al-Amir bi-Ahkam Allah

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al-Amir bi-Ahkam Allah
al-Tayyib
Names
Abū ʿAlī al-Manṣūr ibn al-Mustaʿlī
DynastyFatimid
Fatheral-Musta'li
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Abu Ali al-Mansur ibn al-Musta'li (

Musta'li Isma'ili branch of Shia Islam
.

Until 1121, he was a de facto puppet of his uncle and father-in-law, the

Tayyibi
branches.

Life

The future al-Amir was born on 31 December 1096 as Mansur, the oldest son of the ninth Fatimid

caliph, al-Musta'li (r. 1094–1101). His mother was a sister of the all-powerful vizier, al-Afdal Shahanshah, who had raised al-Musta'li to the throne in 1094 and was the de facto ruler of the Fatimid state.[1][2]

Reign under al-Afdal's tutelage

Al-Musta'li died on 11 December 1101, and on the same day, at the age of five, al-Amir was proclaimed caliph by al-Afdal.[1][2] Al-Afdal was already al-Amir's maternal uncle, and further strengthened the familial ties with the young caliph by marrying him to his own daughter.[3] This was a departure from usual practice, as the Fatimid caliphs had until then had children with concubines and never legally wed. The formal marriage was evidently an attempt by al-Afdal to secure the succession of any progeny of this union over other children of the caliph.[4] A decree, dictated by al-Afdal, renewed his appointment as vizier with plenipotentiary powers and ensured his ascendancy over the child-caliph.[3] The first twenty years of al-Amir's reign were thus dominated by al-Afdal, who controlled government and restricted al-Amir to a few ceremonial duties.[1][5] Like his father before him, al-Amir lived mostly confined in the caliphal palaces, while al-Afdal arrogated most ceremonial functions to himself.[6]

Under al-Afdal's rule, the Fatimid state was chiefly occupied with the conflict with the

Seljuk Turks, while al-Afdal's coup that installed al-Musta'li on the throne resulted in the breaking away of the Nizari Isma'ilis from Fatimid allegiance. As the historian Michael Brett writes, the struggle against the Crusaders "had given the dynasty fresh purpose".[7] Despite al-Afdal's continuous campaigns, most of Palestine was lost to the Crusaders, along with the Levantine coastal cities of Tartus (1102), Acre (1104), Tripoli (1109), and Sidon (1111). Egypt itself was briefly invaded by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1117.[1] The Fatimids largely fell back on the coastal city of Ascalon, which developed into a major fortress and outpost (ribat) of the holy war: for the next half-century it was to remain a centre for raids against the Crusader territories, and a guard of the route from Palestine into Egypt.[8] Medieval Muslim historians often blame al-Amir for these disasters, but in reality he played no role in the Fatimid government during those years;[5] the caliph was confined to the palace and public ceremonies, while al-Afdal ruled almost as a sultan via his own secretaries, first Mukhtar Taj al-Ma'ali and then al-Qa'id al-Bata'ihi.[9] In 1115, the increasingly ill and feeble al-Afdal appointed his own son, Sama' al-Mulk Husayn, as his deputy and heir-presumptive, but after a failed assassination attempt in 1118 the vizier withdrew all privileges from his sons, whom he suspected of being involved, thus ending the prospect of a dynastic succession.[10][11]

Assassination of al-Afdal

Al-Afdal's tutelage ended with his assassination on 11 December 1121, on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr.[5][12] The deed was officially blamed on Nizari agents,[a][1][13] but both medieval historians[b] and modern scholars are skeptical: given his own resentment at the subordinate figurehead role to which al-Afdal had relegated him, al-Amir is suspected of having been the true instigator of the assassination.[5][15]

While engaging in a public display of grief for his vizier and father-in-law and arranging a public burial ceremony in the

caliphal palace,[16] al-Amir moved quickly to imprison al-Afdal's sons and confiscate al-Afdal's enormous fortune, houses, and estates, while the moveable items were brought from the vizieral palace to his own palace.[5][17] During their long rule over Egypt as quasi-sultans, al-Afdal and his father, Badr al-Jamali, had accumulated an enormous treasure,[17] "the extent of which no one knew apart from God", according to the 13th-century encyclopaedist Ibn Khallikan.[14] It was considered to have been larger than that of any previous king, and it took forty days to move it.[5]

Vizierate of al-Ma'mun al-Bata'ihi

As al-Amir had been left out of government and was unfamiliar with its intricacies, he selected al-Afdal's long-time chief of staff, al-Qa'id al-Bata'ihi, as vizier.

honorific al-Ma'mun ('the trusted one'), by which he is known.[19]

