The Fatimid Caliphate (Ismailli's)

                                       
Rise of the Fatimid Caliphate
The political asceticism practiced by the Imāms during the period after Muhammad ibn Ismail was to be short lived and finally concluded with the Imāmate of Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi Billah, who was born in 873. After decades of Ismāʿīlīs believing that Muhammad ibn Ismail was in the Occultation and would return to bring an age of justice, al-Mahdi taught that the Imāms had not been literally secluded, but rather had remained hidden to protect themselves and had been organizing the Da'i, and even acted as Da'i themselves. He taught that during the supposed Occultation of Muhammad ibn Ismail, many of Muhammad ibn Ismail's descendants lived as Imāms secluded from the community, guiding them through the Da'i and at times even taking the guise of Da'i.

After raising an army and successfully defeating the Aghlabids in North Africa and a number of other victories, al-Mahdi Billah successfully established a Shi'ah political state ruled by the Imāmate in 910 AD. This was the only time in history where the Shi'a Imamate and Caliphate were united after the first Imam, Ali ibn Abi Talib.

In parallel with the dynasty's claim of descent from ‘Alī and Fāṭimah, the empire was named "Fatimid". However, this was not without controversy, and recognizing the extent that Ismāʿīlī doctrine had spread, the Abbasid caliphate assigned Sunni and Twelver scholars the task to disprove the lineage of the new dynasty. This became known as the Baghdad Manifesto, and it traces the lineage of the Fatimid dynasty to a Jewish blacksmith. Its authenticity has been both questioned and supported by various Islamic scholars.

The Middle-East under Fatimid rule
The Fatimid Caliphate expanded quickly under the subsequent Imāms. Under the Fatimids, Egypt became the center of an empire that included at its peak North Africa, Sicily, Palestine, Syria, the Red Sea coast of Africa, Yemen, Hejaz and the Tihamah. Under the Fatimids, Egypt flourished and developed an extensive trade network in both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, which eventually determined the economic course of Egypt during the High Middle Ages. The Fatimids promoted ideas that were radical for that time. One was promotion by merit rather than genealogy.

Also during this period the three contemporary branches of Ismailism formed. The first branch (Druze) occurred with the Imām Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. Born in 985, he ascended as ruler at the age of eleven. A religious group that began forming in his lifetime broke off from mainstream Ismailism and refused to acknowledge his successor. Later to be known as the Druze, they believe Al-Hakim to be the manifestation of God and the prophesied Mahdi, who would one day return and bring justice to the world. The faith further split from Ismailism as it developed unique doctrines which often class it separately from both Ismailism and Islam.

The second split occurred following the death of Ma'ad al-Mustansir Billah in 1094. His rule was the longest of any caliph in both the Fatimid and other Islamic empires. After he passed away, his sons Nizar, older, and Al-Musta'li, the younger, fought for political and spiritual control of the dynasty. Nizar was defeated and jailed, but according to Nizari tradition his son escaped to Alamut, where the Iranian Ismāʿīlī had accepted his claim.

The Mustaali line split again between the Taiyabi and the Hafizi, the former claiming that the 21st Imām and son of Al-Amir went into occultation and appointed a Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq to guide the community, in a similar manner as the Ismāʿīlī had lived after the death of Muhammad ibn Ismail. The latter claimed that the ruling Fatimid caliph was the Imām.

However, in the Mustaali branch, the Dai came to have a similar but more important task. The term Dāʻī al-Mutlaq (Arabic: الداعي المطلق‎) literally means "the absolute or unrestricted missionary". This dai was the only source of the Imām's knowledge after the occultation of al-Qasim in Mustaali thought.

According to Tayyabī Mustaʻlī Ismā'īlī tradition, after the death of Imām al-Amīr, his infant son, Taiyab abi al-Qasim, about 2 years old, was protected by the most important woman in Musta'li history after Prophet's daughter Fāṭimatu z-Zahrah. She was Malika al-Sayyida Hurra Al-Malika, a Queen in Yemen. She was promoted to the post of hujjah long before by Imām Mustansir at the death of her husband. She ran the dawat from Yemen in the name of Imaam Tayyib. She was instructed and prepared by Imām Mustansir and ran the dawat from Yemen in the name of Imaam Tayyib, following Imāms for the second period of Satr. It was going to be on her hands, that Imām Tayyib would go into seclusion, and she would institute the office of Dāʻī al-Mutlaq. Syedna Zueb-bin-Musa was first to be instituted to this office, and the line of Tayyib Dais that began in 1132 has passed from one Dai to another and is still continuing under the main sect known as Dawoodi Bohra (may pl. see Main article: List of Dai of Dawoodi Bohra). The Mustaali split several times over disputes regarding who was the rightful Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq, the leader of the community within The Occultation.

After the 27th Dai, Syedna Dawood bin Qutub Shah, there was another split; the ones following Syedna Dawood came to be called Dawoodi Bohra, and followers of Suleman were then called Sulaimani. Dawoodi Bohra's present Dai al Mutlaq, the 52nd, is Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, and he and his devout followers tread the same path, following the same tradition of the Aimmat Fatimiyyeen. The Sulaimani Bohra are mostly concentrated in Yemen and Saudi Arabia with some communities in the South Asia. The Dawoodi Bohra and Alavi Bohra are mostly exclusive to South Asia, after the migration of the Da'wat from Yemen to India. Other groups include Atba-i-Malak and Hebtiahs Bohra. Mustaali beliefs and practices, unlike those of the Nizari and Druze, are completely compatible with mainstream Islam, representing a continuation of Fatimid tradition and fiqh'.

Decline of the Caliphate
In the 1040s, the Zirids (governors of North Africa under the Fatimids) declared their independence from the Fatimids and their conversion to Sunni Islam, which led to the devastating Banu Hilal invasions. After about 1070, the Fatimid hold on the Levant coast and parts of Syria was challenged by first Turkish invasions, then the Crusades, so that Fatimid territory shrunk until it consisted only of Egypt. Damascus fell to the Seljuks in 1076, leaving the Fatimids only in charge of Egypt and the Levantine coast up to Tyre and Sidon. Because of the vehement opposition to the Fatimids from the Seljuks, the Ismaili movement was only able to operate as a terrorist underground movement, much like the Assassins.

After the decay of the Fatimid political system in the 1160s, the Zengid ruler Nūr ad-Dīn had his general, Saladin, seize Egypt in 1169, forming the Sunni Ayyubid Dynasty. This signaled the end of the Hafizi Mustaali branch of Ismailism as well as the Fatimid Caliphate.


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