rode out into the streets, and declared that now justice was satisfied, and that no further enquiry would be made or punishments inflicted. He was so far successful that the people dispersed quietly.

We may take the murder of Abu ʿAbdullah as marking the establishment of the Khalifate at Kairawan. Hitherto it had been more or less surrounded with a religious atmosphere; it had been essentially connected with a particular religious sect. Now, with the death of Abu ʿAbdullah it is established frankly as a secular power, although the religious claims are still maintained in the background. The Shiʿite position, however, now appears rather as political than sectarian. The orthodox Khalif was ruling at Baghdad, but the Mahdi’s followers regarded him simply as a usurper. The same view was taken by the Umayyad rulers in Spain, although at this time they had not yet ventured to assume the title of Khalif. Amongst the Shiʿites proper the Khalif exists only as the “concealed” Imam, and the visible ruler on earth is merely his viceroy: but the Mahdi claimed to be not only Mahdi, but the heir of the Imams, and thus assumed the Khalifate as the legitimate heir of ʿAli.

V
THE FATIMID KHALIFS OF KAIRAWAN

Led by religious enthusiasms, the Berber tribes had succeeded in sweeping away the Arab government of the province of Ifrikiya. To a very large extent, however, this was as much a racial and anti-Arab movement of the Berbers as a religious one: of course, very much the same has been true of every Mahdist movement in Africa. The history of Islam is full of similar revolts, for the most part either with a religious motive, or at least a religious pretext. Now the destructive work was finished and the Mahdi settled at Kairawan, having damped or perhaps quenched the religious fervour of his followers by the execution of Abu ʿAbdullah and the implied shelving of the miraculous powers which his earlier followers had associated with him, was faced with the task of constructing an orderly and stable principality out of what must be confessed to have been rather unpromising materials. More than once the Semitic and Berber tribes have shewn themselves quite capable of nation-building, and their work has not always been short-lived. The religious motive was effective in arousing the enthusiasm of fighting men, the task of framing political institutions demanded different qualities. At this time, no doubt, we must regard the Mahdi as primarily a political adventurer: that he had any serious regard for Shiʿite principles is incredible; that he was the missionary of an enlightened philosophy which would deliver men from the fetters of religion,—a position which may have been true of his ancestor ʿAbdullah,—is extremely improbable in his case. Unexpected circumstances had given him an exceptional opportunity as the founder of a dynasty, and we have now to see how he used this opportunity.

Towards religion the Mahdi’s attitude had been at first one of rabid Shiʿism, though he, as one of the fully initiated, could not have been sincere: no doubt he was acting up to what he expected to be the feelings of his subjects so far as he had observed the Katama and the immediate followers of Abu ʿAbdullah: closer acquaintance with the people of Kairawan showed him that he had been mistaken, the people generally were quite ready for a Mahdi, or anyone else, who could establish and maintain an orderly government, but as Muslims they were orthodox by a large majority, and by no means willing to accept the rather fantastic theories of incarnation and transmigration which appealed to the Persian mind. As soon as this was made clear the Mahdi formulated a definite policy in religion, enforcing strictly all the outward observances of Islam, rigidly punctilious in the prohibition of forbidden food and drink, and punishing severely those of the Ismaʿilian sect, who tried to practice the freedom of the higher grades of the initiated. It was no doubt possible for the initiate to disregard the rites of religion in their private life, but any external neglect, likely to cause scandal amongst the populace at large, was treated as a criminal offence: there was none of the open lawlessness of the Qarmatians tolerated in Ifrikiya: the inner grades of the sect were distinguished from other Muslims only by their reverence for the family of ʿAli, whom all revered to some extent, by their repudiation of the first three Khalifs, which was offensive to the orthodox but not intolerable, and by a few minor differences in the ritual of prayer, and in the treatment of the problems of the canon law.

The most difficult problem demanding the new ruler’s immediate attention lay in the lands to the west, for the Mahdi claimed to control all the territory to the Atlantic, over which the Aghlabid princes had pretended to rule. The first difficult task came in the revolt of Tiharet.

For long past the Berber lands of North Africa had afforded a refuge for every persecuted sect and dynasty of Islam. The earliest sect, the Kharijites, the wild men of the desert who adhered to the oldest form of purely Arab Islam, had entered Africa after they had been hunted down and slaughtered in Asia by the Umayyad Khalifs. In the days of the Mahdi they still held their own in the district of Tiharet in the mountainous country of Central Maghrab. They threw off all allegiance to the ruler at Kairawan and invited Muhammad b. Khazar to be their Emir. The Mahdi sent the Katami Aruba b. Yusuf against them: after three days siege the city was taken, plundered, and some 8,000 of the inhabitants slain.

The Umayyads who had put down the Kharijites in Asia had been compelled by the course of events to seek a refuge in Africa for themselves, and thence had passed over to Spain which was regarded as the remotest of the western parts. At this time they were ruling at Cordova (they did not assume the title of Khalif until A.H. 317), and held also some possessions in Africa about Oran. The same Karmati leader who had taken Tiharet was able to seize Oran.

The Idrisid dynasty, descendants of ʿAli by Hasan, expelled from Madina in 169, had founded a state in the remoter part of Morocco where they were still ruling. This state also was attacked by Aruba and reduced, so that all the western lands to the Atlantic coast was brought under the control of the Mahdi (Ibn Khald. i. 244-5, 267-8, etc.).

This course of consolidation of the most loosely held part of the Muslim world speaks well for the organising ability of the general Aruba, and established the Mahdi’s authority upon a sound foundation. It was, however, disturbed by domestic difficulties in the capital. Kairawan was an Arab colony, but under the Mahdi the Berbers were in the ascendant, and racial disputes were inevitable. One day a Katama tribesman treated a city merchant with insolence; a riot ensued, and some 1,000 of the Katama were slain. After this had been repressed the governor rode through the city and ordered the dead bodies of the Berbers to be removed. The workmen who carried out this order threw the bodies into the channel which served as the city sewer. At this the Katama tribesmen removed from the city in indignation, and declared that they would no longer submit to the Mahdi’s rule, and chose a youth named Kadu as their emir. Very soon this rebel was in possession of the whole province of Zab, and the Mahdi sent several generals against him without result. Some of these generals, indeed, deserted to the enemy, for the Berbers were the main fighting force in Africa, and there was a general indignation amongst them at the way in which the Katama rebels in Kairawan had been treated, and there were many followers of Abu ʿAbdullah still who threw in their lot with the revolted Berbers. At length ʿUbayd Allah sent his son Abu l-Qasim, and he, with some difficulty, managed to reduce the tribesmen.

In 300 the colony of Tripoli revolted. There, as in Kairawan, there had been riots between the Berbers and Arabs. When Abu l-Qasim returned from punishing the tribes he advanced to attack Tripoli, whilst the Mahdi at the same time sent a fleet against it, and after some delay it was reduced. Then Sicily revolted, and this proved to be a permanent loss to the Fatimid Khalifs. At first the Sicilians invited Ahmad, a son of Ziadat Allah, the former emir of Kairawan, to take charge. He refused, but after some time, as the invitation was repeated, he consented to be recognised as emir of Sicily. As soon as he was established he sent a letter to the Khalif of Baghdad professing loyalty and asking to be confirmed as emir by the Khalif. Thus Sicily broke away from the Fatimid dominions and became once more a part of the empire of the ʿAbbasid Khalif.

In 301 the Mahdi founded a new city on the coast near Kairawan, and gave to it the name of al-Mahadiya. The site was very badly chosen, and the place afterwards decayed completely, although it served as the Fatimid capital for some generations. At the same time he commenced building a fleet, by the help of which he hoped to make an attack upon Egypt in due course; no doubt he was by this time convinced that his kingdom in North Africa was not likely to be a stable one, just as it had been held precariously by the Arab rulers who preceded him: in fact it was an unsettled and savage country, which could be under control only so long as under actual military occupation. Probably, also, he hoped that the prospect of conquering Egypt would attach the Berbers to him more successfully. The weak point in these plans was that the building and manning of a fleet depended almost entirely on what Greek help he could hire. Soon afterwards he sent his general Khubasa eastwards and extended his authority, somewhat precariously, to Barqa. In the summer of 302 he made his first attempt against Egypt, sending forces by land under his son Abu l-Qasim, and Khubasa against Alexandria. The inhabitants of that city were obliged to take refuge in the ships in the harbour, whilst the invaders plundered their houses. The invading army then passed southwards to the Fayyum, but here they were met by an Egyptian army strongly reinforced from Baghdad, and compelled to retire. The effort, however, had brought the invasion of Egypt within the sphere of practical politics, and the plunder of Alexandria raised much enthusiasm amongst the Mahdi’s followers. At that time the ʿAbbasid Khalifate was in its decline: in Baghdad the government was in the hands of the military guard, the commander of that guard was the real ruler, the Khalif being no more than a figure head liable to be deposed and replaced at the will of the soldiery. The provinces were semi-independent, in most cases ruled by hereditary emirs who paid no more than a formal tribute of respect to the Khalif; indeed, in many cases it meant simply that his name was mentioned in the Friday prayer. Of all the provinces Egypt was, perhaps, the worst administered, and the ripest for falling away from the ʿAbbasid dominions. It was on the verge of disintegration by natural decay, whilst the Fatimid state which coveted it, though outwardly strong and efficient, had already showed that it had the seeds of internal weakness in the tribal jealousies of Berbers and Arabs.

