Абдулла аль-Махди Биллах

аль-Махди Биллах Махди, ей-Богу
Золотой динар аль-Махди биллы, отчеканенный в Кайруане , 912 г. н.э.
Имам – халиф Фатимидского халифата
Царствование	27 августа 909 г. - 4 марта 934 г.
Преемник	аль-Каим би-Амр Аллах
Рожденный	Саид ибн аль-Хусейн 31 июля 874 г. Аскар Мукрам , Хузистан
Died	4 March 934 (aged 59-60) Mahdiya
Issue	al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah
Regnal name Abu Muhammad Abdallah al-Imam al-Mahdi Billah
Dynasty	Fatimid
Father	al-Husayn ibn Ahmad (Abdallah al-Radi)
Religion	Isma'ili Shi'a Islam

Абу Мухаммад Абдаллах ибн аль-Хусейн ( арабский : أبو محمد عبد الله بن الحسين ; 31 июля 874 г. - 4 марта 934 г.), более известный под своим царственным именем аль-Махди биллах ( арабский язык : مهدي بالله , « Правильно ведомые Богом» ), был основателем исмаилитского Фатимидского халифата , единственного крупного шиитского халифата в истории ислама , и одиннадцатым имамом исмаилитской ветви шиизма.

He was born as Saʿīd ibn al-Ḥusayn (سعيد بن الحسين) in Askar Mukram to a family that led the secret Isma'ili missionary network (da'wa), propagating on behalf of the hidden imam, Muhammad ibn Isma'il, who would return as the prophesied Islamic messiah (mahdi). Orphaned at a young age, he moved to Salamiya, the family's base of operations, where he was adopted by his uncle. In the mid-890s Sa'id succeeded to the leadership of the expanding da'wa, which had expanded and gained adherents across the then Muslim world. However, his claims of not merely being a trustee of the hidden imam, but of him and his ancestors holding the imamate itself, led in 899 to a schism in the Isma'ili movement: those who did not recognize his claims split off to become the Qarmatians. The schism was followed by uprisings of pro-Isma'ili Bedouin in Syria in 902–903, launched without his consent by over-eager supporters, who aimed to force him to come forward as the mahdi. The Bedouin uprising was suppressed by the Abbasids, but drew the attention of the Ему перешли власти Аббасидского халифата , что вынудило его покинуть Саламию и бежать сначала в Рамлу , затем в Фустат в Египте и, наконец, в Сиджилмасу на территории нынешнего Марокко . Там он оставался, живя торговцем, пока один из его миссионеров, Абдаллах аш-Шии , во главе кутамских берберов не сверг династию Аглабидов Ифрикии Абу в 909 году.

Proclaimed caliph and assuming power in Ifriqiya in January 910, he proclaimed his right to conquer the world in the name of God, but soon fell out with Abu Abdallah and other leading missionaries, who were disappointed that he was not the semi-divine mahdi they had been propagating for. Al-Mahdi was able to purge these dissidents, but had to overcome a series of revolts against his authority, either due to opposition to the exactions of the Kutama, the backbone of his power, or due to disillusionment of his followers with his failure to realise the Isma'ili millennialist promises. The state that al-Mahdi built, although underpinned by a messianic ideology, was otherwise conventionally organized, and relied heavily on the personnel of the previous Aghlabid regime and the swords of the Kutama. His expansionist aims achieved only moderate success: two invasions of Egypt were beaten back by the Abbasids, leaving only the Cyrenaica in his hands, while the war with the Byzantine Empire in southern Italy was characterized by raids for plunder and slaves, and did not result in any lasting successes. In the west, his repeated attempts to impose Fatimid rule over the unruly Berbers were challenged not only by Berber rivalries, but also by the Umayyads of al-Andalus, and only secured temporary success. In 921 he moved his court to the newly built fortified palace city of Mahdiya on the Tunisian coast, and spent the rest of his life there. After his death in 934, he was succeeded by his only son, al-Qa'im.

Early life

Origin

Further information: Fatimid dynasty § Origin

The origin, identity and early history of the man who founded the Fatimid Caliphate is obscure, and even his name and the place and date of his birth are disputed. According to his official biography, he was born in Askar Mukram, in the Persian province of Khuzistan, on 31 July 874 (12 Shawwal 260 AH), or exactly one year earlier according to a different tradition. Other traditions report that he was born in Baghdad or Kufa in Iraq, or the town of Salamiya, on the western edge of the Syrian Desert. His original name most likely was Sa'id ibn al-Husayn, although in later life he insisted that is real name was Ali, and Sa'id was just a cover name.

His father died in 881/2, and Sa'id was sent to be fostered by his uncle, Abu Ali Muhammad, also known as Abu'l-Shalaghlagh, at Salamiya. On his journey he was joined by Ja'far, a boy who was a few months older than Sa'id and had been reared with him by the same wet-nurse. He became a eunuch and Sa'id's close confidant and chamberlain, and is one of the main sources about his life. A younger brother, known only as Abu Muhammad, did not follow Sa'id to Salamiya.

Early Isma'ilism and Salamiya

Abu'l-Shalaghlagh and Sa'id lived the life of a wealthy merchant household, but in secret the family headed an underground political and religious movement, the Isma'ili da'wa ('invitation, calling'). This movement was part of the wider Imami branch of the Shi'a, which held that the leadership of the Muslim community was entrusted by God to a singular, divinely invested and guided imam (leader). The first such imam was Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and fourth caliph, who according to the Shi'a had been designated as successor by Muhammad, only for this instruction to be ignored by the latter's Companions, who chose Abu Bakr as caliph instead. Shi'a doctrine holds that the imamate was the birthright of Ali's descendants via Fatima, Muhammad's daughter. The Imamis hold that the existence of an imam at all times is a necessity for the world's existence, as the imam is the proof of God, and has the sole authority and divine inspiration to interpret God's revelation; indeed, the imam is considered to be infallible, at least in doctrinal matters. The Imamis especially held that the imamate was the preserve of the Husaynid line of the Alids, where it could only be passed in hereditary succession from father to son via an explicit act of designation (nass) by the previous imam, a choice that is held to have been ordained by God.

In 765, a succession conflict gave rise to the split of the Imami Shi'a, into Isma'ilis and Twelvers: the sixth imam, Ja'far al-Sadiq, died without a clear successor. Al-Sadiq had most likely designated his second son, Isma'il—after whom the Isma'ilis are named—but according to most accounts, Isma'il predeceased his father. Some of al-Sadiq's followers then held that the designation automatically passed on to Isma'il's son, Muhammad, or even that al-Sadiq had designated his grandson while he lived, while others claimed that Isma'il himself was not dead and merely in hiding to escape persecution by the ruling Abbasid Caliphate. Most of al-Sadiq's followers, however, followed Isma'il's younger brother, Musa al-Kazim, and his descendants, becoming the Twelver branch of Shi'ism. According to his followers, Muhammad ibn Isma'il fled the Hejaz and went into concealment (satr), to escape both Abbasid persecution as well as the hostility of his uncle's supporters. He died sometime c. 795 in Khuzistan, after which the fate of the Isma'ili movement is obscure, until it re-emerged in the late ninth century.

During the second half of the ninth century, a wave of millennialist expectations spread in the Muslim world, coinciding with a deep crisis of the Abbasid Caliphate: the Anarchy at Samarra in the 860s, followed by the Zanj Rebellion, enfeebled the Abbasid regime, allowing the rise of breakaway and autonomous regimes in the provinces. Belief in a messiah of Alid descent, the mahdi ('the Rightly Guided One') or qa'im ('He Who Arises'), who would usher in the end times, was widespread in the early Islamic world. According to the various traditions heralding his coming, the mahdi would rapidly overthrow the Abbasid Caliphate and destroy their capital Baghdad, restore the unity of the Muslims, conquer Constantinople (capital of the Byzantine Empire, the oldest non-Muslim antagonist of the early caliphates), ensure the final triumph of Islam and establish a reign of peace and justice. Thus the leader of the Zanj uprising claimed Alid descent, and proclaimed himself as the mahdi, the restorer of heavenly justice to those downtrodden and disenfranchised. As the historian Michael Brett comments, "the Mahdist expectations [...] were focused upon the coming of a more and more mysterious, increasingly supernatural, ultimately eschatological figure in the form of a second Muhammad destined to complete the history of the world". For the Isma'ilis, the expected mahdi was none other than their hidden imam, Muhammad ibn Isma'il.

While the imam remained hidden, however, he was represented towards his followers by an agent, living proof of the imam's existence, the hujja (lit. 'seal'). That was the role claimed, according to later sources, by Sa'id's great-grandfather, Abdallah al-Akbar. Leaving his native Askar Mukram, after some wanderings Abdallah al-Akbar had settled in Salamiya, from where he and his successors directed the growth of the da'wa. According to later Isma'ili tradition and the reconstruction of modern scholars, Abdallah al-Akbar was in turn succeeded in 827/8 by his son Ahmad, followed by Ahmad's son, Abu'l-Shalaghlagh. It is possible, however, that the origins of the Salamiya-based movement were far more recent than that, and that it had come about only following the start of the anti-Alid and anti-Shi'a policies adopted by the Abbasids under Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861). These policies led not only to a series of Alid/Shi'a uprisings in the decades that followed, but also the increasing persecution of the Twelver imams until the disappearance and supposed "occultation" of the last Twelver imam in 874. It is exactly this period which saw the Isma'ili message of the imminent return of Muhammad ibn Isma'il as the mahdi gain traction, aided by dissatisfaction among the Twelver adherents with the political quietism of their leadership, and above all the vacuum left by the occultation, that removed a visible and accessible imam as a source of loyalty and religious guidance.

Map of the fragmented Abbasid empire c. 892, with areas still under direct control of the Abbasid central government in dark green, and under autonomous rulers adhering to nominal Abbasid suzerainty in light green

Despite its activity, this stage of the Isma'ili movement is scarcely covered in later Isma'ili sources, and most of what happened in the last decades of the ninth century, culminating in the "Qarmatian schism" of 899, has been reconstructed and elaborated by a succession of modern scholars—chiefly Vladimir Ivanov, Samuel Miklos Stern, Wilferd Madelung, and Heinz Halm—using mostly anti-Fatimid polemic works. According to this version, Isma'ili da'is, led by Hamdan Qarmat and his brother-in-law Abdan, spread their network of agents to the area around Kufa in the late 870s, and from there to Persia and Khurasan, while a particularly important role was played by Yemen, whence the Isma'ili agent Ibn Hawshab sent missionaries to Sindh (al-Haytham, 883/84), Bahrayn (Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi, 899), and Ifriqiya (Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i, 893).