Al-Bata'ihi formally assumed the same plenipotentiary powers that al-Afdal had possessed,[20] and was a capable administrator, but his position was much weaker vis-à-vis the caliph than his old master's: al-Amir resumed many of the old caliphal ceremonial functions that al-Afdal had arrogated to himself, and he henceforth had a voice in government.[5] As historian Michael Brett writes, "The relationship itself was one of alliance, in which the minister was entrusted as before with the responsibilities of government, in return for bringing the monarch out from his seclusion into the public eye".[21] Most importantly, al-Amir ensured that all tax income and precious textiles would be kept in the caliphal palace, and distributed from there.[22] As ruler, al-Amir is portrayed in the sources as "unusually intelligent and knowledgeable", and was said to have memorized the Quran.[5] The changed balance of power was apparent to al-Bata'ihi, who sought to secure his position by extracting a written pledge from al-Amir to communicate any denunciations or accusations directly to him. The document was to be valid until al-Bata'ihi's death, and the caliph furthermore undertook to look after the vizier's offspring after that.[22]

In the aftermath of the assassination of al-Afdal, the threat of the Nizaris, who were implacably hostile to the rule of al-Amir and his father, was a major concern of the government, in view of the widespread network of agents they had established.[5][23] Reports received in Cairo claimed that the chief Nizari leader, Hasan-i Sabbah, celebrated al-Afdal's murder and awaited the same fate for al-Amir and al-Bata'ihi.[24] A hunt for Nizari agents was launched by the vizier, who established an extensive espionage network of his own to counter Nizati infiltration of Cairo.[25] In addition, in December 1122 al-Amir convened a meeting of officials in Cairo in which the Nizari claims to the Nizar's being the rightful successor of Caliph al-Mustansir (r. 1036–1094) were publicly denounced, and the legitimacy of al-Musta'li's succession affirmed, by none other than a person presented as Nizar's only sister. A proclamation to that effect, the al-Hidaya al-Amiriyya, was issued on this occasion, publicly read from the pulpits of the mosques, and then sent to the Nizari communities in Persia.[1][5][26]

In spring 1122, the Fatimid fleet managed to recover control of the Levantine port city of

Zirid emir of Ifriqiya, Abu'l-Hasan al-Hasan ibn Ali, also sent envoys to Cairo to announce his return to recognizing Fatimid suzerainty, and sought Fatimid assistance in repelling a possible Norman invasion.[5]

Al-Amir also paid attention to courting the remaining pro-Fatimid,

Sulayhid queen Arwa.[5] Al-Afdal had sent an envoy, Ali ibn Ibrahim ibn Najib al-Dawla, in 1119 to bring the Yemeni Isma'ilis into closer alignment with Cairo; after al-Afdal's death, the Fatimid engagement in Yemen intensified further, with the dispatch of military forces. This allowed Ibn Najib al-Dawla to pursue his own policies regardless of Queen Arwa, but he was heavily defeated while attempting to capture Zabid in 1124, with most of his Fatimid-supplied troops perishing. His independent activities and arrogant manner met with suspicion and then resistance from the Yemeni chieftains, who began to conspire against him and warned Cairo that he was engaged in Nizari propaganda; fake coins with the name of Nizar ibn al-Mustansir were even produced for the purpose. Another military detachment was sent to Yemen in late 1125 (after al-Bata'ihi's downfall) and brought back the disgraced envoy in chains. After public humiliation through the streets of Cairo, Ibn Najib al-Dawla was thrown in prison.[30][31]

Personal rule

Map of the Middle East showing the Christian states of c. 1135 in colour
Political map of the Levant in c. 1135

On 3 October 1125 al-Amir suddenly ordered al-Bata'ihi, his brother Haydara al-Mu'taman, and his chief aides arrested.[5][32] Various reasons were put forward for this: that al-Amir did not forgive al-Bata'ihi the loss of Tyre; that the secretary Ibn Abi Usama convinced al-Amri that the vizier conspired with Ja'far, al-Amir's only full brother, to depose him; or that al-Bata'ihi was the true instigator of the fake Nizari coinage struck in Yemen.[32][33] The truth is rather that al-Amir, like other caliphs in the past, had begun resenting the power of his over-mighty vizier.[5][32] The vizier was also a victim of his own policies: unlike Badr and al-Afdal, al-Bata'ihi lacked a power base of his own in the army, and relied on the caliph as his patron;[33] and the revival of al-Amir's public role, lavishly orchestrated by al-Bata'ihi himself, only served to strengthen the caliph's authority and self-confidence.[6][33] Finally, the pledge extracted by al-Bata'ihi from the caliph, intended to safeguard him, may have backfired, as al-Amir perceived it as a personal humiliation.[34] Haydara died in prison, but al-Bata'ihi was executed along with Ibn Najib al-Dawla on the night of 19/20 July 1128.[32][35]

Al-Amir did not appoint a new vizier, becoming the first Fatimid caliph since

Ramadan fast by two months.[38][39]

In February/March 1130, al-Amir finally had a son, who was named

successor.[5][40][41][42]

Murder and aftermath

On 7 October 1130, al-Amir was assassinated by Nizari agents. He left only his six-month-old son, al-Tayyib, to succeed him, with no designated regent or serving vizier.[41][42][43] Al-Amir's murder not only undid his attempts to once again concentrate power in the caliph's hands instead of over-mighty generals and ministers, but also, given the fragility of succession, endangered the very survival of the Fatimid dynasty.[43]

Al-Tayyib was quickly sidelined, and his fate is unknown;

al-Hafiz li-Din Allah in January 1132, proclaiming that he had secretly received the designation by al-Amir before he had died.[53][54][55]

Al-Hafiz' succession broke a continuous line of father-to-son succession of ten generations, something extremely rare in the Islamic world and much remarked upon by medieval authors.