In 307 the Mahdi’s armies made another attempt on Egypt, this time supported by a fleet of 85 ships, which passed along the coast from al-Mahadiya and anchored in the harbour of Alexandria. The Khalif’s officers at Baghdad could only get together 25 ships which were assembled at Tarsus and sailed over to Alexandria. But those twenty-five ships were manned by experienced Greek mariners, and inflicted a decisive defeat on the Mahdi’s fleet.

As Egypt now enters very directly into the affairs of the Fatimids, it will be necessary to consider its condition. For the last four years it had been governed by the Emir Dhuka ar-Rumi, i.e., Ducas the Roman (or Greek). Before the defeat of the Mahdi’s fleet Dhuka resolved to check the invaders who had followed their former route to the Fayyum, and were laying waste and plundering at will. He had great difficulty in inducing the Egyptian army to move at all, but at last marched out to Giza and encamped on the same side of the Nile as the Mahdi’s army. Soon afterwards he died, and the governorship was taken over by Tekin al-Khassa, who had been governor before from 298 to 303 and had been associated with the former victory over the Shiʿites. Immensely popular with the soldiery, his resumption of office made an immediate change, and he was able to take the offensive and inflict a serious check upon the invaders, about the same time as the naval victory at Alexandria. Although the Fayyum was cleared the Fatimid forces were still in control in Upper Egypt, whither their cavalry had pressed on whilst others stayed in the Fayyum. There the extreme narrowness of the Nile valley and the exposed condition of the Bahariya and the other oases always meant a minimum of defence, and the invaders were able to hold their own until the next year. That meant that the whole area was infested by bands of light cavalry, rapidly moving Bedwin, both Berber and Arab, always able to retreat at will into the neighbouring desert and very difficult to be restrained by any ordinary military force. In our own dealings with the Sanusi in 1916 we had experience of such difficulty. The only possible solution is a system of organised military patrol, which takes some little time to dispose efficiently. That Egypt was cleared after a few months’ interval shows that Tekin had considerable ability in handling the military task with which he was confronted.

These attacks of the Shiʿites revealed another weakness in Egypt. There was strong reason to suspect that they had many sympathisers there. There was an active branch of the Ismaʿilian propaganda at work in the country, and all who were initiated in the sect were of necessity spies and helpers of the invaders. Two at least of the leading officials, the Qadi and the Treasurer were in correspondence with the Mahdi and in his employ: this does not mean that they were converts to the Shiʿite sect, but simply that they were disloyal to their own service as the result of personal jealousies and rivalries, the perennial bane of all oriental governments. It was only the support of the army which maintained Tekin, and even so he was not in a position to attack his rivals in the government. When he had been successful in clearing the country of the Mahdi’s forces, he had his reward in dismissal from the governorship in which he was succeeded by Muhammad b. Hamal, but three days later he was restored, to be deposed again soon afterwards as the result of more palace intrigues. The two following governors, Hilal b. Badr and Ahmad b. Kayghalagh, held office, the first for two years, the other for one, and then in 312 Takin was restored and remained governor until his death in 321. Conditions indeed were such that only a military leader with the support of the army could exercise any effective control in the country. The reinforcements sent from Baghdad in 302 had done more harm than the Shiʿite invaders; they had totally demoralised the native soldiery, and the army was now no more than a large troop of brigands who lived on the plunder of the country. At his appointment in 312 Takin established the army in camps around his own palace as well as in quarters in the building itself, and, more by the force of his own personality than anything else, managed to keep them fairly in hand until his death. It was no small feat, for he was utterly unable to provide them with their pay, which was many years in arrear. At his death the governorship was assumed by his son Muhammad, but he had not his father’s power or popularity, and was soon mobbed and driven out by the discontented soldiers clamouring for their pay. The Treasurer Madaraʿi, who was in the Mahdi’s employ and largely responsible for the disorder in the finances, was obliged to hide himself. Several ambitious officers assumed the title of Governor and tried the expedient of raising funds by brigandage organised on a larger scale than usual, and the country had relief only in the fact that these were soon occupied in war against one another. It is not difficult to understand that the eyes of many Egyptians were turned longingly towards Kairawan, where the Mahdi, in an efficient though somewhat brutal manner, was administering a firm and well ordered state, maintaining civil law and peace. This is the easier to appreciate when we remember that Ismaʿilian missionaries were busy in Egypt, and the orderly government at Kairawan would naturally form one of their arguments.

At this juncture, when Egypt was plunged in anarchy, the Khalif at Baghdad intervened and appointed as governor Muhammad b. Tughj the Ikhshid, son of the Emir of Syria, who had himself been governor of Damascus since 318. As his name denotes, this new governor was of Turkish birth. For some time now the Khalifs, seriously alarmed at the growing independence of the various dynasties of hereditary governors, especially in Persia and the neighbouring lands, had been introducing Turkish mercenaries, reckless of the inevitable consequences.

The conditions of the Khalifate at this time show a close parallel with those prevailing in Europe under the later Karlings, when “the governor,—count, abbot, or bishop—tightened his grasp, turned a delegated into an independent, a personal into a territorial authority, and hardly owned a distant and feeble suzerain” (Bryce: Holy Rom. Empire, p. 79). So each governor appointed by the Khalif became the founder of an independent dynasty, barely conceding the mention of the suzerain’s name in the khutba and on the coinage. Such were the Tahirids who ruled in Khurasan from 205 to 259, the Saffarids in Persia from 254 to 290, the Samanids in Transoxiana and Persia from 288 to about 400, the Hamdanids who established themselves at Mosul in 292, at Aleppo in 333, and ruled there until 394, and the Aghlabids whom we have seen in Kairawan.

The Ikhshids claimed to be descended from the ancient kings of Ferghana on the Jaxartes, a district inhabited by fighting races, from whom the Khalif al-Muʿtasim (218-227) drew many mercenaries. The first of the Ikhshids to serve the Khalifs was a mercenary named Juff, and he continued in the Khalif’s employ until his death in 247. One of his sons named Tughj was in the service of Luʿluʿ, who acted as squire to Ibn Tulun in Egypt, and, when his master died, in that of Ishaq b. Kundaj, and afterwards in that of Ibn Tulun’s son, Abu l-Jaysh Khumasawaih, who regarded him with great favour and formed a very high opinion of his military abilities, in consequence of which he procured for him the governorship of Damascus and Tiberias. At his patron’s death Tughj offered himself to the Khalif al-Muktafi, who considered this an act of marked loyalty, and was greatly pleased with him, and made him one of his confidential officers. These favours provoked the jealousy of the wazir al-ʿAbbas, and he succeeded in getting Tughj cast into prison where he died. He left two sons, Muhammad and ʿAbdullah, who burned to avenge their father’s death, and their resentment was gratified when they saw al-ʿAbbas executed by the Hamdanid al-Husayn.

After this the elder son, Muhammad, went to Syria and joined himself to Takin, who was governor of Syria as well as of Egypt. In this service he prospered and was made governor of Amman. Then in 316 he was appointed to Ramla, in 318 he was transferred to Damascus, which led the way to his appointment as Emir of Egypt. This last charge was given him in 321, but the state of Syria did not allow his immediate departure, and Egypt was left for a while in the hands of Ahmad b. Kayghalagh, who returned to office temporarily. By 324 Syria had been reduced to order, and Muhammad the Ikhshid went over to Egypt to assume his governorship in person, leaving his brother ʿAbdullah in Syria.

There were some in Egypt who did not like the prospect of this new governor, and amongst these was the Treasurer Madaraʿi, who induced the acting governor, Ibn Kayghalagh, to take up arms to resist his entry. The Egyptian army marched to the frontier and engaged the Syrians and Turks under the Ikhshid at Farama, the ancient Pelusiun, now more generally known as Tineh (Arabic tîn = Greek πηλός “mud”), near the Egyptian end of the “short desert route,” via al-Arish from Syria. The result was a complete defeat of the Egyptians, and so Muhammad the Ikhshid continued on his way to the capital Fustat (“Old Cairo”) without further opposition. Meanwhile the Syrian fleet had sailed up the Nile and anchored off Giza, thus commanding the city until the Ikhshid marched up his forces and took possession. The arrival of the new governor and his army, largely Turkish in composition, established a firm and efficient government in Egypt again until his death in 335. At their first arrival indeed the Turkish troops began plundering the city, but they were soon called to order and then, although the new governor was severe and exacted heavy contributions, this stern rule was welcomed as it recalled the peace and prosperity of the golden days of Ibn Tulun. The resultant peace very soon opened up the way to literary activity and scholarship, and Egypt began to follow, though at a distance, the culture of ʿIraq. This literary development, as well as theological discussion and debates on jurisprudence, centered in the “Old Mosque,” which was also the scene of the most important state functions.