In medieval sources as well as modern accounts building on them, all this activity is attributed to a single unified movement, a "secret revolutionary organization carrying on intensive missionary efforts in many regions of the Muslim world" according to Wilferd Madelung. This was the movement headed by Abu'l-Shalaghlagh at Salamiya. The true head of this movement remained hidden even from the senior missionaries, and a certain Fayruz functioned as chief missionary (da'i al-du'at) and 'gateway' (bab) to the hidden leader. Brett however cautions that this "grand conspiracy theory of Fatimid origins" reflects mostly the bias of later sources, pro-Fatimid as well as anti-Fatimid, and that it obscures a reality of multiple, separately evolving millennarian movements that existed at the time, and whose political or doctrinal relation to one another is now difficult to reconstruct. According to Brett, the movement at Salamiya was one of many, and only after the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate were these movements united into a single coherent network, retrospectively, by Fatimid and anti-Fatimid propaganda alike. Indeed modern scholars point out the existence of independent strands of Isma'ili thought in the eastern regions of the Islamic world, propagated by missionaries like Abu Hatim al-Razi (d. 934/5) in Adharbayjan and Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Nasafi (d. 943) in Khurasan; it was only later, during the second half of the 10th century, that some of these Isma'ili communities were reconciled to Fatimid leadership, with the official Fatimid doctrine coming to incorporate many of their teachings.

Leadership of the Isma'ili da'wa and the Qarmatian schism

Abu'l-Shalaghlagh did not have heirs, as his son and grandchild had reportedly been captured and imprisoned by the Abbasids. Sa'id was thus designated as his successor, and given his uncle's daughter in marriage. Sa'id's only child, Abd al-Rahman, the future caliph al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah, was born in March or April 893. His brother, Abu Muhammad, apparently went to Taleqan in the Daylam, a region where already Abdallah al-Akbar had lived and preached for a while.

The eunuch Ja'far reports that Abu'l-Shalaghlagh—perhaps encouraged by the rapid progress of the da'wa, which was now establishing armed strongholds in preparation of the mahdi's arrival—secretly declared himself to a few senior members of the da'wa not as the hujja for Muhammad ibn Isma'il, but the actual imam; and that he claimed for his nephew Sa'id the title of mahdi, and for the latter's infant son Abd al-Rahman the title of qa'im. This claim was taken up by Sa'id when he succeeded his uncle, although later Fatimid doctrine insisted that Sa'id's father, al-Husayn, had been a hidden imam in succession to Ahmad ibn Abdallah al-Akbar, rather than Abu'l-Shalaghlagh; the latter in turn is accused in these works of trying to usurp the position of Sa'id. Various genealogies were later put forth by the Fatimids and their followers to justify their claim to the imamate, generating a heated controversy that lasts until the present day. In the most common version, Abdallah al-Akbar was proclaimed to be the son of Muhammad ibn Isma'il, but even in pro-Isma'ili sources, the succession line and names of the hidden imams who supposedly preceded Sa'id are not the same, partly due to the Isma'ili practice of using codenames and hiding their identity (taqiya) to avoid persecution. Anti-Isma'ili Sunni and Twelver Shi'a sources naturally rejected the claim of Fatimid descent from Ali ibn Abi Talib altogether and considered them as impostors, some even claiming they were of Jewish descent. The situation is further complicated by the use of the title qa'im, until then a synonym for the mahdi, for Sa'id's son. This has led to claims, already in medieval times, that whereas Abd al-Rahman was a genuine imam, Sa'id descended from a line of hujjas and was neither Abd al-Rahman's father nor a legitimate imam, but merely a usurping steward.

Abu'l-Shalaghlagh died sometime after 893, and Sa'id became the head of the da'wa. In 899, the letters being sent to the senior missionaries from Salamiya revealed changes in the official doctrine of the movement. This worried Hamdan Qarmat, who sent his brother-in-law to Salamiya to investigate the matter. It was only there that Abdan learned of the new claim: that the hidden imam was not Muhammad ibn Isma'il, as commonly believed, but Sa'id. Upon learning of this, Hamdan denounced the leadership in Salamiya, gathered the Iraqi da'is and ordered them to cease the missionary effort. Shortly after he disappeared from his headquarters, and Abdan was assassinated at the instigation of Zakarawayh ibn Mihrawayh, who had apparently remained loyal to Salamiya. These events caused a major split in the Isma'ili movement, between those who recognized Sa'id's claims to the imamate and those who rejected them. The latter are generally known today by the term "Qarmatians", although the original connotation of the name is unclear, and was also applied by non-Isma'ili authors to the supporters of the Fatimids as well. The Isma'ili communities that adhered to the Qarmatian view represented mostly the eastern Islamic world: Iraq, Bahrayn and northern Persia around Rayy, while the communities in Yemen, Sindh, Ifriqiya and possibly Khurasan remained loyal to Salamiya.

Bedouin uprising and flight to Ramla

Map of Syria with its provinces and its major settlements in the 9th/10th centuries

After his role in the murder of Abdan, Zakarawayh ibn Mihrawayh escaped from Iraq and resumed his missionary efforts among the Bedouin tribes of the eastern Syrian Desert, but with little success. His sons, al-Husayn and Yahya, however, succeeded in converting many members of the tribal group of the Banu Kalb in the northwestern Syrian Desert. Assuming the cover names of sahib al-shama ('Man with the Mole') and sahib al-naqa ('Master of the She-Camel') respectively, they and their followers adopted the name al-Fatimiyyun ('Fatimids') and rose in revolt in 902. It remains a matter of contention whether Zakarawayh and his sons were followers of Sa'id and acted in his name, as contended by Ivanov and Halm, or unrelated. The account of the contemporary Baghdadi official and historian al-Tabari knows nothing of the Isma'ili leadership at Salamiya, and provides a garbled account of the rebels' belief system, claiming that a certain Faraj ibn Uthman was their mahdi, while the 11th-century pro-Fatimid narrative of al-Naysaburi insists that the revolt was instigated by the three renegade sons of an Isma'ili da'i.

Whatever the truth, the uprising was apparently without the knowledge or authorization of Sa'id, although later Fatimid sources claim that Zakarawayh sent Sa'id's brother to the Bedouin as the representative of the hidden imam and figurehead of the revolt. Indeed, the revolt, whether by over-eager followers or not, placed Sa'id in mortal danger, as it alerted the authorities to the danger posed by militant Isma'ilism and revealed the whereabouts of the leadership of the da'wa. It also led to the renewed direct Abbasid military involvement in Syria, which for the last thirty years had been ruled not by Baghdad, but by the autonomous Tulunid dynasty based in Fustat, in Egypt.

While the Bedouin scored their first successes against government troops, Sa'id was informed via pigeon post from his agents in Baghdad that the Abbasid governor of Salamiya had discovered his true identity. Under cover of night, Sa'id left the town, accompanied only by his son, the chief missionary Fayruz, and four slaves. The women of the household, including his mother and two daughters, as well as his niece, were left behind under the protection of the slave Su'luk. The group speedily went south. In three days they passed Homs, Tripoli, Damascus, and Tiberias, until they reached Ramla, where the local governor was secretly an Isma'ili initiate and could protect them. Sa'id and his party had escaped in the nick of time: in Damascus, the caliphal courier with his description and orders for his arrest arrived right after they had left the city, and another courier arrived at Ramla in the same evening that they settled there.

In the meantime, Zakarawayh's sons had made for Salamiya to pay homage to their master, according to pro-Fatimid sources, or because the town had been settled with Hashemite families related to the Abbasid dynasty, as al-Tabari claims. According to the detailed accounts of pro-Fatimid sources, the two brothers initially held Abu Muhammad to be their imam, until the women of the household corrected them. Yahya went on to lay siege to Damascus, while al-Husayn reportedly went to Ramla to meet Sa'id. Although later Fatimid sources are at pains to disassociate Sa'id from the brothers' uprising, Sa'id at that time may have condoned their operations, and even ordered money to be paid to them. After the death of Yahya before Damascus in July 903, al-Husayn abandoned the siege and turned north. He captured Salamiya, Homs, and other towns, and, in the expectation that the mahdi would finally come forth, began to establish the institutions of a state: at the mint of Homs, coins were issued on behalf of the yet unnamed mahdi, and in the Friday sermon the name of the Abbasid caliph al-Muktafi was dropped in favour of the "Successor, the rightly-guided Heir, the Lord of the Age, the Commander of the Faithful, the Mahdi". Encamped at Salamiya since August 903, the Bedouin apparently expected that Sa'id would return and announce himself. Despite repeated entreaties, however, Sa'id refused to leave the safety of Ramla. Al-Tabari preserves two letters, one sent to the shadowy mahdi and one from him, that were captured by Abbasid troops, in which the mahdi is named Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Abdallah. If this was indeed Sa'id, he thus had by this time assumed his eventual regnal name, while apparently omitting his father's.

In the end, the Abbasid government sent an army under Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Katib, which on 29 November 903 routed the 'Fatimid' Bedouin army at the Battle of Hama. Enraged about the apparent abandonment by the supposed divinely-guided imam, al-Husayn turned against him: the residence at Salamiya was destroyed, and all family members and servants encountered there executed. Sa'id's women, however, were rescued by Sul'uk, who eventually brought them to rejoin his master upon the conquest of Ifriqiya. This atrocity, along with the failure of the uprising, led later Fatimid historians to try and excise Sa'id's relationship with the sons of Zakarawayh in what the historian Heinz Halm calls an act of damnatio memoriae. Al-Husayn himself was captured shortly after, and under torture revealed what he knew about the leader of the Isma'ili movement. Zakarawayh himself remained at large, and in 906 tried to revive the uprising in Iraq in a movement that, according to historian Farhad Daftary, now "acquired the characteristics of dissident Qarmatism". This revolt too was defeated in 907 by Abbasid forces, and Zakarawayh was captured and died of his wounds shortly after.

