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The Fatimid Period (969-1171) :
The Fatimid Dynasty traced their lineage from the Prophet's
daughter Fatima Zahra and her husband Ali Ibn Abi Talib. They
embraced Shi'a doctrines which rejected the legitimacy of the first
three Caliphs of Islam, Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman, who they
claimed to be usurpers of Ali's right to succeed the Prophet in
leading Islam.
At first the Shi'a, or "partisans" of Ali, were loyal members of the
Muslim umma who simply disagreed with the political decision to bypass
Ali. However, Ummayyad machinations which lead to the assassination
and martyrdom of Ali and his sons Hasan and Hussein, hardened Shi'a
attitudes and led to a religious schism with metaphysical overtones
which has persisted to this day.
The Fatimids had separated themselves from the Sunni Caliphate
and set up their own western Caliphate which, with their conquest of
Egypt in 969 AD extended across North
Africa. The Fatimids established their imperial capital within
the walls of a newly built imperial city called Al Qahira,
meaning "The Triumphant". Within the walls of the city were
lavish palaces like the Azhar mosque and its University, which is now
the world's oldest existing learning institution.
Egypt flourished under the Fatimids who ruled behind the walls of
their imperial city, maintaining the mystery of distance from their
subjects. It was not until the reign of the demented Khalif
Al-Hakim that the Fatimid decline began.
Although beginning his rule beneficently, building a splendid mosque
between and in Cairo, and emerging from his palace to meet his
subjects to get a better understanding of their needs, Al-Hakim
degenerated into a murderous despot. He executed anyone to whom he
took a disliking and ruled with insane caprice. When he became
enamored of staying up all night, he made sleeping at night and
working during the day punishable by death. He banned the making of
women's shoes. He also banned the consumption of mulokhiyya, a
vegetable resembling spinach which is a staple in the Egyptian diet.
He supported the Byzantines against Roman Christians and the
destruction of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem which was a pretext for
the First Crusade.
His reign ended mysteriously when Al-Hakim rode his favorite
mule up into the Moqattam hills at night. The mule was found but
Al-Hakim had vanished. Although it is likely that he was murdered
by bandits who roamed the outskirts of the city, hiding out in the
hills or in the
"City of the Dead", his disappearance was mythologized by his
more extreme Shi'a followers who believed that he was divine and had
ascended to a spiritual realm.
Curiously, this heretical sect gained adherents and became known as
the Druse who still have communities in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and
Israel. Although the Druse are clearly neither Muslim (Shi'a or
Muslim), Christian or Jew, their true beliefs remain shrouded in
mystery as only the Druse priesthood are privy to their doctrines and
ordinary adherents are kept in total ignorance until the age of
40.
Fatimid rule continued over Egypt for another
150 years and the country continued to
prosper. However their empire gradually declined due to famine,
internal troubles and external pressure from the Seljuk sultans who
captured Syria from the Fatimids, and the Christian crusading armies
which conquered Fatimid Palestine and the Lebanon.
To protect the remainder of their diminishing empire, the Fatimids
collaborated with the Franks, an act which outraged the Seljuk Sultan
Nuraddin who sent an expedition to overthrow the Fatimids.
The Sultan deputized his general Shirkoh to repel the Fatimid
and Frank armies and conquered Upper Egypt, sending his nephew Salah
al-Din Al-Ayyubi to capture Alexandria, thus opening the way
for the Ayyubid Dynasty.
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