Although the establishment of the Ikhshid rule in Egypt gives the appearance of supreme power to the Khalif at Baghdad, who seems thus able to dispose of provinces and appoint governors at discretion, his position at the time was really very precarious. The Buwayhid dynasty of governors had established itself in ʿIraq in 320 (= A.D. 932), but Baghdad itself remained under the Khalif until 334, though generally he was only a tool in the hands of the commander of the garrison. These Buwayhids claimed descent from Buwayh, a prince in the hill country of Daylam, and so ultimately from the ancient kings of Persia. They appeared as rivals of other Daylamites led by Bajukin, who was Emir al-Umara or “Supreme Prince,” and had control of the government under the Khalifs ar-Razi and al-Muttaqi. Alarmed at the progress of the Buwayhids, Bajukin took up arms against them in 327, but was compelled to abandon his efforts by the report of disorders in Baghdad. Soon afterwards Bajukin was killed by a band of Kurdish marauders, and the capital was left in a state of anarchy. Then Baridi became Chief Emir, but was expelled a few weeks later: then the Daylamite Kurtakin, who turned out to be a tyrant. At this the Khalif appealed to Ibn Raiq, the Emir of Syria, and he expelled Kurtakin. Not long afterwards Baridi attacked Baghdad and Ibn Raiq had to flee, taking the Khalif with him to Mosul, which was in the hands of the Hamdanids. As champions of the Khalifate the Hamdanids marched against Baghdad, took it, and ruled there for a short time, until the Turk Tuzun drove them out and made himself Emir al-Umara in 331. Then another revolt drove him out, and the Khalif appealed again to the Hamdanids and escaped to Mosul; but when peace was concluded between Tuzun and the Hamdanids the Khalif remained in their hands. At this time, indeed, the Khalifate was very far from showing the character of an absolute monarchy. All over the Muslim world the Sunni, or orthodox party, recognised the Khalif as the Commander of the Faithful, except of course in Spain where the Umayyads of Cordova assumed the title of Khalif in 317. Enjoying great dignity and prestige in an office which combined many of the characteristics of the Pope and Emperor in the West, he was in fact no more than a puppet, a valuable asset in the hands of any one of the warring dynasties of Asia, but possessing no real authority. Yet his formal recognition was eagerly sought as a precious endorsement of de facto rights by Muslim rulers, and even princes in far-off India humbly begged his approval of their titles. It seems indeed as though the office of Khalif gained in spiritual influence as it lost in political authority.

Whilst in exile and in Hamdanid’s hands, the Khalif appealed to the Ikhshid whom he had set over Egypt, and Muhammad visited him at Riqqa and invited him to take refuge in Egypt; but al-Muttaqi, though anxious for help to recover the external symbols of authority at Baghdad, was not willing to put himself so entirely in the Ikhshid’s hands; he knew that Ikhshid and Hamdanid alike only desired to possess his person as a kind of imperial regalia, and so he preferred to entrust himself to the Turk Tuzun, who at least could establish him in the capital. He reigned in Baghdad in name only until 333, when Tuzun deposed him, put out his eyes, and enthroned al-Mustakfi in his place. But this was followed by a period of anarchy in Baghdad, until in 334 the Buwayhid prince took the city. A few months later al-Mustakfi was deposed and replaced by al-Muʿti, whose position under the Buwayhid princes was parallel to that of the Frankish kings under the “Mayors of the Palace,” with the aggravated condition that the Khalifs were spiritual pontiffs and the Buwayhids were, like the Hamdanids, Shiʿite heretics of the “Twelvers” sect. Buwayhid’s rule over Baghdad lasted from 384 to 447, when the Emir was displaced by the Saljuk Turks under Tughril Beg. Throughout this period the Buwayhids were content with the title of Emir al-Umara; they never assumed that of Sultan.

It has been necessary for us to turn aside to note the position of the Khalifate at the time, for otherwise we should have some difficulty in understanding the course of events in Egypt, which now takes the foremost place in the policy of the African Shiʿites. It is often possible to ignore the contemporary history of Spain and of North Africa when following the course of events in Egypt, but Egypt forms so integral a part of the world of Islam that it is never possible to treat its history, even during the comparative isolation of the Fatimid period, without some passing note of the contemporary history of the Baghdad Khalifate.

Whilst these changes were taking place in Asia and the Ikhshid was consolidating his power in Egypt, the Mahdi continued ruling at Kairawan, and, though North Africa was one of the most turbulent and the least civilized parts of the Islamic world, his rule was stable and orderly. In 312 he added a suburb to the city which he called al-Muhammadiya, and which served as a kind of royal cantonments closed against the ordinary citizens, and used only as an official settlement of those engaged in the public administration and as the site of the various public offices. Such official suburbs were very frequent in oriental capitals, and become a regular feature of the great Muslim royal cities. The Mahdi’s later years were somewhat clouded by his relations with the Qarmatians, who were still active in Asia, and who caused the whole Ismaʿilian movement to be regarded with grave suspicion by the Muslim world at large.

Since 311, as we have seen, the Qarmatians had occupied Basra. In 317 they had spread down into the Hijaz, and on the 8th of the month of the pilgrimage in that year the pilgrims who had come up to Mecca were attacked by them. The Sherif of Mecca, many of his attendants, and many of the pilgrims, were killed: the sacred spring of Zamzam was choked up with the bodies of the slain which were tumbled in: the door of the “House of God” was broken open, the veil which covered the House was torn down, and the sacred black stone was removed from the Kaʿaba and carried away to the Qarmatian headquarters at Hajar. Never in the history of Islam has there been sacrilege at all comparable to this, and never before had the Qarmatians advertised so boldly their contempt for the Muslim religion. Begkem, the Emir of Baghdad, offered them a reward of 50,000 dinars to restore the sacred stone, but the offer was refused.

According to Ibn Athir, quoted by Ibn Khallikan (i. 427, etc.) the Mahdi then wrote to them from Kairawan: “By what you have done you have justified the charge of infidelity brought against our sect, and the title of ‘impious’ given to the missionaries acting for our dynasty; if you restore not what you have taken from the people of Mecca, the pilgrims and others, if you replace not the Black Stone and the veil of the Kaʿaba, we shall renounce you in this world and the next.” This letter was more effectual than Begkem’s proffered reward, and the Qarmatians restored the Black Stone with the statement, “We took it by order, and by order we return it.” It was restored either in Dhu l-Kaada or Dhu l-Hijja of 339. Of the year there seems no question, and Ibn Khallikan points out that the Mahdi died in 322. He suggests, therefore, that the letter and the Qarmatian reply were fabrications, presumably for the purpose of throwing the odium of sacrilege on the Mahdi. But it is not necessary to suppose that the Black Stone was returned immediately in response to the Mahdi’s request. A more likely interpretation is given by Macdonald, who accepts the letter as genuine and comments: “When an enormous ransom was offered for the stone they (i.e., the Qarmatians) declined—they had orders not to send it back. Everyone understood that the orders were from Africa. So ʿUbayd Allah found it advisable to address them in a public letter, exhorting them to be better Muslims. The writing and reading of this letter must have been accompanied by mirth, at any rate no attention was paid to it by the Qarmatians. It was not till the time of the third Fatimid Khalifa that they were permitted to do business with that stone” (Macdonald: Muslim Theology, pp. 46-47). This suggests a plausible explanation, that the letter was sent by the Mahdi, but was only intended to disclaim any responsibility for the taking of the stone on his part; that it was not intended to be heeded, and was not taken seriously, the stone being detained until long after the Mahdi’s death. This theory would fit in with the policy of the Fatimids at Kairawan, which carefully avoided anything likely to offend the orthodox, and would dispose of Ibn Khallikan’s objection, which is based on the supposition that the date of the return of the stone was shortly after the writing of the latter. The letter assumes that the Qarmatians and the Fatimids were members of the same sect. Undoubtedly they had been so originally, but later on they definitely separated, and we are not clear as to the time of this division. It seems probable that the external quasi-orthodoxy of the Fatimids in Africa was the cause of its separation from the Qarmatians, who had made more open profession of the destructive elements of their religion.

The Mahdi died in 322 (A.D. 933), and was succeeded by his son Abu l-Kasim, who assumed the name of al-Qaʾim.

VI
THE SECOND FATIMID KHALIF, AL-QAʾIM

(A.H. 322-335 = A.D. 933-946)

The new Khalif, al-Qaʾim, had already shown himself an efficient leader in the two expeditions against Egypt, and in the vigour with which he repressed the simmering revolts in Africa. His accession was marked by two expeditions; a naval attack on the south of France, the coast of Genoa and Calabria, which resulted in the bringing home of many slaves and plunder: and another attempt on Egypt, which, however, was promptly checked by the Ikhshid’s brother, ʿUbayd Allah.

At the moment Egypt was too well administered to allow opportunity for invasion such as had taken place in 307-8. The Ikhshid was doing his best to hold Syria and to bolster up the tottering throne of the Khalifs, but had forces to spare for the protection of Egypt. It is true that he was defeated shortly afterwards by Ibn Raiq, who had seized Damascus and was compelled to pay tribute, but after two years’ payment Ibn Raiq died (A.H. 326), and then the Ikhshid was able, not only to recover all that he had temporarily been compelled to yield, but was in a position to extend his dominions, and brought Syria under his control. Not long afterwards the Khalif entrusted him with the guardianship of Mecca and Madina. At that time the Ikhshid was the only loyal supporter on whom the Khalif could rely, chiefly, of course, because of his jealousy towards those who threatened the throne of Baghdad.

Unable to divert his subjects by the long hoped for conquest of Egypt, al-Qaʾim had to meet more serious rebellions in the west than his father had experienced. The principal revolt took place amongst the Zenata tribe of Aures and Zab, south of the Katama territory, nearly all members of the Kharijite sect, led by a darwish named Abu Yazid, who assumed the title of “Sheikh of the true believers,” but was better known as “the man with an ass.” This movement was mainly of a nationalist character, and aimed at establishing a purely Berber state in which Arabs should have no place. The Berbers had won Spain, and had done most to place the Fatimids on the throne of Kairawan, but in both cases they seemed to have been cheated out of the fruits of their labours by wily Asiatics, and so the motive in this revolt was the assertion of their racial rights.