Flight to Egypt and Sijilmasa

Once again, Sa'id and his entourage had to flee the Abbasid manhunt, making for Tulunid Egypt. Sa'id arrived in Fustat, the capital of Egypt, in early 904, and settled there in the house of a local convert, with the help of the local da'i, Abu Ali. According to the generally considered reliable report of Ibn Hawqal, the latter was none other than Hamdan Qarmat, who had returned to Sa'id's allegiance. Sa'id assumed the guise of a wealthy Hashemite merchant, but local authorities, warned by Baghdad, became suspicious. The loyal eunuch Ja'far was even questioned under torture, but revealed nothing. Sa'id remained in Fustat until January 905, when the Abbasid troops under Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Katib invaded Egypt and ended the Tulunid regime, bringing the province once again directly under Abbasid control.

To escape the Abbasids, Sa'id was once again forced to flee. His entourage apparently expected him to head to Yemen, where the missionaries Ibn Hawshab and Ibn al-Fadl had conquered most of the country in the name of the Isma'ili imam. Instead, Sa'id resolved to turn west to the Maghreb, much to the surprise and dismay of his followers: while Yemen was part of the civilized Arab world, the Maghreb was wild and uncultured, far from the centres of the Islamic world, politically fractured, and dominated by Berber tribes. Indeed, the chief missionary Fayruz abandoned his master and made for Yemen on his own. The reason for Sa'id's choice is unknown, but the historian Wilferd Madelung suggests that he had doubts about Ibn al-Fadl's loyalty; the latter would indeed eventually renounce his allegiance and declare himself to be the awaited mahdi. At the same time, however, the situation in the Maghreb was promising. The da'i Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i had converted the Kutama Berbers to his cause, and by 905 had achieved some first victories against the autonomous Aghlabid dynasty that ruled Ifriqiya (modern Tunisia and eastern Algeria) under nominal Abbasid suzerainty. The later Fatimid apologist, Qadi al-Nu'man, insists that Abu Abdallah had already sent messengers to Salamiya inviting his master to the Maghreb, in an effort to make the decision appear foreordained; but as Halm and Brett have remarked, the episode throws light on the improvised manner in which Sa'id appears to have run his movement.

Sending the trustworthy Ja'far back to Salamiya to dig up the treasures hidden there, Sa'id joined a merchant caravan going west, accompanied by Abu Abdallah's brother, Abu'l-Abbas Muhammad. On the way, the caravan was attacked by Berber tribes, which left Abu'l-Abbas Muhammad wounded, and Sa'id's library and many of his possessions in the hands of their attackers. The party made a stop at Tripoli, where they waited for Ja'far to join them with the recovered treasure. In the meantime, Abu'l-Abbas Muhammad was sent ahead to Kairouan, the Aghlabid capital. Unbeknownst to him, news of Sa'id and his identity as one sought by the Abbasid government had already reached the city, and he was immediately arrested. As a result, once again Sa'id had to alter his plans: instead of crossing the Aghlabid domains and making for the country of the Kutama, he joined another caravan heading west, skirting the southern fringes of Aghlabid territory. He was accompanied only by his son and Ja'far. Pressuring and even bribing the caravan leader to make haste, they eventually arrived in Sijilmasa.

Remains of the northern gate of Sijilmasa

An oasis town in modern eastern Morocco, Sijilmasa was the terminus of several trans-Sahara trade routes, and far from the reach of the Aghlabid emirs. Indeed, its Midrarid ruler, al-Yasa ibn Midrar, like most Berbers, espoused Kharijism, making them foes of the Abbasid caliphs. Posing once again as a wealthy merchant, Sa'id bought a nice residence in the city, and was slowly joined by the rest of his household over the following months. There he remained for the next four years, continuing his mercantile activities which apparently brought him additional wealth, all the while remaining in contact with Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i, who now embarked on the conquest of Ifriqiya. His identity did not remain a secret for too long: the Aghlabid emir, Ziyadat Allah III, informed the Midrarid emir of the true nature of the merchant from the east, but, aided by rich gifts from Sa'id, the emir of Sijilmasa saw no reason to do anything about it. Already before the conquest of the Aghabid emirate was complete, Abu Abdallah sent a troop of Kutama to escort Sa'id to Ifriqiya, but they were waylaid by the Rustamid emir of Tahert and had to turn back.

Reign

Establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate

On 18 March 909, the Kutama under the da'i Abu Abdallah decisively defeated the last Aghlabid army at al-Aribus. The next day, Ziyadat Allah III fled his palace city of Raqqada for Egypt, taking many of his treasures with him, but leaving most of his extensive harem behind, and taking care to torch the offices of the land tax department and all fiscal records contained therein. Chaos broke out once this became known, as the palaces were ransacked and any thought of further resistance vanished. A delegation of notables surrendered Kairouan, and on the next day, 25 March 909, Abu Abdallah entered Raqqada and took up residence in the palace of the emir.

Regency of Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i

As his master was still in faraway Sijilmasa, it was up to Abu Abdallah to establish the new Shi'a regime in Ifriqiya. He issued a letter of pardon (aman) to the citizens of Kairouan and all former servants of the Aghlabid regime, took stock of the contents of the palaces, installed governors, and ordered changes to the coinage, calls to prayer and the sermon, and official seals to reflect the new regime. The new ruler was not yet named in public; instead, the new formulas used Quranic verses or paraphrases that exalted the Family of Muhammad, the fulfillment of God's promise, the victory of God's truth (haqq), and of the Proof of God ((hujjat Allah, i.e., the mahdi). Abu'l-Abbas Muhammad, who had escaped from prison and emerged from hiding after his brother's victory, began to spread the Isma'ili doctrine, holding disputations with the local Sunni jurists in the Great Mosque of Kairouan. Abu Abdallah also chose a new chief qadi (judge), in the person of the local Shi'ite Muhammad ibn Umar al-Marwarrudhi.

As soon as his rule was stable enough, on 6 June 909, Abu Aballah set out from Raqqada at the head of a large army, to find his master and hand over power to him. In his stead at Raqqada, he left Abu Zaki Tammam ibn Mu'arik, with his brother Abu'l-Abbas Muhammad as his aide. On the way, Abu Abdallah received the submission of Muhammad ibn Khazar, leader of the nomadic Zenata Berbers, and overthrew the Rustamid imamate at Tahert, installing a Kutama governor there. Learning of the approach of the Kutama army, the emir of Sijilmasa had Sa'id questioned and put under house arrest along with his son, but otherwise treated well. Their servants on the other hand were thrown into prison, and regularly whipped.

Proclamation of al-Mahdi and coming to Ifriqiya

On 26 August 909, the Kutama army reached Sijilmasa, and demanded the release of their captive imam. After brief clashes with the Midrarid troops, Emir al-Yasa fled his city, which was occupied and plundered. Mounted on horseback and dressed in fine clothes, Sa'id and his son were presented to the army, amidst shouts and tears of religious exaltation. On the next day, 27 August, Sa'id was enthroned and acclaimed by the troops. As the historian Michael Brett explains, the occasion had double meaning: on the one hand, it acknowledged Sa'id's caliphate, but on the other, it recognized the Kutama soldiery as 'faithful' (mu'minin) or 'friends of God' (awliya), an elite distinct from the mass of ordinary Muslims.

On 26 August, outside the walls of Sijilmasa, the Imam emerged. He was riding a bay horse and wearing a turban whose cloth trailed over his neck and shoulders, an Egyptian linen shirt and sandals. ... Just then, a voice rang out over the crowds of the Kutama tribesmen: 'O faithful! This is my lord and yours, and the lord of all mankind!' When the Kutama saw their chief, Abu Abd Allah al-Shi'i, dismount from his horse, they followed suit. Al-Shi'i rushed towards the Imam, falling to his knees to kiss the stirrup of the Imam's horse, tears streaming down his face as he wept with joy. Then, he heard the first of Abd Allah al-Mahdi's words, 'Rejoice in the glad-tidings'.

— The reception of al-Mahdi by the Kutama army at Sijilmasa

The army remained at Sijilmasa for several weeks, during which delegations offering submission came from across the western Maghreb. The fugitive emir of Sijilmasa was captured, and the Kutama chieftain Ibrahim ibn Ghalib installed as governor. On 12 October, the army began its return march. On the way it relieved Tahert, which in the meantime had come under attack by the Zenata under Ibn Khazar, attacked the tribe of Sadina in its mountain strongholds, and launched an expedition to capture Ibn Khazar, but the latter managed to flee into the desert. The army then turned northeast, and Sa'id visited Ikjan, the original base of Abu Abdallah's mission among the Kutama. There Sa'id arranged the affairs of the Kutama tribes, and took care to gather the treasures that had for years been hoarded in his name.

After twenty days, the army marched on towards Kairouan, where on 4 January 910 the city notables came forth to greet their new ruler. Asked for a renewal of Abu Abdallah's aman, Sa'id immediately guaranteed their lives, but pointedly did not say anything about their possessions. The new caliph did not enter Kairouan—which he seems never to have visited during his life—and instead rode straight for Raqqada. On the next day, Friday, 5 January 910, in the sermon of the Friday prayer, a manifesto hailing the return of the caliphate to its rightful possessors, the Family of Muhammad, was read, and the name and titles of the new ruler were formally announced: "Abdallah Abu Muhammad, the Imam rightly guided by God, the Commander of the Faithful".

Domestic policies

Challenges of a revolutionary regime

The proclamation of al-Mahdi as caliph was the culmination of the decades-long efforts of the Isma'ili da'wa, and the first time since the caliphate of Ali ibn Abi Talib (656–661) that a member of the Family of Muhammad governed a major part of the Muslim world. The establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate was part of a wider rise of Shi'a regimes in the 10th-century Muslim world, the so-called "Shi'a Century", which included the Zaydi principalities in Yemen and Tabaristan, the Hamdanids in Syria, and the Buyids in Persia and Iraq.

As Shi'a imams, al-Mahdi and his successors were not only the secular rulers of a state (dawla), but concurrently also Shi'a imams, at the head of the still extant and wide-ranging network of the da'wa, and thus posed a direct ideological challenge to the Sunni Abbasids for the leadership of the entire Islamic world. Already in his inaugural proclamation, al-Mahdi claimed a mandate to "conquer the world to East and West, in accordance with God's promise, from sinful rebels".

