This Week in History recalls memorable and decisive events and personalities of the past.
9th July 969 – The Fatimid general Jawhar leads the Friday prayer in Fustat in the name of Caliph al-Mu’izz li-Din Allah, thereby symbolically completing the Fatimid conquest of Egypt
In the year 902, a group of Berber tribesmen, known as the Kutama Berbers, emerged from the deserts of North Africa and undertook a conquest of a region known then as Ifriqiya, which today includes modern Tunisia, eastern Algeria and western Libya.
These Berbers had recently been converted to the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam and their leader claimed to be descended from the daughter of the Muslim prophet Muhammed, Fatima, and that therefore, following Shia tradition, he was the only legitimate ruler of the Islamic world, the Caliph. The title at that time was held by the Abbasid dynasty based in Baghdad. (For some background to this, check out this previous episode of This Week in History.)
The conquest was successful, and in 909 the newly self-declared Caliph began to expand his new state’s borders across North Africa. This new state would come to be known to history as the Fatimid empire, named for the dynasty which claimed their decent from Fatima.
The Fatimids’ great desire was the conquest of Egypt, one of the jewels of the Islamic world due to its large population and incredibly productive farms. Conquering Egypt would establish the Fatimids as a major power in the Islamic world, a conquest they hoped would one day see them come to rule the entire Islamic world.
In 914 the Fatimids sent an invasion force into Egyptian territory, controlled by the Abbasids at the time, and managed to capture the western part of the country as well as Alexandria. However, the invasion was halted by the arrival of reinforcements from Syria and Iraq, the heart of Abbasid power, and the Fatimids were sent packing back to Ifriqiya.
In 921, after cementing their new state further in Ifriqiya, the Fatimids launched their second major invasion of Egypt. In this attempt, they again captured Alexandria, but were defeated once again under the walls of Fustat, the Egyptian capital at the time (and which is today a part of ‘old Cairo’).
The defeat could be attributed in part to the difficulty of supplying the Fatimid army across the deserts of eastern Libya. The second invasion did however manage to secure Cyrenaica, in eastern Libya, for the Fatimids, a useful base for any further invasion attempts.
When not trying to invade Egypt, the Fatimids fought the Eastern Roman Empire for control of the island of Sicily, eventually bringing the entire island under Muslim rule, and the Umayyad dynasty based in southern Spain for control of western Algeria and Morocco.
Over the next few decades, the situation in Egypt and the rest of the Abbasid empire began to change. The Abbasids were increasingly torn by infighting over succession, and the slave soldiers (Mamaluks), mostly of Turkic origin, which formed the backbone of their armies clashed with the landed elites who were mostly Arab and Persian. These conflicts steadily weakened Abbasid power. In 935 the Abbasid appointed as governor of Egypt, Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid (a Turkic Mamaluk general), who effectively established himself as the de-facto king of Egypt. Though the region slipped out of the Abbasids’ grasp, it continued to pay lip-service to Abbasid rule.
At first the new Ikhshidid (named after their founder) rulers of Egypt managed the country well and brought some stability to the country. However, they could not resist being drawn into the growing chaos of the Abbasid empire, and between the 940s and 960s were often at war with other Islamic warlords in Syria and Arabia as the Abbasid empire slowly collapsed. This weakened their armies and opened Egypt to invasion by the Christian Nubians (from modern Sudan), who launched major incursions into southern Egypt in 950 and 965.
During the 960s Egypt also faced an invasion from the east by a radical Shiite group called the Qarmatians, who ravaged much of the countryside and killed many Egyptian troops. The Egyptians also faced defeat at the hands of the eastern Romans; when they sent a fleet to Cyprus to help defend it from a Roman attempt to retake the island, it was destroyed in a major naval battle with the Roman fleet.
To add to their series of military disasters, the Ikhshidid Egyptians also suffered from famine, caused by drought, and a plague outbreak in the 960s. Finally, in 968, the final blow fell on Egypt when a succession dispute erupted following the death of Egypt’s ruler at the time. The dispute divided the Egyptian military between many factions – one of which sought to elevate itself by appealing for outside aid, in this case from the Fatimids.
On 6 February 969, the Fatimid general, Jawhar, completed assembling his army and set out for a third attempt to conquer Egypt.
Resistance was light at first and the Fatimids under Jawhar easily captured Alexandria once again. But they knew that without conquering the capital, Fustat, they would once again be driven back.
The Fatimids sought to capture the city by sending a letter with a list of promises to the Egyptians. This piece of political and religious propaganda set out the political programme of the Fatimids, promising protection against the ‘enemies’ of Islam, the restoration of existing – and construction of new – mosques in Egypt, and mercy for the rulers of Egypt should they surrender.
While many in the Egyptian court believed they should surrender, the Egyptian army officers refused and declared their intention to fight to the death. So, battle commenced.
At first the fighting was inconclusive, but after managing to get some of their soldiers from the western bank of the Nile to the eastern bank, the Fatimids forced a major battle with the Egyptians, in which they crushed the defending force.
On 9 July, with resistance fading before the Fatimid advance, Jawhar entered Fustat. Heading to its largest mosque, he led the Friday prayers, and declared himself victorious.
Over the next few years the Fatimids would move their court and capital to Egypt, establishing it as the centre of their power, and crushing the last few remnants of resistance to their rule of Egypt. From there they would attempt to expand into Syria, but ultimately would have only limited success.
The Fatimids would become the major power of the Islamic world from the 960s until the appearance of the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century. Their rule over Egypt is considered a high point of Islamic civilization. For much (but not all) of their reign, the Fatimids allowed much greater toleration of not only alternative sects of Islam but also of Christians and Jews. Their government was also far more meritocratic than other governments of the time and even people of the ‘wrong’ religion or ethnicity could see themselves appointed to senior positions in the Fatimid government.
Despite attempts by the Fatimids to sway the Egyptian population to their branch of Ismaili Shia Islam, they were ultimately unsuccessful, with most remaining primarily Christian or Sunni Muslim.
The Fatimids would ultimately be undone by an ambitious general of Kurdish origin in the 12th century, a story you can read more about in last week’s This week in History.
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