In 332 Abu Yazid marched northwards at the head of most of the Zenata tribe of the south, hereditary rivals of the Katama, and many other Berbers. In rapid succession he took Baghai, Tabassa, Mermajenna, and Laribus. The Fatimid forces tried to prevent his advance upon Baja, but were repulsed. It was the story of Abu ʿAbdullah over again, but this time it was a Berber at the head of Berber tribes, and the religious motive assigned was the restoration of the primitive ideals of Islam, the democratic election of the Khalif, and all the reactionary programme of the Kharijites which was, and is, the most congenial to the nomadic tribes of Africa and Arabia. We have seen very much the same programme in the history of the Sanusi in recent times. The successful repulse of the Fatimid army made a great impression, and all the Zanata tribes of Zab, the Hwaras of the Aures, and many others, rallied round Abu Yazid. At the head of a large, but undisciplined force, he marched towards Kairawan: on the way he met a Fatimid army, but this time suffered defeat. It was, however, no more than a temporary check; he soon rallied, took Raqada, and then pressed on to Kairawan, defeated the forces of the Fatimid Khalif, and captured the city. Al-Qaʾim was obliged to take refuge in al-Mahadiya, which Abu Yazid forthwith besieged. At this juncture the Katama and Sanhaja tribes came in mass to relieve the city, and Abu Yazid’s followers, demoralised by the steady resistance of the defenders, were obliged to retire. As they retreated al-Qaʾim followed, and was soon able to recover the whole of Tunisia, but after an interval Abu Yazid rallied and laid siege to the town of Susa.

At this juncture al-Qaʾim died, and was succeeded by his son, who took the name al-Mansur (the protected).

Al-Qaʾim had accompanied his father, the Mahdi, in his flight from Syria, and had proved himself a trusty and competent general before his accession to the throne. He figures in history solely as a fighting man: we hear nothing of any development either in the Ismaʿilian sect or in the organization of the Fatimid state.

VII
THE THIRD FATIMID KHALIF, AL-MANSUR

(A.H. 335-342 = A.D. 946-953)

The stability of the Fatimid Khalifate was problematical when al-Qaʾim died at the height of Abu Yazid’s rebellion. The first task of the new Khalif al-Mansur was to relieve Susa, and he was fortunate enough to inflict a severe defeat on Abu Yazid, and to drive him back to the mountains of Kiana in the extreme west of Ifrikiya. There a stubborn struggle followed which lasted a whole year, but was terminated by the final defeat and complete rout of the insurgent Berbers, Abu Yazid himself being mortally wounded in the final engagement and dying soon after.

This revolt, however, begins the decay of Fatimid authority in the west. The Zanata tribes of Maghrawa and B. Ifrene were able to form a separate state in the neighbourhood of Tlemsen, whilst the Umayyads of Spain established a colony at Fez, where they placed the descendants of Musa ibn Abi l-Afia and his followers, Syrian Arabs who had been invited to Spain but had become obnoxious, and whom it was advisable to segregate from the earlier settlers in Spain. Central Maghrab, roughly corresponding to the greater part of Algeria, was held by the Sanhaja tribe, steady allies and supporters of the Fatimid Khalifate, under the government of Ziri b. Menad, who built the town of Achir as his capital.

Such was the position when al-Mansur died in 342 and was succeeded by his son Maʿad, who took the name of al-Moʿizz. Al-Mansur’s reign had been occupied entirely in dealing with Abu Yazid’s rebellion, and in the consolidation of the country after this rebellion had been put down. It cannot be said that he left the Fatimid state in a strengthened position when compared with conditions under the Mahdi, for already independent states had begun to be formed in the West, but he had dealt successfully with the emergency existing at the time of his accession.

The Fatimid state was essentially an hereditary one, for the Shiʿite theory implied the legitimate descent of the Imam. The recognition of Ismaʿil, the son of Jaʿfar, clearly showed that the father’s claimed right of disposing of the succession was invalid in the eyes of the sect of Seveners. From that time the succession had been strictly hereditary. But the Fatimids, seated in power, borrowed the constitutional usage of the Khalifs of Baghdad, and secured the succession by obtaining formal recognition of the heir during their lifetime. Thus Maʿad was formally recognised as next in succession on Monday, the 7th of Dhu l-Hijja 341, and came to the throne in the following year. In the ʿAbbasid Khalifate this recognition was a relic of the earlier election, and meant that the next Khalif was formally elected by the princes during his predecessor’s lifetime, the orthodox Khalifate not being professedly hereditary. The case was otherwise with the Fatimids who were legitimist, and could only have as Imam the one chosen by God, and to whom alone the Divine Spirit could pass at the preceding Imam’s death. No doubt the formal recognition during the father’s life was adopted as a measure of precaution; theoretically it might be defended by the supposition that its point was the father’s public recognition of his son and heir, but the real case seems to be that it was simply borrowed from the usages of the court of Baghdad, and marks a relaxation of the theocratic and sectarian character of the Fatimid state which is gradually inclining towards becoming a purely secular one, differing from the Baghdad Khalifate in little more than in that it professed Shiʿism as the established religion.

VIII
THE FOURTH FATIMID KHALIF, AL-MOʿIZZ

(A.H. 342-365 = A.D. 953-975)

The new Fatimid Khalif was of a type somewhat different from his predecessors. Like them, indeed, he proved an able and efficient ruler, but unlike them he was a man of cultured tastes and of considerable literary ability. His heart was set on the conquest of Egypt, the great dream ever present before his father and grandfather, which seemed now coming within the bounds of possibility.

To understand this we must turn for a while to the course of events in Egypt. The Ikhshid Muhammad b. Tughj had died in 335, and had been succeeded by his son Abu l-Qasim Unjur, a child of 15, who was kept in a state of pupilage by a black eunuch named Abu l-Misk Kafur, i.e., “Camphor, the father of musk.” This Kafur was an ungainly black slave, of ponderous bulk and mis-shapen legs, who had been purchased as a boy of ten in the year 310 and sent one day with a present to the Ikhshid; the present was returned, but the messenger was retained. Little by little he rose in the service, first of the Ikhshid’s household, then in that of the state, conciliating everyone by his pleasing manners and fair words, and was finally appointed by the Ikhshid atatek, or guardian, to his two sons. At the Ikhshid’s death a riot broke out, and this Kafur put down with such tact that he was regarded with even greater favour and consideration by all the public officials. Soon afterwards news arrived that the Hamdanid Sayf ad-Dawla ʿAli had taken Damascus, and was marching upon Ramla. At once Kafur set out at the head of the army and checked ʿAli, returning home with considerable booty. This greatly increased his reputation, and, although holding no constitutional authority he was able to get all the business of the state into his hands, and was generally conceded the title of ustad or “tutor,” a word often used in the same sense as patron in French, and under this title he was mentioned in the khutba or Friday prayer. As his ward Unjur grew older, however, a more or less veiled hostility arose between them, each on his guard against the other, until the titular prince died in 349, not without suspicion of being poisoned by the ustad, although such suspicions were usual in every case where a death seemed to be timely: the oriental world has always had an obsession for poisoning.

Kafur was now strong enough to control the appointment of the next heir and, as Maqrizi expresses it, appointed the deceased prince’s brother Abu l-Hasan ʿAli to succeed him, paying him an annual pension of 400,000 dinars, and reserving the whole administration in his own hands. The new Emir, though 23 years of age, was kept shut up and was permitted to see no-one. However, the same strained feelings arose between him and the ustad as in the case of his brother, and when he died in 355 there were the same suspicions. For some time Egypt remained without a regular governor,—it must be remembered that the Emir was theoretically no more than a viceroy appointed by the Khalif at Baghdad,—and all the power continued in Kafur’s hands as he declined to proclaim Anujin’s son, saying that he was too young to occupy the position of Emir. About a month after Abu l-Hasan ʿAli’s death he displayed a pelisse of honour sent from Baghdad and a charter nominating himself governor under the title of ustad, and on Tuesday, the 10th of Safar 355 (Feb., 966), he began to wear the pelisse in public (Ibn Khall. ii. 524, etc.).

Before long the Khalif al-Moʿizz made another attempt upon Egypt, and his army advanced to the oases before the western frontier, but Kafur checked the advance and slew several of the invaders, but received at his court some of the Fatimid missionaries whom al-Moʿizz sent as envoys to invite Kafur to recognise his authority. The Ustad received them favourably, and most of his entourage and the chief officials gave their promises of homage to the Fatimid. It seems, indeed, that Kafur had formed the definite plan of transferring allegiance from the ʿAbbasid Khalif to the Fatimid, or rather that such a transference should take place at the next vacancy in the governorship of Egypt.

Kafur never repeated the military enterprise or success of his two earlier expeditions, his defeat of the Hamdanid and his repulse of the Fatimid, if indeed this latter can be regarded as a success. He was unable to prevent the Qarmatians who had raided Syria in 352, from capturing the caravan of Egyptian pilgrims on their way to Mecca in 355. Nor could he restrain a Nubian invasion into Egypt which plundered the more southern districts and took home much booty. Still more serious misfortunes which were not under his control were the two low Niles, producing famine and misery, and a severe fire which destroyed parts of Fustat, as well as an earthquake. On the whole the four years of Kafur’s rule were a period of distress and discontent.