However, in those universalist claims lay the very problem of the new regime; as the historian Hugh Kennedy writes, "the moment when a revolutionary movement achieves power is always of crucial importance", since it has to fulfill its promises to its followers. Al-Mahdi had come to power riding a wave of millennialist and messianic promises, his followers expecting a divinely inspired leader capable of performing miracles. Once in power, however, he would prove to be a mere mortal, and focused more on his legitimist claim on the caliphate as a descendant of Ali, rather than attempting to fulfill the overblown expectations placed on the 'Proof of God' that Abu Abdallah had heralded.

The way that al-Mahdi tried to manage expectations can be seen in the choice of his regnal name: 'Abdallah Abu Muhammad' was the exact reverse of the name of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and also ensured that his son, now known as Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad rather than Abd al-Rahman, would bear the same name as the Islamic prophet, as had long been prophesied for the mahdi: Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abdallah. As Halm points out, this allowed al-Mahdi to shift the millennialist expectations of his followers onto his son, buying time. At the same time, however, this also meant that the singular, semi-divine figure of the mahdi was now reduced to an adjective in a caliphal title, 'the Imam rightly guided by God' (al-imam al-mahdi bi'llah): instead of the promised messiah, al-Mahdi was merely one in a long sequence of imams descending from Ali and Fatima.

Setting up a new administration

A major problem faced by al-Mahdi was the narrow basis of the new regime. The Fatimid dynasty was brought to power by the Kutama, who were, according to Brett, "indispensable", but also "a liability and a threat" to its survival. Halm has described the early Fatimid regime as being little more than a "hegemony of the Kutama". The position of these semi-civilized tribesmen as the chosen warriors of the imam-caliph was greatly resented, not only by the other Berber tribes, but chiefly by the inhabitants of the cities, where the Arabic culture predominated. As Halm writes, the situation was similar to a scenario where, "in the early eighteenth-century North America, the Iroquois, converted to Catholicism by Jesuit missionaries, had overrun the Puritan provinces of New England, installed their chieftains as governors in Boston, Providence and Hartford, and proclaimed a European with dubious credentials as King of England". In Kairouan and the old Aghlabid palace city of al-Qasr al-Qadim, therefore, local Arabs were appointed: al-Hasan ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Khinzir and his brother Khalaf. In the provinces, where Kutama governors were appointed, the first years of Fatimid rule were marked by revolts by the local inhabitants against the arrogance and exactions of the Kutama.

While he appointed the Kutama to garrisons and governorships and gave them rich rewards, in order to administer his new state, al-Mahdi required the expertise of the Arab urban population. As Kennedy remarks, unlike the regimes of later radical Isma'ili groups, al-Mahdi's administration was "surprisingly conventional". For this purpose, al-Mahdi had to take over most of the personnel of the Aghlabid emirs, often men of dubious loyalty, like Ibn al-Qadim. The latter had initially followed Ziyadat Allah III into exile, only to abandon him and return to Ifriqiya with a considerable portion of the former emir's treasure. Al-Mahdi now appointed him to two crucial posts as head of the land tax bureau (diwan al-kharaj) and of the postal service (barid). The new caliph established a series of new fiscal departments in emulation of Abbasid practice, but notably not a vizierate, instead using the post of secretary (katib) to supervise the function of his government. This post was held initially by a holdover from Aghlabid times, Abu'l-Yusr al-Baghdadi, but after his death in January 911 he was replaced by Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Baghdadi, who would continue serving in this capacity under al-Mahdi's successors. After the purge of Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i, the caliph also instituted a new department, the 'bureau of detection' (diwan al-kashf) under the supervision of the katib Muhammad al-Baghdadi. Unlike contemporary Abbasid practice, which relegated this task to a dedicated department, al-Mahdi was careful to hear and judge petitions for redress against abuse by officials (mazalim) in person.

In another notable department from usual practice, there was no department for the army, as the tribally organized Kutama represented the bulk of the Fatimid military. To complement them, al-Mahdi also took over the surviving Aghlabid slave soldiers (abid), usually of Slavic (Saqaliba) or Greek (Rum) origin, as well as recruiting black Africans. The Arabic settler army jund of Kairouan was also retained, albeit relegated to secondary status due to their dubious loyalty.

Purge of Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i

The first serious challenge to the new regime arose within the ranks of the very men who had brought it to power, the Kutama chieftains. The prophetic traditions about the mahdi, while diffuse, had insisted that his coming would be heralded by celestial signs and portents, that he would be a young man of exceptional beauty, and that he would rapidly and miraculously lead his armies to victory. Not only did al-Mahdi, a 35-year old former merchant accustomed to an easy life, wine, and rich clothing, not match these expectations, but his luxurious lifestyle clashed with the austere doctrines propagated by Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i and hitherto followed by the Kutama. Even Abu Abdallah criticized his master, accusing him of corrupting the Kutama with power, money and luxury and gifts. At the same time, while al-Mahdi reaped the fruits of their sacrifices, the Kutama chieftains saw themselves excluded from the administration, which was staffed with non-Kutama officials, and even with high-ranking members of the Aghlabid government that they had fought against.

As a result, Abu Abdallah became disillusioned with his master. As historian Najam Haider writes, this was a "failure of expectations", as al-Mahdi "did not live up to [Abu Abdallah's] vision of a divinely appointed and inerrant figure". An immediate conflict was averted as Abu Abdallah was called to lead an army west in July 910. During the previous months, Sijilmasa had been lost to the Midrarids, Tahert was once more closely besieged by the Zenata, and an uprising broke out among the Kutama, led by a certain Baban. The latter was quickly subdued by loyalist Kutama, and Abu Abdallah managed to defeat the Zenata near Tubna, relieving Tahert and even reaching the Mediterranean coast at Ténès. He then campaigned against the Zenata and Sadina tribes in modern central Algeria, before returning to Raqqada in the winter of 910/11.

At Ténès, however, a conspiracy had begun among the Kutama chieftains: led by Abu Abdallah, they decided to confront the caliph and put his claims to the test. The sources differ on the details, but the Kutama confronted al-Mahdi in a public audience, demanding that he perform a miracle. Abu Abdallah, his brother Abu'l-Abbas Muhammad, Abu Zaki, and the 'supreme shaykh' Abu Musa Harun openly accused him of being a fraud and an impostor. When Abu Musa Harun was murdered shortly after, the other conspirators decided to assassinate al-Mahdi. Possibly due to the doubts of Abu Abdallah, or because they could not agree on his successor, they delayed their action. Informed of their intentions, al-Mahdi moved first. Commanders whose loyalty was suspect were sent to missions away from the capital, and replaced by loyal ones, so that on 18 February 911, Abu Abdallah and Abu'l-Abbas Muhammad were assassinated by loyal Kutama soldiers in the caliph's own palace. News of the death of Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i spread quickly. Al-Mahdi hesitated for two days, but then executed the remaining Kutama leaders involved in the conspiracy.

According to Brett, who rejects or doubts the early association of Abu Abdallah with a central movement based at Salamiya, al-Mahdi's triumph in the contest with Abu Abdallah meant the takeover of "an apocalyptic movement on behalf of a messiah in waiting, which had germinated at some time after the [disappearance of the Twelver imams in 874], and flourished on the periphery of the Abbasid empire". Brett further suggests that the events of 911, with the questions raised about al-Mahdi's identity and the murder of Abu Abdallah, are the origins for the story of the schism of 899 and the death of the missionary Abdan, via a garbled transmission in later anti-Fatimid sources.

Suppression of antinomianism

The new regime also had to contend with the more extremist tendencies among its own followers. Early Isma'ili doctrine preached that all previous revealed religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam itself—and their scriptures were but veils: they imposed outer (zahir) forms and rules that were meant to conceal the inner (batin), true religion as it had been practised in Paradise. The coming of Muhammad ibn Isma'il as the mahdi in the end times would reveal these esoteric truths (haqa'iq) and release mankind from the obligations of religious law (shari'a). Al-Mahdi's modification of Isma'ili doctrine to allow for an indefinite number of imams before the final arrival of the end times changed these expectations, but they continued to be widely held, notably by the Qarmatians and other extremist (ghulat) groups; as Daftary points out, these doctrines and acts like the Qarmatian sack of Mecca in 930 "were also seized upon by Sunni polemicists to accuse all Isma'ilis of libertinism and antinomianism".

As late as 921, al-Mahdi had to take measures against about two hundred of his own Isma'ili followers, who openly flouted Islamic law by eating pork and drinking wine in the month of Ramadan. The arrested, among them several prominent men from different cities, regarded the previous obligations restrictions imposed by religious law as lifted, and some of them even went as far as to regard al-Mahdi as god manifest on earth. This was anathema to al-Mahdi and his nascent regime: as Halm explains, "Antinomianism meant anarchy, and so long as the Kingdom of God had not dawned – and according to the revised doctrine, it had not yet dawned — the beneficent reins of the law could not be dispensed with". Official Fatimid doctrine henceforth insisted on the continued validity of the shari'a and the outer strictures of Islamic law, even for those Isma'ili faithful who had been be initiated into the inner truths; but the latent antinomian tendencies of Isma'ilism would re-emerge in the future, in movements such as the Druze and the Order of Assassins.

Maliki hostility

During the 9th century, Kairouan had become one of the greatest centres of Islamic jurisprudence. Its Sunni jurists adopted a critical stance against the Aghlabid emirs, and ambitious chief qadis played an important, and at times autonomous, political role. Dominated by the conservative Maliki school since the mid-9th century, the city's jurists were from the beginning a major source of opposition to the new Fatimid regime and its practices.

Abu Abdallah and his brother had held disputations with the jurists, trying to win them over to backing the Fatimids' claims of the primacy of Ali and his progeny or the tenets of Isma'ili doctrine, but in vain. During the campaign of Abu Abdallah to Sijilmasa, the people of Kairouan apparently hoped that he would never return. In October/November, two prominent jurists were publicly executed and their corpses drawn through the city as a warning. The letters sent by Abu Abdallah, first from Sijilmasa, and then from Ikjan, about the success of his mission and the imminent arrival of "the Imam, our lord and master, the Mahdi, and his son" were read publicly in Kairouan and sent to all cities of the realm, to discourage opposition. Al-Mahdi also tried to reconcile the Malikis, at least at first, but also did not hesitate to impose Isma'ili ritual practices against their vehement objection; leading to constant tensions between the citizens of Kairouan and the Fatimid governors of the city, who were responsible for their implementation.