Tayyibis").[56][57] The Hafizis were mostly concentrated in the Fatimid-controlled territories in Egypt, Nubia, and the Levant, while the Tayyibis resided in the Yemen, where Queen Arwa took up a leading role in forming a separate Tayyibi da'wa that survives to the present day.[56][57]

The Tayyibis hold that al-Tayyib was entrusted by al-Amir to a certain Ibn Madyan, and that Ibn Madyan and his helpers hid the infant when Kutayfat came to power. Ibn Madyan was killed by Kutayfat, but his brother-in-law escaped with al-Tayyib, who went into

da'i al-mutlaq).[58][59]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ A list of Nizari assassination victims from Alamut also claims responsibility for al-Afdal's death.[13]
  2. ^ The contemporary Syrian chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi directly accuses al-Amir,[13] while the 15th-century historian Ibn Taghribirdi claims that al-Amir ordered the assassination in response to al-Afdal attempting to poison him.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Stern 1960, p. 440.
  2. ^ a b Halm 2014, p. 131.
  3. ^ a b Brett 2017, p. 234.
  4. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 131–132.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Walker 2011.
  6. ^ a b Halm 2014, p. 164.
  7. ^ Brett 2017, pp. 235–237, 240–241.
  8. ^ Brett 2017, pp. 240–243.
  9. ^ Halm 2014, p. 132.
  10. ^ Halm 2014, p. 139.
  11. ^ Brett 2017, pp. 251–252.
  12. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 140–141.
  13. ^ a b c Halm 2014, p. 141.
  14. ^ a b c Sajjadi 2015.
  15. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 141–142.
  16. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 144–145.
  17. ^ a b Halm 2014, p. 145.
  18. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 141–143.
  19. ^ Halm 2014, p. 146.
  20. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 146–147.
  21. ^ Brett 2017, p. 253.
  22. ^ a b Halm 2014, p. 147.
  23. ^ Halm 2014, p. 153.
  24. ^ Halm 2014, p. 152.
  25. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 152–153.
  26. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 154–156.
  27. ^ Halm 2014, p. 159.
  28. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 159–160.
  29. ^ Brett 2017, pp. 256–257.
  30. ^ Brett 2017, pp. 256, 257–258.
  31. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 161–163.
  32. ^ a b c d Halm 2014, p. 165.
  33. ^ a b c Brett 2017, p. 257.
  34. ^ Behrens-Abouseif 1992, p. 35.
  35. ^ a b c Brett 2017, p. 258.
  36. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 166–168.
  37. ^ Brett 2017, pp. 258–259.
  38. ^ Halm 2014, p. 168.
  39. ^ Brett 2017, p. 259.
  40. ^ Stern 1951, pp. 196–198.
  41. ^ a b Daftary 2007, p. 246.
  42. ^ a b Halm 2014, pp. 177–178.
  43. ^ a b Brett 2017, p. 261.
  44. ^ Stern 1951, p. 204.
  45. ^ Daftary 2007, pp. 246, 261.
  46. ^ Brett 2017, pp. 262–263.
  47. ^ Stern 1951, pp. 203–204.
  48. ^ Brett 2017, p. 262.
  49. ^ Halm 2014, p. 179.
  50. ^ Daftary 2007, p. 247.
  51. ^ Brett 2017, pp. 263–265.
  52. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 178–181.
  53. ^ Brett 2017, p. 265.
  54. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 182–183.
  55. ^ Daftary 2007, pp. 247–248.
  56. ^ a b Brett 2017, pp. 265–266.
  57. ^ a b Daftary 2007, pp. 248, 264.
  58. ^ Daftary 2007, pp. 261ff..
  59. ^ Halm 2014, pp. 184, 185.

Sources

al-Amir bi-Ahkam Allah
Born: 31 December 1096 Died: 7 October 1130
Regnal titles
Preceded by
al-Musta'li Billah
Fatimid Caliph

12 December 1101 – 7 October 1130 		Vacant
Regency of
al-Hafiz li-Din Allah
Shia Islam titles
Preceded by
al-Musta'li Billah
Musta'li Isma'ilism

12 December 1101 – 7 October 1130 		Succeeded by
al-Hafiz li-Din Allah
as Imam of Hafizi Isma'ilism
Succeeded by
al-Tayyib Abu al-Qasim
as Imam of Tayyibi Isma'ilism
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