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The Fāṭimids were an Islamic dynasty of Ismāʿīlī confession that ruled in North Africa (from 297/909) and Egypt (from 358/969) until 567/1171. The alleged descent of the dynasty from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and Muḥammad’s daughter Fāṭima has been called into question by contemporaries from the very beginning and cannot be proven. The dynasty issued from the family of the founders and early leaders of the Ismāʿīlī movement who came from Khūzistān and Iraq in the second half of the third/ninth century an…

Maʿadd al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh (r. 341–65/953–75) was the fourth caliph of the Fāṭimid dynasty in Ifrīqiya. He acceded to the throne on 29 Shawwāl 341/19 March 953 at the age of 21, having been born on 11 Ramaḍān 319/26 September 931. One of the main sources on his personality is al-Nuʿmān’s (d. 363/974) Kitāb al-majālis wa-l-musāyarāt (“Audiences and companionable rides”), which in 292 episodes gives a detailed panorama of court life, ceremonial, religious disputes, family intrigues, foreign policy, and so forth. His first concern was to pacify the Awrās mountains, refuge of…

The Baqliyya was an extremist Shīʿī, probably Carmathian (Qarmaṭī), sect mentioned in Iraq in early ʿAbbāsid times. The Kitāb al-aghānī of Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī (d. 356/967) mentions a figure from the time of the caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 136–58/754–75), a boon companion of the heretic ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya, a certain al-Baqlī (whose name derived from Arabic baql, “vegetables, greens”), who held that “mankind is like the vegetable: when it dies it never comes back” (Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī 11:231). This may be a literary invention, perhaps based on ver…

Al-Manṣūra (the victorious) is a town in Lower Egypt near Damietta (Dimyāṭ) and capital of the province (mudīriyya) of Daqahliyya. The town was founded in 616/1219 by the Ayyūbid sultan al-Malik al-Kāmil (r. 615–35/1218–38) as a camp fortified against the Crusaders, who had conquered Damietta in Shaʿbān 616/November 1219. Situated at the fork of the branches of the Nile near Damietta and Ushmūm Ṭannāḥ (present-day Ushmūm al-Rummān), the town dominated the two most important waterways of the eastern Nile Delta an…

Ibn Zūlāq, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Ibrāhīm al-Laythī (306–86/919–96), was an Egyptian historian and the author of a number of biographical, historical, and topographical works on Egypt in the time of the Ikhshīdids (323–58/935–69) and early Fāṭimids (297–567/909–1171). These works, though almost entirely lost, underlie a good deal of subsequent historiography relating to this period. His continuation of Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Kindī’s (d. 350/961) Umarāʾ Miṣr (“The book of Egyptian governors”) ends in the year 302/915 and his additions to the same author’s Akhbār quḍāt Miṣr (“The …

Anūshtakīn al-Bukhārī al-Darzī, called also Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, was one of the first three propagandists of the doctrine of the Druze sect (al-Darziyya, al-Durūz, sing. Durzī), which is named for him. His name indicates that he was a Turk from Central Asia and a tailor (Pers. darzī) by profession; the common vocalisation of his name, Darazī, seems to be incorrect (van Ess, 64f.). According to the Christian author Yaḥyā al-Anṭākī (d. 458/1065) al-Darzī came to Cairo in 408/1017–8, but Yaḥyā sometimes confounds the different Druze protagonists al-Darzī, Ḥamz…

Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn ʿAṭṭāsh (d. 500/1107) was the son of the former Ismāʿīlī dāʿī in Isfahan. He ostensibly apostatised from the doctrine of his father and missionised secretly under the cover of a linen seller. He became a teacher and steward of the young male and female palace slaves in the castle of Shāhdiz, which the Saljūq sultan Malikshāh I (r. 465–85/1073–92) had built about eight kilometres south of Iṣfahān. During the conflict between Malikshāh’s sons Barkyāruq (r. 487–98/1094–1105) and Muḥamma…

Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan b. Bahrām al-Jannābī (d. 300/913) founded the Ismāʿīlī Qarmaṭian communities on the Persian Gulf. He was of Persian origin, from the port of Jannāba (present-day Ganāva), on the Iranian coast. In the sawād (rural district) of Kufa, he married into a family that had been converted to the Ismāʿīlī daʿwa (mission), which was then headed by Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ and his brother-in-law Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdān (murdered 286/899). Abū Saʿīd was eventually won over to the daʿwa. Becoming a dāʿī (missionary) himself, he was initially active in his home region—Jannāba, Sīnīz, …

ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Sulaym al-Aswānī (fl. fourth/tenth century) was an Egyptian traveller. When Egypt was occupied by the Fāṭimid general Jawhar (d. 382/992) in 358/969, al-Aswānī was sent to establish contact with the Christian Nubian kingdoms south of the First Cataract of the Nile and to renew the bakṭ (from Latin pactum) of the year 31/652, by which Arabs and Nubians had agreed upon a peaceful exchange of goods. After his return, he composed a report for the Fāṭimid caliph al-ʿAzīz (365–86/975–96), of which al-Maqrīzī has preserved seve…

ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn ʿAṭṭāsh (fl. fifth/eleventh century) was an Ismāʿīlī missionary (dāʿī) and mentor of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (r. 483–518/1090–1124 in Alamūt). Originally an adherent of Twelver Shīʿism, he converted later to Ismāʿīlī Shīʿism. He is said to have been arrested during the reign in Iran of Sulṭān Ṭūghril Beg (431–55/1040–63) but to have been released after feigning contrition. In Rayy, he became the son-in-law of the dāʿī Abū ʿAlī al-Naysābūrī. Ibn ʿAṭṭāsh acted as dāʿī in Iraq and later in Iṣfahān, where he held “wisdom sessions” (majālis al-ḥikma) in a “house of the mission” (dār …