For the duration of the Fatimids' rule in Ifriqiya, the Maliki elites rejected Fatimid legitimacy. Maliki authors call them merely "Easterners" or even "Unbelievers", and the caliphs by their first names rather than their regnal titles. Al-Mahdi himself was derisively called by the diminutive form of his first name as Ubayd Allah ('Little Abd Allah'); whence the dynasty is usually labelled in hostile Sunni sources as "Ubaydid" (Banī ʿUbayd). Consequently, al-Mahdi sought and found support among the Malikis' rivals, the minority Hanafi school, especially as many of them claimed to have Shi'a sympathies. Men like the first Fatimid chief qadi, al-Marwarrudhi, and the scholar and later Isma'ili da'i, Ibn al-Haytham, belonged to this group. In contrast to Kairouan, the court in the palace city of Raqqada was dominated by Isma'ilis: it had its own Isma'ili Kutama qadi, and al-Mahdi's companions from the time of his flight served as its chamberlains.

The chief qadi, al-Marwarrudhi, was a particular object of hatred by the Maliki Kairouanis due to his uncompromising stance in persecuting any deviation from Isma'ili precepts. In the end, the many death sentences became too much even for al-Mahdi, who had him executed in 915. His replacement, Muhammad ibn Mahfuz al-Qamudi, was another Ifriqiyan, who lasted in office until his death in 919. His successor was Ishaq ibn Abi'l-Minhal, but he proved too moderate for al-Mahdi and was replaced in October 923 by a more determined and fanatical Isma'ili partisan, Muhammad ibn Imran al-Nafti. As al-Nafti died within a few months of taking office, Ibn Abi'l-Minhal was restored to the post. Another figure accused of tyranny was the governor of Kairouan, Abu Sa'id al-Dayf, appointed in 918. The Kairouanis turned to the heir-apparent, al-Qa'im, for assistance in mediating an audience with al-Mahdi to air their grievances. Isolated instances show that the caliph's spy network, complemented and extended by the Isma'ili da'wa to far beyond the borders of his realm, was active in identifying and eliminating figures who actively opposed the Fatimid regime. On the other hand, according to Halm, the tales in Maliki sources of thousands of martyrs perishing in the dungeons of the caliphal palace are very likely a gross exaggeration: al-Mahdi was willing to tolerate dissent as long as it did not break out into public opposition.

Anti-Kutama riots and the uprising of the anti-mahdi

In summer 911, a quarrel between a Kutama soldier and an merchant in the old Aghlabid palace city of al-Qasr al-Qadim led to an uprising in the latter. The revolt, led by men associated with the previous regime, subsided after a few clashes with the Kutama, but after enough time had passed, al-Mahdi launched purges of the uprising's leaders, which encompassed his minister Ibn al-Qadim. This was but the first of many uprisings against the Kutama, however, who quickly became hated. In Tahert, a revolt broke out that killed or drove out the Kutama garrison, and then called the Zenata under Ibn Khazar for aid. A Kutama army defeated the Zenata with heavy losses, and sacked Tahert on 1 October. Its former governor, Dawwas ibn Sawlat al-Lahisi, was recalled to Raqqada and executed. In April 912, another quarrel between the Kutama and a local merchant led to bloody clashes in the streets of Kairouan, in which all Kutama in the city were killed; the sources report 700 dead. When al-Mahdi tried to discover the leaders of this affair to punish them, he was met with silence, and had to content himself with a delegation of city notables seeking his pardon.

This incident rankled with the Kutama, and, coupled with the previous doubts about al-Mahdi, helped spark a new uprising. A young boy, Kadu ibn Mu'arik al-Mawati, was proclaimed as the true mahdi, new da'is were appointed, and a new holy book written. Starting from Ikjan, the original centre of Abu Abdallah's mission, the revolt spread to the cities of Mila and Constantine, while a loyalist army sent against them was thrown back after many of the Kutama in its ranks defected. In response, in April/May 912, al-Mahdi officially proclaimed his son, Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad, as heir-apparent (wali al-ahd), gave him the regnal name al-qa'im bi-amr Allah ('He who executes God's command'), and placed him in nominal charge of the army sent to quell the revolt. On 21 June 912, the loyalist army decisively defeated the rebels near Mila. The anti-mahdi al-Mawati and the other rebel leaders were soon captured, and prominently featured in al-Qa'im's triumphal entry into Kairouan in autumn.

Foundation of Mahdiya

The anti-Kutama riots in Kairouan and al-Qasr al-Qadim highlighted the vulnerability of the palace city of Raqqada, which was poorly fortified. Already in 912, al-Mahdi began seeking a new, and more defensible, site for his residence.He personally travelled the coast for this purpose, even visiting the ruins of ancient Carthage, before settling on the small peninsula of Jumma. A rocky peninsula of about 1.4 kilometres (0.87 mi) length and only 175 metres (574 ft) wide at its base, it was eminently defensible from a land-based attack, and included an ancient Punic artificial harbour cut into the rock.

The Skifa Kahla, the landward gate of Mahdiya

Construction began on 11 May 916 with a massive landward wall, whose single gate was considered an engineering masterpiece: the trick of installing the doors on beds of glass, so that a single person could open them, was said to have come from al-Mahdi himself. The new palace city was fortified on the seaward side as well, and included a great congregational mosque—the only Fatimid-era structure to survive to modern times—two palaces, one for the caliph and one for his heir-apparent, and other buildings for the caliphal court and administration. The only weakness of Mahdiya was its lack of natural resources, especially water; large grain stores and cisterns were built for rainwater, but in case of a siege, the city would have to be supplied by sea.

As heavy rainfall damaged the palaces in Raqqada, al-Mahdi expedited the move into the new residence with his court, which took place on 20 February 921, although construction was still ongoing. Mahdiya was palace city, arsenal, treasury, and military stronghold in one; only the Fatimid family and its most loyal members were settled there. The garrison was provided by black African slave troops (Zawila), as well as by Slavic slave soldiers and Kutama. The Zawila and Kutama soldiers lived mostly in the city's suburb outside the landward wall. The Arab jund and its leaders, whose loyalties were suspect, was deliberately excluded.

Death and succession

Al-Mahdi died at Mahdiya on 4 March 934, after a period of illness. Al-Qa'im kept his death secret for a hundred days, before announcing a period of public mourning. As the designated (nass) successor of the imam-caliph, al-Qa'im did not face any opposition. His numerous half-siblings by concubines—six sons and seven daughters—never played an important role, and al-Mahdi had deliberately kept them in the palace, not entrusting them with a gubernatorial or military command. Only once, during al-Qa'im's 928 campaign against the Berbers, when he was out of contact with Mahdiya for several weeks and feared lost, did al-Mahdi allow another son, Abu Ali Ahmad, to play a leading role in public ceremonies. The motivation for this unusual move—whether as a result of palace intrigues or due to a genuine concern that al-Qa'im might be dead—and whether al-Mahdi truly intended to promote Ahmad as an alternative successor, remains unknown. Al-Qa'im rushed back to his father's side and consolidated his position, but the affair left a lasting rift between al-Mahdi and his son. However, in Tripolitania a certain Muhammad ibn Talut claimed to be a son of al-Mahdi and laid claim to the caliphate. He managed to rally a large following among the local Berbers, before his deception was discovered and he was executed by his own followers. Otherwise the transition into the new reign was smooth, with al-Qa'im taking up residence in the caliphal palace of Mahdiya and retaining al-Mahdi's ministers in their duties.

Imperial expansion

Immediately after stabilizing his rule over the former Aghlabid domains, al-Mahdi was virtually obliged to engage in imperial expansion. As Brett puts it, this was ultimately "the goal on which his credibility rested, the conquest of the world to East and West". This meant military operations in three directions at once, against three political and ideological powers that dominated the Mediterranean world: the Muslim "usurpers", the Abbasid Caliphate in the east and the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba in the west; and the main Christian enemy, the Byzantine Empire, in the north, in Sicily and southern Italy.

East: Cyrenaica and Egypt

Following the consolidation of his rule in Ifriqiya, al-Mahdi's first objective was Egypt, the gateway to Syria and Iraq, the old heartlands of the Islamic world and seat of their Abbasid rivals. The Fatimids hoped for help from their sympathizers in Egypt; not only had al-Mahdi himself stayed at Fustat in 904–905, but the sources record that the local Abbasid governor was forced to execute several people for corresponding with al-Mahdi and his son, al-Qa'im.

Conquest of Tripoli

The first step east was Tripoli, which submitted to the Fatimids following the fall of the Aghlabid emirate. The local Hawwara Berbers quickly came to resent the overbearing behaviour of the Kutama soldiery, as well as the heavy tax demands placed upon them. A first uprising and siege of Tripoli in 910–911 was followed by a general revolt of the Hawwara in summer 912. The Fatimid governor of Tripoli fled, and all Kutama in the city were slaughtered. Al-Qa'im led a combined land and naval expedition, laying siege to Tripoli until it capitulated in June 913. Al-Qa'im left one of the principal Kutama generals, Habasa ibn Yusuf, there, to prepare the further eastward expansion of the Fatimid empire.

Loss of Yemen

Al-Mahdi apparently also entertained hopes of a pincer movement against Egypt from two sides, with the support of his missionaries in the Yemen. It was not to be: Ibn al-Fadl, who had conquered most of Yemen from his base in the south of the country, renounced al-Mahdi and proclaimed himself as the mahdi in August 911.

Причины этого неясны, но, вероятно, связаны с современными процессами разочарования в аль-Махди в Ифрикии и новостями о казни Абу Абдаллы аль-Шии. Аль-Махди также направил письмо йеменским верующим, в котором выразил обеспокоенность по поводу его личности и задокументировал его предполагаемую генеалогию. Это письмо вызвало большое беспокойство и разногласия, поскольку аль-Махди фактически отказался от титула «Доказательство Бога» и понятия «второй Мухаммед», которое до тех пор ассоциировалось с Махди и от имени которого Абу Абдаллах провозгласил свою победа. В том же письме он заявил о своем происхождении от Джафара ас-Садика , последнего общего имама, признанного как двунадесятниками, так и исмаилитами, через старшего сына ас-Садика Абдаллу аль-Афтаха , которого он назвал отцом своего великого -дедушка Абдаллах аль-Акбар. Это не только противоречило всей предыдущей исмаилитской пропаганде, которая подчеркивала, что законный имамат следовал линии младшего сына ас-Садика Исмаила , но и заявленная генеалогия была явно ложной: Абдаллах аль-Афтах умер молодым, и обычно известно, что у него не было потомства. В том же письме еще раз перевернуто предыдущее учение, подчеркнув, что, хотя он и был ожидаемым Махди , его правление не приведет к концу времен, а просто представляет собой еще одно звено в линии имамов, которая должна была продолжаться бесконечно в будущем, тем самым противореча всем милленаристским взглядам. ожидания, возложенные на его личность.