Yet many in after days looked back to those years as a kind of golden age. It was a period in which the later growth of Arabic literature was in full tide, that later literature which contrasted with the ancient Arabic poetry of the more strictly classical period, when both prose and poetry were manipulated mainly by men who were not Arabs by race, but obtained a greater technical skill than the earlier writers had achieved. To that later literature the negro ruler of Egypt showed himself a generous patron and his court was filled with poets, wits, and men of letters who were attracted to Egypt by the liberality of the black Maecenas. Like most of his race he was passionately fond of music; and the beautiful gardens which he laid out on the north of Fustat, gardens which the Fatimids incorporated in their royal city of Cairo, transmitted his name to succeeding generations. He was lavish in his expenditure,—the negro is always ostentatious,—and especially so on the daily provisions of his kitchen, but this was counted in his favour, for the Arabic tradition was that princes should dispense an open handed hospitality, and the Egyptians of ancient and modern times have had a strong inclination to appreciate feasting and the indulgence of the appetite. But most welcome of all to his table were poets and epigrammists, who rarely went away without some substantial rewards for their literary efforts. One poet was able to leave behind him a hundred suits of robes of honour, twice that number of vests, and five hundred turbans. Such literary courtiers naturally turned their genius to complimentary verses about their patron. One, playing upon his name Kafur or “camphro,” composed verses on the fragrant scented gardens which he had laid out, and which long stood for the ideal gardens in the Egyptian mind: another explained in verse how the shocks of earthquake had been caused by the Egyptians dancing for delight as they contemplated Kafur’s merits, an effusion which caused the delighted Ustad to throw him a purse containing a thousand dinars. Amongst his pensioners was the poet al-Mutanabbi, who had left the court of the Hamdanid Sayf ad-Dawla in anger at the smallness of his presents, and thought little of a prince who did not come up to his very high standard of generosity. At first Kafur used to smile graciously at him, but the poet wanted presents and not mere compliments. “When I went into Kafur’s presence,” he said, “with the intention of reciting verses to him, he always laughed at seeing me and smiled in my face, but when I repeated to him these lines:—

‘Since friendship has become a mere deception, I am repaid for my smiles with smiles; but when I choose a friend my mind misgives me, for I know he is but a man’:

he never did so again as long as I remained with him. I was astonished at this proof of his sagacity and intelligence.” He was very quickly dissatisfied with Kafur. “What I want,” he said, “I declare not; thou art gifted with sagacity, and my silence is a sufficient explanation, nay a plain request.” At length he left Kafur’s court, dissatisfied at the liberal gifts he received because they were not ample enough, and revenged himself by writing satires on Kafur, such as:—

“Who could teach noble sentiments to this castrated negro?—his white masters?—or his ancestors who were hunted like wild beasts?”

The poet finally settled at the court of Adud ad-Dawla at Shiraz (Ibn Khall. ii. 524, sqq.).

But Kafur, though easy going and with many of the weaknesses of the negro, was a man who had the wit to acquire more than a superficial education by the right use of opportunities which were often available to the ambitious slave, and which indeed form one of the redeeming features of slavery as it existed in Muslim lands. Besides this he was a painstaking and efficient administrator, and a man of deep religious convictions.

In all Kafur ruled the country twenty-two years, part of the time as tutor to the two sons of the Ikhshih, part as independent viceroy in all but name. During the closing years of this period he became unpopular. Feeling had been strained by the famine due to the bad Niles, and the reports of the Qarmatians’ advance into Syria bred disaffection amongst the Turkish and Greek mercenaries. On Tuesday, the 20th Jumada I. 356 (May, 967), he died at the age of sixty, leaving property to the value of 700,000 dinars of gold, and goods, furniture, jewels, slaves, and animals valued at some 600,000 dinars.

Kafur’s death left Egypt in a state of confusion. The court assembled to elect a governor; a significant mark of the times, for no reference was made to the Khalif at Baghdad, who was a mere phantom. The choice fell on Abu l-Fawaris Ahmad, grandson of the Ikhshih Muhammad b. Tughj, who was a mere child. Soon after this, however, there arrived in Egypt Husayn, the son of ʿAbdullah, the brother whom Muhammad had left in Syria in 321. During the thirty years which had elapsed since then ʿUbayd and his son had had a chequered military career, and the son now arrived as a fugitive, fleeing from the Qarmatians. His arrival was welcome to the Turkish troops who forthwith elected him their general, and he at once assumed the supreme power. The use he made of this authority was to arrest the wazir Ibn al-Furat and torture him until he wrung from him a large sum of money with which he departed at once to Syria. During his brief stay in Egypt he had been guilty of other acts of cruelty and rapacity, and when a year later he was himself sent a prisoner to Egypt, there was a general feeling of satisfaction that he was himself treated with severity. His departure for Syria took place on the first of Rabiʿ II. 358 (Feb., 969). The rule of the Ikhshids, or at least their nominal authority, continued for five months more until the summer of the same year (Ibn Khall, Life of Tughj).

It was a time of acute disorder. Famine had followed the failure of the Nile, and plague had followed the famine. The soldiers had their pay diminished, their customary gratuities were in arrear, and they were in open mutiny, for there was no controlling hand to restrain them. The administration was in the hands of the wazir Ibn al-Furat, who had been plundered by ʿAbdullah, and he was unable either to pay the troops or to relieve the distress of the people. It was clear that under these conditions the country would be in no condition to offer effective resistance to an invader, and this was the moment chosen by the Fatimid Khalif to make his attack.

For two years (356-357) al-Moʿizz had been making detailed preparations for the invasion of Egypt. In 356 he had commenced constructing roads, digging wells along the roadside, and building rest-houses at regular intervals. At the same time he began collecting funds for the necessary expenses and paying substantial sums to the Katama leaders, who were thus enabled to arm and equip their followers. As we have already seen, there had been Fatimite missionaries for some time at work in Egypt, and al-Moʿizz had even made formal advances to Kafur and had been well received, and his proposals for coming to Egypt had been heard with politeness: he certainly had many strong adherents in high office in Egypt. Now the general disorder following the famine and plague, and the disorganization after Kafur’s death seemed to furnish the right opportunity, just as all his preparations were mature.

An even more important task had been performed in bringing all North Africa into complete subordination. Cultured literary man as the Fatimid Khalif was, he was also a most efficient organizer, and was well served by officials whom he treated with generous confidence. The disciplining of Africa was a necessary preliminary to an expedition outside the bounds of the country, which might well be of protracted duration and uncertain issue. For this he had the assistance of an able general, Abu l-Hasan Jawhar b. ʿAbdullah, commonly known as “Jawhar the Greek scribe,” as he was a liberated slave trained as a secretary, whose father had been subject of the Byzantine Empire. Like Kafur he shows that the slave in Islam was not merely treated as a fellow man, but had a career of ambition open before him, in which his servile origin was no obstacle; even in modern times slaves have risen to high office, and have sometimes married princesses. There was no colour barrier nor any racial feeling: no reluctance was felt at white men being ruled by a negro ex-slave.

Marching to the Maghrab, Jawhar joined forces with the Sanhaja chieftain Ziri, who was one of the most faithful allies of the Fatimids (cf. [p. 123]), and together they advanced upon the Umayyad colonies at Fez and Sijilmasa. These they took and thus prevented the possibility of Spanish interference in Africa for the time. Continuing westwards they reduced the whole Maghrab to the coast. As a sign of the extent of the expedition fish were caught in the ocean, and sent in jars to the Khalif in company with the princes of Fez and Sijilmasa, who were conveyed in an iron cage. The only town left to the Umayyads was Sibta (Ceuta). The Idrisid princes of the far west, descendants of Hasan, the son of ʿAli, were put down, and thus their independent rule which had lasted just over two centuries came to an end. It was a more thorough reduction of the country than had ever been made previously, and when Jawhar returned to Kairawan al-Moʿizz was recognised as the unquestioned ruler of all North Africa.

The Khalif determined to entrust the invasion of Egypt to Jawhar, who had so clearly proved his efficiency in the reduction of the Maghrab, but just about this time Jawhar fell ill. Al-Moʿizz was not willing to replace him, and continued his preparations, assembling troops and supplies at Raqada: every day he visited the general who, as soon as his health was sufficiently restored, the order to advance was given.

Jawhar was the commander of the Fatimid force, but with him was another who played an important part in the subsequent construction of the Fatimid state in Egypt. Yaqub b. Killis was a native of Baghdad, by origin and for many years by religion a Jew. His father sent him first to Syria, then to Egypt, where he became a chamberlain to Kafur, then received a seat on the privy council and acted as accountant and treasurer. He became a Muslim in 356. At Kafur’s death he was arrested by his rival the wazir Ibn al-Furat, but by bribing his gaolers he managed to escape and fled to Kairawan. The expedition against Egypt was already in full preparation, but he joined himself with Jawhar and proved a useful adviser. He was commonly regarded as the instigator of the enterprise, but this does not seem to be accurate.