The Qarmaṭians (Qarāmiṭa, sing. Qarmaṭī) were a subsect of the Ismāʿīlī Shīʿī branch of Islam. The name is derived from that of one of the earliest propagandists (dāʿī) of the sect in Lower Iraq, Ḥamdān b. al-Ashʿath, called Qarmaṭ, whose nickname was said to mean “short-legged, of short stature” in the local Aramaic dialect (Ibn al-Nadīm, 238). Other variants of the name are Qarmaṭūya (al-Nawbakhtī, 61) and Karmīta, said to mean “red-eyed” (al-Ṭabarī, 3:2125). The conversion of this former ox-driver by a wandering Ismāʿī…

The Dār al-Ḥikma (“House of Wisdom,” called also Dār al-ʿIlm, “House of Knowledge”), was an institution of learning in Cairo, founded in 395/1005 by the Fāṭimid caliph al-Ḥākim (r. 386–411/996–1021). It was located north of the Western (or Little) Palace, facing the still extant Aqmar Mosque. The books of the palace libraries were moved there, and public lectures were held by jurists, Qurʾān readers, specialists in prophetic traditions (ḥadīth), astronomers, grammarians, philologists, logicians, and physicians. In Ramaḍān 400/April-May 1010, al-Ḥākim incorporate…

Abū Ṭāhir Sulaymān b. Abī Saʿīd al-Jannābī (d. 332/944) was the son and successor of Abū Saʿīd al-Jannābī, the founder of the Qarmaṭian community in al-Baḥrayn. Born in Ramaḍān 294/June–July 906, he was still a minor when his father was murdered in 300/913, and, with his five brothers, he remained under the tutelage of his uncle, the dāʿī (missionary) al-Ḥasan b. Sanbar. When he reached his majority, in Ramaḍān 310/December 922–January 923, he took over the leadership and soon terrorised the population of southern Iraq. Every year from 310 to 314/923 …

[English Version] (arab. ahl as-sunna wal-gˇamāʿa, »Leute des Herkommens und der Gemeinschaft«), Sammelbez. für die Anhänger der Hauptströmung des Islam (: II.,1.), der ca.90% der Muslime angehören. Die Bez. entstand zur Abgrenzung gegenüber älteren Sonderentwicklungen und sektiererischen Abspaltungen. Hauptkennzeichen ist die Anerkennung des überlieferten Herkommens oder Brauchs (sunna) des Propheten Muḥammad und der Generation seiner Gefährten (ṣaḥāba), wie sie in einer Vielzahl von Einzelber…

[English Version] (arab. šı̄ʿa, »Partei«, oder šı̄ʿat ʿAlı̄, »Partei ʿAlı̄s«), Sammelname für mehrere isl. Religionsgemeinschaften, die den Vetter und Schwiegersohn Muḥammads, den vierten Kalifen ʿAlı̄ ibn Abı̄ Ṭālib, und seine Nachkommen als allein rechtmäßige Erben des Propheten und legitime Oberhäupter (Imame) der Umma (Gemeinde: XI.) ansehen (vgl. Islam: II., 1., a). Die Šı̄ʿa entstand in den Bürgerkriegen um das Kalifat ʿAlı̄s (656–661) und um die Nachfolge seines Sohnes al-Ḥusain, der 681…

[German Version] The Arabic word imām, “leader, master,” is used in Islam as a general term for someone with religious authority on a wide range of levels, from the prayer leader in a mosque to the supreme leader of all Muslims. In the latter sense it is used primarily by the Shi'ites (Šīʿa/Shiʾites), for whose teaching the recognition of twelve imāms as the legitimate successors of the Prophet Muḥammad is constitutive. Heinz Halm Bibliography W. Madelung, “Imāma,” EI 2 III, 1971, 1163–1169.

[German Version] “Sign of God.” In Shihite Islam this is an honorary title for the person with the highest spiritual authority. Since the 14th century it has been documented as an individual surname. The title was defined terminologically for the first time in the 20th century in the context of a self-consolidating hierarchy of spiritual dignitaries. Since then it represents the highest category of the mujtahids, i.e. Islamic scholars ( ʿulamā), who are qualified by means of studies and exams to make decisions independently and on their own responsibility ( ijtihād) on …

[German Version] (Arab. ahl as-sunna wal-ǧamāʿa, “people of the tradition and community”), collective term for adherents of mainstream Islam (II, 1), embracing some 90% of all Muslims. The term arose to differentiate the Sunnis from earlier sectarian groups and movements. Their characteristic feature is recognition of the tradition or practice ( sunna) of the prophet Muḥammad and the generation of his companions ( ṣaḥāba), initially transmitted orally in a multitude of anecdotal reports ( ḥadīṯ) and then set down in writing, as binding models for the everyday conduct…

[German Version] Turko-Persian title (“lord prince”). In 1848 the shah of Persia bestowed the title on his son-in-law, the 46th imām of the Shiʿite sect of the Ismaʿilites. The title has been borne ever since by the imām of the sect, who are considered direct descendants and legitimate successors of the prophet Muḥammad. The 48th im…

[German Version] Latin “Assissini” or “Heysessini,” from Arabic “al-ḥašīšīya” (“the hashish-eaters”), is the contemptuous designation for the extremist branch of the Shiite sect of Ishmaelites active in the Syrian coastal mountains during the Crusades. Founded in 1094 by the Ishmaelite missionary Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (died 1124) in Castle …