Другой исмаилитский даи в Йемене, Ибн Хавшаб, остался верен аль-Махди, но был вынужден капитулировать против сил Ибн аль-Фадла и передать своего сына Джафара в качестве заложника. Оба даи умерли с разницей в несколько месяцев в 915 году (говорят, что Ибн аль-Фадл был отравлен агентами аль-Махди, выдававшими себя за врачей), что привело к быстрому краху исмаилитского правления в Йемене. К 917 году сунниты Юфириды завершили завоевание страны во имя халифа Аббасидов.

Первое вторжение в Египет

Основная статья: Вторжение Фатимидов в Египет (914–915 гг.)

Первая экспедиция против Египта была предпринята 24 января 914 года под руководством Хабасы ибн Юсуфа. Продвигаясь вдоль побережья, 6 февраля он вошёл в Барку , столицу Киренаики. Там Хабаса казнил двух вождей племени Мазата, которые девятью годами ранее подстерегли и ограбили аль-Махди во время его путешествия в Ифрикию; их сыновья также были убиты, а их женщины проданы в рабство, а их имущество конфисковано. Воодушевленный этим успехом, 11 июля аль-Махди послал аль-Каима с другой армией на восток, чтобы принять на себя командование экспедицией. Однако, проигнорировав эти приказы, амбициозный Хабаса повел свои войска в Египет и вошёл в Александрию . 27 августа

Известие о вторжении Фатимидов повергло Багдад в панику. Правительство Аббасидов уделяло мало внимания делам Ифрикии и притязаниям аль-Махди - ат-Табари неопределенно называет его аль-Хариджи (« Хариджит ») или Ибн аль-Басри («Сын Басрана»). — но теперь были начаты срочные расследования о его происхождении и намерениях. Кампания Фатимидов в Египте в конечном итоге провалилась. Попытки пересечь Нил в Гизе и захватить Фустат были отбиты, а в апреле 915 года из Сирии прибыло подкрепление под командованием Муниса аль-Музаффара , что значительно укрепило позиции Аббасидов в стране. Армия Фатимидов также страдала от недисциплинированности и разделенного командования, поскольку Аль-Каим поссорился с Хабасой. Последний в конце концов отказался от кампании и вернулся в Ифрикию. Встревоженный этим, аль-Каим поспешно и без боя эвакуировал Александрию, оставив большую часть своего вооружения и техники, и вернулся в Раккаду 28 мая 915 года. В его тылу Киренаика подняла восстание и свергла власть Фатимидов; в Барке весь гарнизон Кутамы был перебит.

Провал экспедиции потряс самые основы режима Фатимидов, и вера в божественную миссию имама-халифа была поколеблена. В результате возникло недовольство, особенно среди кутамского подплемени малуса, от которого произошел Хабаса, теперь преследуемый как преступник. Его окончательный захват и тюремное заключение привели к восстанию его брата Газвийи, который до этого момента играл решающую роль в обеспечении безопасности режима аль-Махди и которому недавно было поручено управлять всей страной Кутама к западу от Ифрикии. Однако восстание было быстро подавлено, а Газвия и Хабаса были казнены. Когда их головы предстали перед аль-Махди, он, как говорят, воскликнул: «Когда-то эти головы окружали Восток и Запад, а теперь они находятся в этой корзине!».

Второе вторжение в Египет

Основная статья: Вторжение Фатимидов в Египет (919–921 гг.)

Аль-Махди немедленно начал подготовку ко второму нападению на Египет, начиная с возвращения Киренаики. Это было достигнуто с капитуляцией Барки после 18-месячной осады в апреле 917 года. Экспедиция против Египта началась 5 апреля 919 года, когда аль-Каим, единолично командующий кампанией, выступил из Раккады. Хотя гарнизон Аббасидов в Александрии был усилен, он был оставлен без боя по прибытии армии Фатимидов. Уже признав суверенитет Фатимидов во время первого вторжения и, следовательно, теперь считающийся восставшим, город был разграблен войсками Фатимидов.

И снова Аббасиды сосредоточились на защите переправы через Нил в Гизе. Однако Аль-Каим не двинулся против Гизы, дав время прибыть подкреплениям Аббасидов под командованием Муниса аль-Музаффара. 12 марта 920 года флот вторжения Фатимидов был уничтожен адмиралом Аббасидов Тамалем ад-Дулафи , нанеся захватчикам вред. Ощущая потребность в припасах, аль-Каим повторил свой маневр 914 года, заняв оазис Файюм. Войскам Фатимидов также удалось оккупировать большую часть Верхнего Египта , перекрыв поставки зерна в Фустат.

В течение целого года после этого обе стороны избегали открытого конфликта и вели скорее дипломатическую и пропагандистскую битву. Мунис пообещал охранную грамоту, а также признание Фатимидов в качестве автономных правителей Ифрикии в стиле Аглабидов, если аль-Каим и его отец подчинятся халифу Аббасидов. Аль-Каим отверг эти предложения, подтвердив претензии Фатимидов на всеобщее владычество как законных наследников Мухаммеда. Он также направил письма Фустату, призывая египтян поднять восстание, а также двум священным городам ислама , Мекке и Медине , с требованием признания претензий Фатимидов на суверенитет над исламским миром.

Наконец, в конце весны 921 года Аббасиды начали атаку, захватив Александрию, а затем двинулись на Файюм. Оказавшись в оазисе, аль-Каим был вынужден бросить всю свою тяжелую технику и со своей армией переправился через пустыню к Барке.

Набеги на Египет и отношения с карматами

В течение нескольких лет Фатимиды продолжали совершать набеги из Барки на Египет: в 922/23 и 928 годах войска Фатимидов сражались с войсками Аббасидов в Дхат-эль-Химаме, примерно в 60 километрах (37 миль) к западу от Александрии. В 923/24 году фатимидский полководец Масрур ибн Сулейман ибн Кафи совершил набег на один из оазисов Западной пустыни (вероятно, оазис Дахла ), разбил местного губернатора и занял это место, прежде чем вспышка болезни заставила его отступить.

Эти нападения на Египет совпали с почти десятилетними интенсивными нападениями на Аббасидов со стороны карматов Бахрейна под руководством Абу Тахира аль-Джаннаби ; но вопреки утверждениям современных арабских историков и гипотезам, выдвинутым некоторыми исследователями исмаилизма начала 20-го века, никакой координации между аль-Джаннаби и аль-Махди установить невозможно. Когда карматы разграбили Мекку в 930 году и украли Черный камень , аль-Махди даже отправил Абу Тахиру письмо с упреком и призвал его немедленно вернуть Черный камень.

Ближе к концу своего правления аль-Махди, возможно, начал организовывать третье вторжение в Египет, но оно началось только после его смерти, в 936 году, в период беспорядков в провинции. Как и две предыдущие попытки, она оказалась неудачной: она была отбита Мухаммадом ибн Тугдж аль-Ихшидом , принявшим власть в Египте и основавшим там собственную династию. Лишь в 969 году, когда баланс сил значительно изменился в пользу Фатимидов и режим Ихшидидов пришел в упадок, было предпринято новое вторжение, приведшее к завоеванию Египта Фатимидами .

Запад: Магриб и Аль-Андалус.

Подавление сопротивления берберов

Основные территории Фатимида Ифрикии были такими же, как и в позднеантичные времена, когда эта территория была византийским экзархатом Африки : Тунис, северо-восточный Алжир и Триполитания, которые с древности были высоко урбанизированными и использовались для регулярного управления и налогообложения. За пределами этих территорий коренные берберские племена яростно сопротивлялись любым попыткам навязать власть Фатимидов. От оседлых земледельцев гор Нафуса к югу от Триполи до жителей гор Орес в западном Тунисе и восточном Алжире, известных арабским авторам как «убежище всех повстанцев», до кочевых племен зената на центральном алжирском плато и оседлых фермеров Уарсениса на северо-западе Алжира, горные районы, как правило, избегали жесткого контроля Фатимидов.

В Триполитании берберы-хавара были покорены в рамках консолидации правления Фатимидов над Триполи. а их западные соседи, берберы гор Нафуса, были завоеваны в ходе серии кампаний в 922–923 годах даи Сулейманом ибн Кафи аль-Иджани.

Исключением был Тахерт, который служил западным форпостом Фатимида Ифрикии, расположенный примерно в 300 километрах (190 миль) от восточной окраины собственно Ифрикии. Его губернатор-фатимид Масала ибн Хабус был бербером -микнасом , который привел свое племя под знамя Фатимидов. С другой стороны, усилия Микнасы по распространению исмаилизма в Уарсенисе с треском провалились, поскольку миссионеры были просто убиты местным населением. Точно так же в 922 году командир Кутамы Фахлун и его люди, пытавшиеся установить правление Фатимидов в Оресе, включая высокие налоги и отправку заложников в Махдию, были разбиты местными жителями и убиты во сне.

Масала столкнулся с Зенатой под предводительством их лидера Ибн Хазара, который неоднократно пытался вырвать контроль над Тахертом у Фатимидов. Масала был убит своим соперником в ноябре 924 года, и ему наследовал его брат Ясал . Хотя последний смог отразить нападение зенатов на Тахерт в 925 году, поражение Ибн Хазаром армии помощи Фатимидов побудило другие берберские племена в этом районе подняться на восстание. Это вынудило аль-Махди послать аль-Каима лично разобраться с восстанием. Наследник выступил в апреле 917 года, призвав к оружию не только племена Кутама, но также арабский джунд и покоренные берберские племена, такие как хавара и аджиса; чтобы обеспечить лояльность последних, семьи их вождей были отправлены в качестве заложников в Махдию. Старый раб аль-Махди Су'лук, ныне известный как камергер Джафар ибн Убайд, подчинил племя Кияна в горах Ходна , после чего аль-Каим основал новый город, названный аль-Мухаммадия (современный М'Сила ). после себя, чтобы закрепить контроль Фатимидов над территорией. Один из первых партизан-исмаилитов, Али ибн Хамдун аль-Андалуси , стал его первым губернатором. Зири ибн Манад , вождь другого берберского племени, Санхаджа , также предложил в это время свое подчинение аль-Каиму.