Jawhar’s start was made on the 14th of Rabiʿ II. 358 (A.D. 969). Al-Moʿizz attended with his court to bid him farewell. During this meeting the general stood before the Khalif, who leaned down on his horse’s neck and spoke to him privately for some time. The Khalif then ordered his sons to dismount and give Jawhar the salutation of departure; this obliged all the great officers of state to dismount also. Jawhar then kissed the hand of the Khalif and the hoof of his horse and, mounting at his master’s command, gave the word for the whole force to march. When al-Moʿizz returned to his palace he sent as a present to Jawhar all the clothes he had been wearing at the farewell interview, save only his drawers and signet ring. At the same time he sent forward orders to Aflah, the governor of Barqa, that he should set out to meet Jawhar and kiss his hand. Aflah offered a gift of 100,000 dinars to be permitted to escape this act of homage, but was obliged to submit (Ibn Khall. i. 341-2).

Jawhar first advanced upon Alexandria. The city capitulated on liberal terms; there was no pillage and no violence to any of the inhabitants, as Jawhar was able to restrain his well-paid army in admirable discipline.

The news of Jawhar’s approach caused great dismay in Fustat. It was decided that the wazir Ibn al-Furat should write to him and ask for peace with security for the lives and property of the citizens. At the same time Abu Jaʿfar Muslim b. ʿUbayd Allah, an emir of high standing, and an acknowledged descendant of Husayn the son of ʿAli, was asked to go in person to plead with Jawhar, it being assumed that an ʿAlid envoy would carry weight with the Shiʿites. Abu Jaʿfar consented on condition that a company of citizens went with him (id.).

The deputation set out on Monday, the 18th of Rajab 358 (= 18 June, 969) and met Jawhar at Taruja, a village not far from Alexandria. They delivered their appeal to him, and he immediately granted all their requests, and confirmed his promised by a written statement. With this the envoys returned to Fustat, where they arrived on the 7th of Shaban. The wazir Ibn al-Furat rode out to meet them, read Jawhar’s statement, and handed to each of his companions who had written to Jawhar asking for appointments under the new government his replies, which were in all cases favourable. Some time was spent then in discussion, but the informal gathering dispersed without agreeing to any uniform attitude towards the invaders. The city was still in great alarm, and the adherents of the Ikhshids, the officers who had served under Kafur and some of the army, determined to reject Jawhar’s proffered peace and to make armed resistance. Valuables were concealed, a camp was formed, and Nahrir ash-Shoizai was chosen general. Under his leadership the Egyptian army marched out to Giza and set companies to guard the bridges.

On the 11th of Shaban, Jawhar arrived, having been informed of the intended resistance. He took several prisoners and marched to Muniat as-Sayadin (the village of the fishermen) and seized the ford of Muniat Shalkan. At this some of the Egyptian troops passed over in boats and surrendered, but the men on the Fustat side put a guard at the ford. Then Jawhar stripped to his trousers, and at the head of his men waded into the river, and thus arrived at the other side where they attacked the defenders and killed a considerable number. Night had now approached, and under the cover of darkness the rest of the defenders fled from the city, carrying off from their houses whatever they could. A deputation of wives waited on Abu Jaʿfar asking him to write to Jawhar and obtain, if possible, a renewal of his previous offers of peace. Abu Jaʿfar wrote as requested: the Fatimid general readily assented, and issued an order to the troops forbidding pillage and violence. At this the city recovered its confidence, the bazars were re-opened, and commercial life went on its normal course (Ibn Khall. i. 343).

On Tuesday, the 17th Shaban, by Jawhar’s order, a deputation of leading officials, sharifs, the learned, and prominent citizens went out to Giza. By orders announced by a herald everyone except the wazir Ibn al-Furat and the Sharif Abu Jaʿfar, dismounted and saluted Jawhar in turn, the Fatimite general standing with the Sharif on his right hand, the Wazir on his left. After this ceremony was concluded the envoys returned to the city, and the troops commenced their entry with arms and baggage. After the ʿAsr or hour of mid-afternoon prayer Jawhar himself made his entry preceded by drums and flags; he wore a silk dress heavily embroidered with gold, and rode a cream coloured horse. He rode straight through the city with his men, and passing out on the north-east side pitched camp there.

Late in the evening in the camping ground he marked out a great square of 1,200 yards base, and men were stationed, spade in hand, ready to start the foundations of this new city, or rather royal suburb, when the signal was given. The projected lines, all sketched out by al-Moʿizz himself beforehand, were marked with pegs, and bells were hung from connected ropes so that a signal might be given for the simultaneous turning of the first sod. Meanwhile the astrologers were busy calculating the propitious moment for the birth of the city. Unexpectedly, however, a raven settling down on one of the ropes set all the bells jingling, and the men at once thrust their spades into the soil. It was too late to check them, though the astrologers found that it was a most inauspicious moment as the planet al-Kahir (Mars) was in the ascendant. There was nothing for it but to accept the omen, and the city thus commenced was named al-Kahira (Cairo), or more fully al-Kahira al-Mahrusa (the guarded city of Mars). It was designed as a royal suburb to be entirely devoted to palaces and official buildings, inaccessible to the general public, similar to the city of al-Muhammadiya outside Kairawan. In course of time, however, the main part of the population of Fustat migrated to Kahira, and it is now the most populous city in the whole of Africa.

Fustat, or Misr al-Atika, or simply Misr, was the old Arab city founded in A.H. 21 soon after the conquest. In 133 the suburb of al-ʿAskar to the north-east was added, but this was simply cantonments for the government officials, and was not accessible to the ordinary citizens. Al-Qataiʿ “the wards,” a kind of additional cantonments intended for the foreign mercenary troops, was added in 256, but was partially destroyed by the later ʿAbbasid governors and finally abandoned. Al-Kahira stood further to the north-east, and it was after the burning of Fustat in 564 that the population generally began to colonize this suburb.

When the people came out from the city next morning to Jawhar’s camp they found, to their unbounded surprise, that the foundations of the new city had been dug during the night. For six days after the troops continued entering the old city, passing through, and going out to the new suburb where was Jawhar’s camp. News of the successful occupation of Egypt was without delay sent to the Khalif, and with it were the heads of the Egyptians slain at the ford.

Jawhar now issued orders that all mention of the ʿAbbasid Khalif at Baghdad in the Friday prayer must cease, and in place of his name the coinage must bear the inscription bi-smi mulaʿi l-Moʿizz, “in the name of my master al-Moʿizz.” At the same time the preachers in the mosques were forbidden to wear the black garments usual under the ʿAbbasids, and were ordered to use white, a similar order being issued to public officials generally. It was ordered that every Sunday a court should be held for the “Inspection of complaints,” for the hearing of petitions against officials and against the administration, the Kaʾid or military governor, i.e., Jawhar himself, being present as well as the Wazir, Qadi, and a number of men learned in the law, so that those who had complaints against officials which lay outside the scope of the ordinary law courts might obtain redress. The court did not try cases, but on hearing a complaint referred it to the proper qadi with orders to see that it received attention. The decision was then sent to the court of “Inspection of complaints,” and written out in substance by a secretary, and then passed on to another secretary who put the summary in full legal form. This was taken to the Khalif who confirmed it, and this authoritative decision was then communicated to the petitioner, who had the whole protection of the state behind him in putting it into effect.

On Friday, the 8th of Dhu l-Kaada, in the khutba, the words were added, “O my God, bless Muhammad the chosen, ʿAli the accepted, Fatima the pure, and al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the grandsons of the Apostle, whom thou hast freed from stain and thoroughly purified. O my God, bless the pure Imams, ancestors of the Commanders of the faithful” (Ibn Khall. i. 344). This was at once a profession of Shiʿite faith, and an assertion of the claim of al-Moʿizz to be descended from the house of ʿAli. There is no sign that any appreciable number of the Egyptians became converts to Shiʿite views: for the most part these claims were regarded with complete apathy until the celebration of the great Shiʿite festival of the Muharram, when there was some rioting. The people at large acquiesced in the new rule without paying any attention to its religious claims.

On Friday, the 18th of Rabiʿ II. 359, the Kaʾid Jawhar himself presided at the public prayers and sermon in the Old Mosque, that is the Mosque of ʿAmr. The building then existing had been erected by ʿAbdullah b. Tahir in 212, and is still standing. It escaped destruction when the city was burned, but suffered a disastrous restoration in A.D. 1798. At this service many soldiers were present. The preacher was ʿAbdu s-Sami b. Umar al-ʿAbbasi, who in the khutba made especial mention of the “people of the house,” i.e., the family of ʿAli, and prayed for the Kaʾid, although Jawhar did not approve of his own name being thus mentioned, saying that no authority for it had been given in the instructions he had received from al-Moʿizz. In the call to prayer the Shiʿite custom of adding the words “come to the excellent work” was adopted. In the month of Jumada I. this addition was made in the call to prayer at the Old Mosque, at which Jawhar was greatly pleased, and made a report of the circumstance to the Khalif (Ibn Khall. i. 344-5).