Затем Аль-Каим вошел на земли Зената в горах Заб , лишив их еды и пастбищ, и начал преследование Ибн Хазара. Условия были тяжелыми: непрерывные дожди более месяца прервали связь с Махдией, где суд опасался гибели всей экспедиции. Хотя Ибн Хазару снова и снова удавалось сбежать от своих охотников, в марте 928 года аль-Каим разграбил столицу Зената Забраку. Затем победоносная армия вернулась в Тахерт, а оттуда в Ифрикию, где в ноябре 928 года ей был оказан триумфальный прием в Махдии. Его победное послание вызвало распространение стихотворения, в котором аль-Каим объявляет себя «Сыном Посланника Божьего», который собирается «странствовать по Божьей земле... в Египет и Ирак, а затем я беспокоюсь о Багдаде».

Несмотря на этот успех, правление Фатимидов в отдаленных районах Магриба было хрупким. Даже в Тахерте местное население почувствовало себя свободным назначить своего собственного губернатора, сына Масалы Али , когда Ясал умер в 931 году. Аль-Махди решил послать в город военную экспедицию, чтобы назначить своего предпочтительного кандидата, сына Ясала Хамида .

Соперничество с Кордовой

Карта, показывающая масштабы восстания Ибн Хафсуна в Кордовском эмирате.

Помимо Аббасидов, аль-Махди столкнулся с крупным мусульманским соперником, более близким к Ифрикии, в лице Омейядов Кордовы, правителей Аль-Андалуса (исламская Испания). Однако конфронтация между двумя крупнейшими исламскими державами западного Средиземноморья происходила в основном посредством пропаганды и доверенных лиц, а не прямого конфликта. Во время прихода на престол аль-Махди эмират Омейядов переживал внутренние разногласия, особенно восстание Ибн Хафсуна , который в своем конфликте с эмиром Абдаллой ( годы правления 888–912 ) присягнул аль-Махди. Аль-Махди отправил почетные одежды и двух исмаилитских даи лидеру повстанцев, на территории которого была зачитана пятничная проповедь от имени халифа Фатимидов.

, кампании аль-Махди в западном Магрибе, на территории современного Марокко , отчасти были направлены на то, чтобы «сеять страх на пороге Пиренейского полуострова», По словам историка Фархата Дахрауи но беспокойство берберских племен ограничивало возможности Правитель Фатимидов проецировал власть за пределы Тахерта и серьезно обдумывал вторжение в Аль-Андалус. Тем не менее, угроза Фатимидов была серьезно воспринята эмиром Омейядов Абд ар-Рахманом III ( годы правления 912–961 ), который усилил свой флот и установил патрули вдоль своего южного побережья в качестве одной из своих первых мер после своего вступления на престол. В течение первых двух десятилетий своего правления Абд ар-Рахман был занят подавлением восстаний, в первую очередь восстания Ибн Хафсуна; но по мере того, как его власть росла, в 927 году флот Омейядов захватил Мелилью , превратив ее в военную базу на марокканском побережье. за ним последовала Сеута в 931 году. Абд ар-Рахман также вступил в союз с Ибн Хазаром, признав его «верховным эмиром Зенаты» и часто посылая ему подарки в обмен на признание берберским лидером сюзеренитета Омейядов. Наконец, как только он закрепил свое положение в Аль-Андалусе, в 929 году Абд ар-Рахман III потребовал для себя титул халифа, основав Кордовский халифат , что стало прямым вызовом притязаниям аль-Махди, как светским, так и религиозным.

Попытки завоевания Марокко

Династии западного Магриба (Марокко) до Фатимидов

В июне 917 года экспедиция Фатимидов под командованием Масалы ибн Хабуса разграбила прибрежный город Накур (современная Аль-Хосейма ), резиденцию небольшого эмирата . Ее правитель был убит, а его сыновья бежали в Малагу на испанском побережье. Однако как только Масала отозвал свою армию, изгнанные принцы Накура вернулись при поддержке эмира Абд ар-Рахмана III и за одну ночь сумели свергнуть фатимидский гарнизон города. Взамен новый эмир Накура стал вассалом эмира Кордовы.

Затем Масала выступил против владений династии Идрисидов , клана Алидов, который правил территорией нынешнего северного и центрального Марокко. В то время правление Идрисидов над Марокко распалось на различные местные княжества, возглавляемые конкурирующими линиями династии, которые боролись друг с другом, а также с местными соперниками. Масала заставил идрисидского правителя Феса признать Яхью IV сюзеренитет Фатимидов и заплатить дань. Власть Яхьи была ограничена Фесом и его окрестностями, тогда как остальная часть страны была отдана под управление двоюродному брату Масалы Мусе ибн Абил-Афии .

Масала вернулся в Марокко в 921 году, вынудив эмира Накура без боя оставить свою столицу. Под влиянием амбициозного Мусы ибн Абил-Афии Масала двинулся на Фес, сверг Яхью IV и назначил в городе губернатора Фатимидов. На обратном пути Масала еще раз установил правление Фатимидов над Сиджилмасой, назначив податливого Мидрарида вассалом Фатимидов.

Реакция Идрисидов на появление Фатимидов была разной. До вторжения Фатимидов Идрисиды, похоже, были связаны с Омейядами Кордовы. Некоторые Идрисиды приняли претензии аль-Махди на происхождение Алидов и, таким образом, были склонны встать на сторону Фатимидов, в то время как другие сопротивлялись экспансии Фатимидов и обратились за поддержкой к Омейядам Кордовы. Один из последних, аль-Хасан аль-Хаджам , поднял восстание и вернул себе Фес. Его правление длилось около двух лет, прежде чем Ибн Абил-Афия предательски отвоевал город и убил его. Затем Ибн Абил-Афия начал массовую охоту на оставшихся идрисидов по всему Марокко, которая закончилась только после того, как местные вожди предупредили его о неуместности охоты на потомков Мухаммеда. Вполне вероятно, что в этот момент, по мнению историка Чафика Бенчекруна, Ибн Абил-Афия действовал как независимый агент, «на самом деле не будучи ни сторонником Фатимидов, ни сторонником Омейядов». В 929/30 году Ибн Абил-Афия жестоко разграбил Накура и распространил свою власть на побережье вокруг устья реки Мулуя . Другая экспедиция против Ибн Хазара не смогла захватить вождя Зената.

Затем, в 931/2 году, Ибн Абил-Афия перешел на сторону Абд ар-Рахмана III. Как пишет Хальм, «при этом правление Фатимидов на крайнем западе рухнуло одним ударом», а территории, принадлежавшие Ибн Абил-Афии и Ибн Хазару, стали протекторатом Омейядов. Губернатор Тахерта Хамид ибн Ясал был немедленно отправлен на запад, чтобы восстановить контроль Фатимидов. Ему удалось победить Ибн Абил-Афию и вновь занять Фес, но это было эфемерно: вскоре после того, как войска Фатимидов покинули город, он снова был потерян, а Хамид за свою неудачу был заключен в тюрьму в Махдии. Ибн Абил-Афия вернулся на сторону Омейядов, но вскоре был убит Идрисидами.

Север: Сицилия и Италия.

Вместе с Ифрикией аль-Махди унаследовал остров Сицилия от Аглабидов, который постепенно был завоеван у Византийской империи в течение предыдущих десятилетий. Некоторые византийские цитадели остались на гористом северо-востоке острова ( Валь Демоне ), а также византийской провинции через Мессинский пролив в Калабрии . Сицилия была центром многолетней войны с Византией, что было важно с идеологической и пропагандистской точки зрения, позволив Фатимидам «выступить в роли поборников джихада » против старого христианского врага мусульманского мира, как историк Яаков Лев выразился . это. В то же время Лев подчеркивает, что Фатимиды были больше заинтересованы в набегах, чем в прямых завоеваниях, что для византийцев это был второстепенный фронт, что задействованные флоты были небольшими и что периоды враждебности часто чередовались с перемириями и «практической политикой». модус вивенди ».

Восстания на Сицилии

В августе 910 года аль-Махди отправил своего губернатора Кайруана аль-Хасана ибн Ахмада ибн Аби Хинзира в качестве первого губернатора Фатимидов на Сицилию. Вскоре он стал настолько непопулярным среди сицилийцев, очевидно, из-за высоких налогов (шиитская юриспруденция предусматривала 20-процентный подоходный налог, известный как «пятый» ( хумс )), что они подняли восстание, заключили его в тюрьму и потребовали его замена. Его сменивший пожилой Али ибн Умар аль-Балави прибыл в августе 912 года, но он тоже был свергнут в начале 913 года. и остров поднял восстание под предводительством Аглабида Ахмада ибн Зиядата Аллаха ибн Курхуба , который отказался от верности Фатимидам и получил признание от халифа Аббасидов.

В июле 914 года сицилийский флот под командованием младшего сына Ибн Курхуба Мухаммеда совершил набег на побережье Ифрикии. 18 июля у Лептиса Минора сицилийцы застали врасплох военно-морскую эскадру Фатимидов: флот Фатимидов был подожжен, а 600 человек взяты в плен. Среди последних был казненный бывший губернатор Сицилии Ибн Аби Хинзир. Сицилийцы разгромили отряд армии Фатимидов, посланный для отражения их атаки, и двинулись на юг, разграбив Сфакс и достигнув Триполи в августе 914 года. Только присутствие аль-Каима, который тогда собирался вторгнуться в Египет, удержало нападение на сицилийцев. город.

Однако в следующем году аналогичная затея провалилась, и сицилийский флот потерпел поражение. Некоторые регионы, такие как Агридженто , снова перешли на сторону Фатимидов. Ибн Курхуб пытался бежать в Аль-Андалус, но был схвачен и доставлен аль-Махди. Вместе со своими сторонниками его доставили в Раккаду, избили плетью на могиле Ибн Аби Хинзира, изувечили и публично распяли. Столица острова Палермо сопротивлялась до марта 917 года. После его капитуляции в Кутаме был установлен гарнизон под командованием губернатора Салима ибн Асада ибн Аби Рашида . Более сильное присутствие Фатимидов позволило Салиму обеспечить относительное спокойствие на острове в течение двадцати лет, оставаясь на своем посту до тех пор, пока другое восстание не свергло его в 937 году.

Война с византийцами

В августе 918 года Салим возглавил ночную атаку на Реджо-Калабрию , который был захвачен и разграблен. Однако в следующем году было подписано перемирие с Таорминой и другими византийскими крепостями Валь Демоне, возможно, для того, чтобы мусульманские силы могли быть сосредоточены на материковой части Италии. Там экспедиция из 20 кораблей под командованием Масуда аль-Фати атаковала крепость Святой Агаты недалеко от Реджо в 922/3 году. В апреле 924 года на Сицилию был отправлен крупный флот под командованием камергера Джафара ибн Убайда. Перезимовав на острове, он совершил набег на Бруццано недалеко от Реджо, а затем отплыл, чтобы разграбить Орию в Апулии . Было взято в плен более 11 000 человек, а местный византийский полководец и епископ сдались в качестве заложников под залог уплаты дани. Камергер с триумфом вернулся в Махдию в сентябре 925 года.

Болгарский император Симеон (слева) отправляет послов к халифу аль-Махди (справа). Миниатюра XII века из мадридских скилиц.

Примерно в то же время аль-Махди вступил в контакт с болгарским императором Симеоном I , который отправил послов с предложением совместного нападения на византийскую столицу Константинополь . Булгарский правитель предположил, что болгары вторгнутся по суше, а Фатимиды придут по морю; вся добыча будет разделена поровну: болгары сохранят Константинополь, а Фатимиды получат византийские территории на Сицилии и южной Италии. В результате длительной войны с византийцами к 922 году болгары контролировали почти весь Балканский полуостров , но Константинополь оставался вне досягаемости Симеона, поскольку у него не было флота. Согласно византийскому источнику, сообщающему об этих переговорах, аль-Махди принял предложение, но корабль, перевозивший к Симеону болгарских и фатимидских послов, был захвачен византийцами недалеко от побережья Калабрии. Когда о переговорах узнал византийский император Роман I , болгары были заключены в тюрьму, а арабским послам разрешили вернуться в Махдию с богатыми подарками для халифа. Византийцы поспешили возобновить мирный договор 917 года, включая выплату дани, а смерть Симеона в 927 году положила конец его амбициям.

Война с византийцами возобновилась в 928 году, когда на Сицилию был отправлен флот во главе с губернатором Кайруана Сабиром аль-Фата . Он напал на местность под названием аль-Гиран («пещеры») в Апулии и приступил к разграблению городов Таранто и Отранто . Вспышка болезни заставила их вернуться на Сицилию, но тогда Сабир повел свой флот вверх по Тирренскому морю , заставив Салерно и Неаполь выкупить себя деньгами и драгоценной парчой. В 929 году он разгромил местных византийских стратегов на Адриатическом побережье и разграбил Термоли . Он вернулся в Махдию 5 сентября 930 г., взяв с собой 18 000 пленных. Воодушевленный этими успехами, аль-Махди запланировал новое, более масштабное военно-морское наступление против византийцев в Италии, но прибытие византийского посольства привело к заключению еще одного перемирия в 931/2 году, которое соблюдалось до смерти халифа.

Наследие

Истинность происхождения и легитимность утверждений аль-Махди была предметом интенсивных споров с момента его появления на мировой арене в начале 900-х годов. и ускользает от однозначного ответа. Средневековые, а также современные ученые указывали на проблемы в утверждениях, выдвинутых аль-Махди или от его имени более поздними авторами-исмаилитами: но его достижение неоспоримо: как резюмировал востоковед Мариус Канард : «Кем бы ни был Убайд Аллах-Саид, он заложил основы династии в Северной Африке».

Дахрауи приписывает аль-Махди «упорство и благоразумную мудрость» и подчеркивает, что, независимо от того, были ли утверждения аль-Махди о происхождении Алидов и обладании имаматом, он смог успешно создать новое государство, положить конец сокрытию Исмы. 'или да'ва и «проводить умеренную, но твердую политику в своих провинциях и вести неутомимую войну за пределами своих границ». Бретт отмечает, что акцент аль-Махди на построении государства и рассмотрении реалий его управления не оставлял ему времени на то, чтобы адаптировать доктрину исмаилитов к новой ситуации и «развить этот Халифат Бога в полноценную веру Имамат». Этого не удалось достичь до правления четвертого фатимидского имама-халифа аль-Муиза ( годы правления 953–975 ). Аль-Муизу также пришлось попытаться добиться расположения карматов, Севенеров, которые после раскола 899 года все еще ожидали мессианского возвращения Мухаммада ибн Исмаила. В этом халиф добьется определенного успеха, поскольку иранские общины вернутся на сторону Фатимидов, обогатив официальную доктрину исмаилитов своей интеллектуальной энергией; однако карматы Бахрейна отказались признать Фатимидов законными имамами.

Генеалогия, заявленная аль-Махди

В письме, отправленном аль-Махди Биллахом общине исмаилитов в Йемене и записанном Джафаром ибн Мансуром аль-Яманом , приводится следующая генеалогия:

Али ибн Аби Талиб

Фатима бинт Мухаммад

Аль-Хасан ибн Али

аль-Хусейн ибн Али

Али ибн Хусейн Зейн аль-Абидин

Зейд ибн Али

Мухаммад аль-Бакир

Джафар аль-Садик

Исмаил ибн Джафар

Муса аль-Кадхим

Абдулла аль-Афтах

Мухаммад ибн Исмаил

Двенадцать имамов

Абдулла аль-Акбар (в укрытии)

Ахмад (в укрытии)

Абу Али Мухаммад (Абу аль-Шалага)

аль-Хусейн (в укрытии)

Дочь

Абдаллах аль-Махди биллах

Мухаммед аль-Каим би-Амр Аллах

   обозначает имамов, царственные имена выделены жирным шрифтом.

Потомки аль-Махди

скрывать Генеалогическое древо династии Фатимидов

Абу Мухаммад Абдаллах аль-Махди биллах ( р. 909–934 ) Абуль-Касим Мухаммад аль-Каим би-Амр Аллах ( р. 934–946 ) Абу Али Ахмад Другие дети аль-Касим § Абу Тахир Исмаил аль-Мансур биллах ( р. 946–953 ) Другие дети Абу Тамим Маад аль-Муизз ли-Дин Аллах ( р. 953–975 ) Абд ар-Рахим § Тамим Абдаллах § Абу Мансур Низар Аль-Азиз биллах ( р. 975–996 ) Сит аль-Малик Рашида Абда Другие дети Сит аль-Мульк Абу Али Мансур аль-Хаким би-Амр Аллах ( р. 996–1021 ) Другие дети Абуль-Хасан Али аль-Захир ли-Изаз Дин Аллах ( р. 1021–1036 ) Абу Тамим Маад Аль-Мустансир биллах ( годы правления 1036–1094 ) Абу Мансур Низар § Абу Абдаллах Абдаллах Исмаил Абуль-Касим Мухаммад Другие дети Абуль-Касим Ахмад аль-Мустали биллах ( годы правления 1094–1101 ) аль-Хусейн Низаритские имамы (заявленное происхождение) Абуль-Маймун Абд аль-Маджид аль-Хафиз ли-Дин Аллах ( годы правления 1132–1149 ) Абу Али Мансур аль-Амир би-Ахкам Аллах ( р. 1101–1130 ) Да, отец Другие дети Сулейман § Хайдарабад § Хасан § Абу Мансур Исмаил аз-Зафир би-Амр Аллах ( годы правления 1149–1154 ) Юсуф Другие дети Абу аль-Касим аль-Тайиб § Абуль-Касим Иса al-Fa'iz bi-Nasr Allah ( годы правления 1154–1160 ) Абу Мухаммад Абдаллах аль-Адид ли-Дин Аллах ( годы правления 1160–1171 ) Тайиби скрытые имамы (заявленное происхождение) Дауд Сулейман § обозначает назначенных наследников, не вступивших на престол    обозначает правящих халифов Фатимидов (имена царей выделены жирным шрифтом , а даты правления)

См. также

• Список имамов-исмаилитов
• Список претендентов на Махди

Источники

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• Бенчекрун, Чафик Т. (2016). «Идриссиды между Фатимидами и Омейядами» . Обзор мусульманских миров и Средиземноморья (на французском языке). 139 (139): 29–50. дои : 10.4000/remmm.9412 .
• Блум, Джонатан М. (2007). Искусство победившего города: исламское искусство и архитектура в Фатимидской Северной Африке и Египте . Нью-Хейвен и Лондон: Издательство Йельского университета . ISBN  978-0-300-13542-8 .
• Бретт, Майкл (1996). «Царство Имама: Фатимиды в десятом веке». Бюллетень Школы восточных и африканских исследований Лондонского университета . 59 (3): 431–449. дои : 10.1017/S0041977X00030585 . JSTOR   619802 . S2CID   162934630 .
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• Кроун, Патрисия ; Тредуэлл, Люк (2003). «Новый текст об исмаилизме при дворе Саманидов» . Тексты, документы и артефакты: исламоведение в честь Д.С. Ричардса . Лейден: Брилл. стр. 37–67. ISBN  978-9-00412864-4 .
• Дахрауи, Фархат (1981). Фатимидский халифат в Магрибе (296-365 гг. хиджры / 909-975 гг. хиджры). Политическая история и институты [ Халифат Фатимидов в Магрибе (296–365 гг. Хиджры / 909–975 гг. Н. Э.). Политическая история и институты ] (кандидатская диссертация) (на французском языке). Тунис.
• Дахрауи, Ф. (1986). «аль-Махди Убайд Аллах» . в Босворте, CE ; ван Донзель, Э .; Льюис, Б. и Пеллат, Ч. (ред.). Энциклопедия ислама, второе издание . Том V: Кхе-Махи . Лейден: Э. Дж. Брилл. стр. 1242–1244. ISBN  978-90-04-07819-2 .
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