Meanwhile progress was being made with the building of al-Kahira. The new city was surrounded with a wall of large bricks, of which the last fragments were observed by Maqrizi in A.D. 1400. In the middle of the great enclosure was an open space, the Bayn al-Kasrayn, “between the two palaces,” as it was afterwards called, large enough for 10,000 troops to be paraded: a small portion of this open space remains as the Suq an-Nahhasin. On the east was the Khalif’s palace; one corner of its site is now marked by the Khan al-Khalili, another by the Husayn Mosque. The name of the square was of later date, and due to the fact that al-Moʿizz’s successor built a lesser palace on its west side, at the beginning of the beautiful garden which Kafur had laid out, and which the Fatimid Khalifs maintained. A great thoroughfare led through the midst of Kahira from the Bab al-Zuwayla on the south side, communicating with the old city of Fustat, and passing through the Bayn al-Kasrayn to the Bab al-Futah, which led out to the open country on the north. To the north of the Khalif’s palace lay the Wazir’s official residence, and to the south the mosque of al-ʾAzhar, which Jawhar commenced soon after the foundation of Kahira and finished on the 7th of Ramadan, 361. Although the existing building has been much modernised it retains enough of the older structure to show the typical character of Fatimid architecture. The horse shoe arch, commonly regarded as of Persian origin, seems to have been developed in Egypt, and appears first in the Nilometer and then in the mosque of Ibn Tulun: it had an Indian parentage, and was not introduced into Persia until it had already been employed in Egypt (Rivoira: Moslem Architecture, E.T. 154, etc.), at least no dated example is found until later than the mosque of al-ʾAzhar. The Fatimid style shows this horse-shoe arch combined with high imposts which occur in the mosque of Ziadat Allah in Kairawan (A.H. 816-837); “nor does it seem an unnatural conjecture that it was Jauhar, not only a distinguished general, but also a man of letters, and therefore of culture, who suggested the form to some Christian architect of Egypt: and that, under these circumstances, the designer of the building, wishing to endow it with some distinctive feature marking the accession of the new dynasty, modified the pointed arch of Tulun’s time under the influence of the Indian ‘cyma reversa’ or ogee arch” (Rivoira: op. cit. 157).

In general plan, style, the use of brick piers, etc., the mosque of al-ʾAzhar followed the model of the mosque of Ibn Tulun, and so was a development of Egyptian native taste. The minaret was of heavy square type with outside stairs which has always remained popular in western Islam.

The most novel feature introduced by the Fatimid architects was the pendentive, the pensile cusped framing arch over a recessed angle. This appears clearly in the interior of the dome of the mihrab in the mosque of al-Hakim, commenced in 380 but not completed until 404. But this reproduces the pendentive as it appears in the mosque of Cordova (A.H. 350-366) in the bay in the front of the mihrab, and had its precursor more than four centuries before in the church of St. Vitale at Ravenna.

It is impossible, therefore, to connect Fatimid architecture with Persia: obviously it was developed out of the older Egyptian Muslim style under the influence of western and European, i.e., Italo-Greek, models. As usual, art is a clear indication of the general line of culture contact and intellectual influences. Though Asiatic and Persian in origin the Fatimids were, by their heretical character, entirely cut off from the Islamic world in Asia, a severance which the Fatimid rule in Syria, being one of purely military occupation, did not bridge over. Isolated in art, it was isolated in philosophy and literature, although this isolation from the Muslim world at large was richly compensated by its close contact with Shiʿite circles, and by some contact with the Greek and Roman Empire along the shores of the Mediterranean.

The wall surrounding the whole city of Kahira was finished in 359. To its south-east lay the old city which remained the centre of commercial and non-official life until the end of the Fatimid dynasty, and to the west the suburbs of Maqs, which extended down to the river and remained the port of Cairo until the shifting of the Nile in the 13-14th cent. A.D. gave the opportunity for the building of Bulaq.

The first serious problem with which Jawhar had to deal was the famine due to the successive bad Niles. Fortunately al-Moʿizz had sent a number of ships laden with grain as soon as he heard that Jawhar had occupied the country, and this caused some temporary relief in the city, and showed the people that they had a ruler anxious to assist them. At the same time Jawhar established a public corn exchange under an inspector (muhtasib), who had to prevent hoarding and excessive prices, and several offending millers were flogged. Of course these primitive expedients produced no serious relief, although they evoked the sympathy of the people, and a state of famine continued until the end of 360, and there were still cases of plague. In the following winter, i.e., in the early months of 361 (October, etc., of A.D. 971), the famine came to an end, and in the course of the next few months the country began to recover, and as a consequence the plague disappeared.

In the year 361 an Ikhshid officer in the district of Bashmur revolted, but was put down, chased to Palestine, captured there, and put to death. So far there had been very little reluctance to the change of government, in this insignificant revolt as in the first efforts to oppose Jawhar it is only a few of the Ikhshid officials who seem to feel the slightest grievance.

Jawhar now felt anxious to raise the prestige of Egypt, which had suffered greatly since the death of the first Ikhshid governor. In 355 the Nubians had invaded the country, so now in 362 he sent an embassy to king George of Nubia, inviting him to become a Muslim and to pay tribute. The Nubians, it must be noted, remained Christians down to the 14th cent. A.D. The embassy was politely received, tribute was paid, but no further reference was made to religious differences.

Jawhar found that as ruler of Egypt he was necessarily involved in the politics of Syria, some portions of which had been, at least nominally, part of the Ikhshid dominions. Indeed, Egypt never has been free from Syrian connections, either in ancient, mediaeval, or modern history. At this time independent Shiʿite princes were ruling at Aleppo, and Husayn the Ikhshid, who had returned to Syria after plundering the Wazir Ibn al-Furat, held his own at Ramla. Against him Jawhar sent his lieutenant Jaʿfar b. Fellah, who attacked and defeated him. Husayn was brought a prisoner to Fustat, publicly exposed as a proof of the power of the Fatimids, and viewed with great satisfaction by the inhabitants of the Egyptian city who remembered his cruelties. He was then sent on to a prison in Ifrikiya, where he died in 371. After defeating Husayn, Jaʿfar marched north and occupied Damascus. But this brought the Fatimids into conflict with the Qarmatians, for Damascus had for some time past been paying tribute to the Qarmatian leader Hasan b. Ahmad, and this payment was now stopped. After the death of Abu Saʿid, the kabir of the Qarmatians, in 301, as we have already noted, the leadership was held temporarily by Abu l-Kasim Saʿid, and then passed to Abu Tahir Sulayman who attacked Mecca. Abu Tahir died in 332, as well as a third son of Abu Saʿid named Abu Mansur Ahmad. Then the eldest brother, Abu l-Kasim, resumed the leadership. In 360, the date we have now reached, the chieftain was Hasan b. Ahmad (Abu l-Feda, Ann. Moslem. ii. 325, 350, 509). It seems that at this time there had been a complete rupture between the Shiʿites of Africa and the Asiatic Qarmatians, though we are quite in the dark as to when or why this took place. It may have arisen from this attack upon the tribute paying city of Damascus, which the Qarmatians regarded as aggressive: or it may have had an earlier origin, perhaps in the relaxation of Ismaʿilian doctrine and practice amongst the African Shiʿites when they accommodated themselves to the tone generally current at Kairawan. Now Hasan had no hesitation in proposing an alliance with the orthodox Khalif of Baghdad against the Fatimids, but this was rejected by the Khalif with contempt. The Shiʿite Buwayhid prince who was the real ruler of ʿIraq, however, was more complaisant, and a third ally was found in the Hamdanid prince of Rabha on the Euphrates, whilst various Arab tribes, always ready to join in any fighting and usually as much an embarrassment to their allies as to their enemies, readily agreed to take part. Thus helped Hasan captured Damascus and celebrated his achievement by the public cursing of al-Moʿizz in the great Mosque. Theoretically, the Qarmatians professed to believe in the divine right of the Fatimid Imam, and so this cursing seems strange. It may be that the people of Damascus, who were fanatically anti-Shiʿite, were responsible, or it may be that the Qarmatians no longer troubled to pretend an attachment to the reputed house of ʿAli, but displayed their total indifference to all religious considerations without reserve. After taking Damascus Hasan marched south rapidly and, avoiding Jaffa where Jaʿfar and his army were stationed, passed through Ramla and made a lightning descent on Egypt itself. He surprised Kulzum (Suez) and Farama (al-Arish), and thus commanded the whole Isthmus of Suez, whilst Tinnis declared in his favour. He then advanced into the country and encamped at ʿAyn Shams (Heliopolis), and threatened Cairo. Jawhar had commenced defensive measures as soon as he heard that Hasan had reached the Isthmus and had made a trench before the city. The real danger lay in the possible treachery of officials of the old régime, and a spy was told off to watch Ibn al-Furat. At the same time men were sent to Hasan’s army who, under the pretence of being discontented citizens, made treacherous overtures to its officers. After some delay Hasan attempted to storm the trench, but was driven back with heavy losses, the most surprising incident being the unexpected courage shewn by the Egyptian volunteers who were enrolled in Jawhar’s army. A number of Ikhshid officers who were serving with Hasan were taken prisoner, and Hasan was compelled to retire to Kulzum, leaving his baggage to be plundered by the Egyptians.

News of the attack on Egypt had been sent to al-Moʿizz, and soon after the defeat reinforcements arrived from Kairawan under Ibn ʿAmmar. Thus supported Jawhar advanced on Tinnis, which was now penitent for its defection and was pardoned. A Qarmatian fleet which had sailed up the Nile to support Hasan fled hurriedly, and was obliged to abandon seven vessels and some 500 prisoners.

Jawhar had effectively repelled the Qarmatian invasion, and acted prudently in following up the retreating enemy and relieving Jaffa. Hasan fell back upon Damascus, but after some delay there began to recover and commenced preparations for a new attempt.

At this juncture Jawhar felt that the time had arrived when al-Moʿizz ought to be commanding in Egypt in person, and wrote earnestly entreating him to come and take up the reins of government, and this appeal decided the Khalif to remove from Kairawan to Cairo.

Early in 363 al-Moʿizz appointed Bolukkin b. Ziri of the Sanhaja tribe as deputy in Ifrikiya, advising him “never cease levying contributions on the nomadic Arabs, and keeping the sword on the (necks of the) Berbers; never appoint any of your own brothers or cousins to a place of authority, for they imagine that they have a better right than you to the power with which you are invested; and treat with favour the dwellers in towns” (Ibn Khall. i. 267).

Having thus provided for the government of Ifrikiya al-Moʿizz then set out. Passing by Qabus, Tripoli, Ajdabiya, and Barqa, he reached Alexandria in the course of the spring, and there received the Qadi of Fustat and other officials. At the beginning of the summer he encamped in the gardens of the monastery at Giza, and there received Jawhar who came out to welcome him on his arrival. After resting a short time he made his solemn entry into the capital. Although Fustat was decorated ready for his coming, he paid it no visit, but marched straight to his palace in Kahira where he took up his abode. In this solemn entry the coffins of the three Khalifs who had been his predecessors were carried in the first ranks, escorted by two state elephants, and the Khalif himself rode surrounded by his four sons and other kinsmen. He entered the royal city by the “gate of the arch,” one of the two openings in the Bab az-Zuwayla. The other opening which no longer existed in Maqrizi’s time was generally regarded as unlucky. This bab is now commonly regarded as the mysterious dwelling place of the head of all the darwishes who, wherever he may be, is supposed to be able to fly in spirit to this abode, and there the spirit is placated. The legends connected with this gate seem to have varied from age to age, but it has always been regarded as haunted by mysterious presences.

Soon after taking up his abode in the royal palace, on the great feast day which terminates the fast of Ramadan, al-Moʿizz conducted prayers in the newly finished mosque of al-ʾAzhar which, it will be remembered, lay within the guarded precincts, and so was not accessible to the public. The mosque, commenced by Jawhar in 360, had been completed in 361. In 378 the following Khalif, al-ʿAziz, devoted it especially to the learned, and from this it has gradually become the leading university of Islam.

But al-Moʿizz was not able to remain as a sacred character in the seclusion of the guarded city, although that perhaps was his first intention. The Qarmatians were still threatening. Al-Moʿizz wrote to Hasan proposing negotiations, but the Qarmati chief merely replied, “I have received thy letter, full of words, but empty of sense: I will bring my answer.”

In the following spring the Qarmatians appeared again at ʿAyn Shams, and helped by Ikhshid partisans, spread far and wide through Egypt. Al-Moʿizz sent his son ʿAbdullah with some 4,000 men into Lower Egypt and he gained several minor advantages over some of the marauding bands of Qarmatians, but this did not prevent the main body from assembling before Jawhar’s trench which they prepared to assault. By means of spies the Khalif managed to bribe the Arab tribe of B. Tayy, the strongest factor in Hasan’s army, allies but not themselves of the Qarmatian sect, to desert, the price being 100,000 dinars. As the treasury did not contain sufficient gold these coins were specially struck of lead and gilt. In the next attack the B. Tayy rode away and Hasan was routed, his camp plundered, and some 1,500 of his irregular followers slain. The advantage was pressed home by the Egyptians who advanced into Syria, but after this defeat the Qarmatians began to fall to pieces as the result of internal disputes.

The defeat of the Qarmatians was followed by the appearance of a new danger in the person of the Turkish leader Haftakin. This man had been a slave in the service of the Buwayhid prince, Moʿizz ad-Dawla, and rose to a leading position in command of the Turkish mercenaries under his son Azz ad-Dawla Bakhtiar (Maq. ii. 9). In the course of a battle which took place outside Baghdad between the Turks and the Daylamites, Haftakin, though himself acting with exemplary courage, was deserted by most of his men and compelled to flee with a small body of some 400 followers. At first he took refuge at Rabha on the Euphrates, but afterwards moved to Syria. The Syrian Arabs were alarmed at his approach, and appealed for help to Ibn Jaʿfar, the Fatimite governor of Damascus, who was easily convinced that Haftakin was acting on behalf of the ʿAbbasid Khalif of Baghdad, and so took the field against him. But the Emir of Aleppo sent a force under the eunuch Bashara to the help of Haftakin, and as soon as this became known the Arabs deserted Jaʿfar and went home. Bashara then escorted Haftakin to Aleppo (Abu l-Feda) or Emessa (Maqrizi), where the Emir received him well and bestowed on him many presents.

At Damascus Jaʿfar was faced with a discontented group of citizens, and they even formed themselves into armed bands under the leadership of one Ibn Maward. As soon as these men heard of Haftakin’s arrival in Syria, they opened negotiations with him and invited him to Damascus, promising to join him in expelling the Fatimid garrison and to recognise him as emir. Damascus, it must be remembered, was fanatical in its hatred of the Shiʿites. Haftakin agreed to these proposals, and towards the end of Shaban 364 proceeded as far as Thaniyyat al-Okab on the road to Damascus.

At this juncture Ibn Jaʿfar heard that the Greeks were intending to make an attack upon Tripoli in Syria, and so marched his forces out of Damascus to intercept them. This gave Haftakin his opportunity, and he was able to enter Damascus without opposition. After a brief stay there he went down to Baʿalbak to chastise the Arabs who had taken up arms to assist Jaʿfar against him, but was surprised by a large Greek force, which was pillaging Baʿalbak and laying waste the surrounding country: he was only just able to escape before them and seek safety in Damascus whither the Greeks soon followed him. The citizens sent out an embassy to ask for terms, and were informed that the city would be spared in return for a substantial fine. Soon Haftakin went out to the Greek camp and explained that he was unable to raise the promised fine because of the obstacles put in his way by Ibn Maward and his partisans, the free militia of Damascus. As a result of this the Greek Emperor, John Tzimisces, sent officers into the city, who arrested Ibn Maward and brought him out a prisoner. By this means the city was cleared of its irregular forces and Haftakin took full possession, raising the sum of 30,000 pieces of gold as a fine with great rigour. He paid the sum to the Greeks, who forthwith retired to Beirut and thence to Tripoli.

Thus Haftakin became absolute master of Damascus, and formally recognised the suzerainty of the ʿAbbasid Khalif of Baghdad. He was afraid, however, that the Fatimid Khalif would before long take steps to recover his hold over Syria, and so wrote to the Qarmatians at Lahsa, their headquarters in the Bahrayn, asking them to ally themselves with him against al-Moʿizz. They accepted these proposals and a large body of them arrived before Damascus in 365, where they encamped for a few days; after resting and conferring with Haftakin they passed on to Ramla, where the Fatimid general Ibn Jaʿfar was in command, and at their approach he retired to Jaffa, and they occupied Ramla. Meanwhile Haftakin, as agreed with the Qarmatians, marched along the coast, and at Saʿida (Sidon) engaged two subordinate Fatimite generals, Dhalim b. Marhub and Ibn ash-Sheikh, whom he defeated. Dhalim then withdrew to Tyre, and Haftakin had the hands of the slain of the Fatimite army cut off and sent as a trophy to Damascus (Maq. ii. 9).

Just about this time the Khalif al-Moʿizz died, his son ʿAbdullah having pre-deceased him. He had spent only two years in Egypt but, besides the decisive repulse of the Qarmatians, he had established a government, which on the whole was a fair one and kept good order in the land. To avoid racial disputes, such as had disturbed Kairawan, he settled his African troops at al-Khandaq near ʿAyn Shams and, although they were allowed to visit Fustat freely during the day, all were required to leave the city before nightfall. In dealing with the inhabitants of Egypt both al-Moʿizz and Jawhar put aside all prejudices, whether of race or religion, and took a simply practical attitude, at heart no doubt regarding all religions as equally worthless. The Copts were as a rule far more efficient as clerks, accountants, and scribes, than their Muslim fellow countrymen, and they, as well as some Greek Christians, were largely employed in all the subordinate branches of the administration, and even to rise to some of the higher offices. As a practical measure this was thoroughly satisfactory, but the fact that the tax collectors and practically all the finance officials were Christians or Jews, caused the gradual evolution of a strong feeling of dislike against members of these two religions. Undoubtedly also the methods of oriental finance gave opportunity for much oppression and dishonesty, and the Copts and Jews were unable to avoid these temptations, so that much of the prejudice felt against them was justified. Although the employment of Christians and Jews in the civil service is more or less an established tradition in Muslim lands, it was carried much further by the Fatimids than had been usually the case.

Al-Moʿizz entrusted the task of organising a new system of taxation to the converted Jew, Ibn Killis, who had had experience of administrative work under Kafur, and to ʿAsluj. The old system of farming out the taxes was abolished and the whole was centralised, whilst at the same time a new assessment of land and taxable sources was made. All arrears were rigorously called up, but very careful consideration was given to every appeal and complaint. The whole system of taxation was strictly enforced, but efforts were made to protect the tax-paying community from unjust exactions. As a result the revenue of the state was considerably increased, the daily takings in the city of Fustat alone ranging between 50,000 and 120,000 dinars. At the same time, however, al-Moʿizz commenced an extravagant expenditure on the erection of the royal suburb of Kahira, and this was followed by ostentatious and luxurious outlay on an unprecedented scale, so that the actual financial position of the government was not much improved on the whole. A taste for display became a characteristic of the Fatimid dynasty, and this tended to exert a demoralising influence on the community generally by raising the general standard of expenditure.