Part 11

On Friday, the 8th of Dhu l-Kaada, in the _khutba_, the words were added, “O my God, bless Muhammad the chosen, ʿAli the accepted, Fatima the pure, and al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the grandsons of the Apostle, whom thou hast freed from stain and thoroughly purified. O my God, bless the pure Imams, ancestors of the Commanders of the faithful” (Ibn Khall. i. 344). This was at once a profession of Shiʿite faith, and an assertion of the claim of al-Moʿizz to be descended from the house of ʿAli. There is no sign that any appreciable number of the Egyptians became converts to Shiʿite views: for the most part these claims were regarded with complete apathy until the celebration of the great Shiʿite festival of the Muharram, when there was some rioting. The people at large acquiesced in the new rule without paying any attention to its religious claims.

On Friday, the 18th of Rabiʿ II. 359, the Kaʾid Jawhar himself presided at the public prayers and sermon in the Old Mosque, that is the Mosque of ʿAmr. The building then existing had been erected by ʿAbdullah b. Tahir in 212, and is still standing. It escaped destruction when the city was burned, but suffered a disastrous restoration in A.D. 1798. At this service many soldiers were present. The preacher was ʿAbdu s-Sami b. Umar al-ʿAbbasi, who in the _khutba_ made especial mention of the “people of the house,” _i.e._, the family of ʿAli, and prayed for the Kaʾid, although Jawhar did not approve of his own name being thus mentioned, saying that no authority for it had been given in the instructions he had received from al-Moʿizz. In the call to prayer the Shiʿite custom of adding the words “come to the excellent work” was adopted. In the month of Jumada I. this addition was made in the call to prayer at the Old Mosque, at which Jawhar was greatly pleased, and made a report of the circumstance to the Khalif (Ibn Khall. i. 344-5).

Meanwhile progress was being made with the building of al-Kahira. The new city was surrounded with a wall of large bricks, of which the last fragments were observed by Maqrizi in A.D. 1400. In the middle of the great enclosure was an open space, the _Bayn al-Kasrayn_, “between the two palaces,” as it was afterwards called, large enough for 10,000 troops to be paraded: a small portion of this open space remains as the Suq an-Nahhasin. On the east was the Khalif’s palace; one corner of its site is now marked by the Khan al-Khalili, another by the Husayn Mosque. The name of the square was of later date, and due to the fact that al-Moʿizz’s successor built a lesser palace on its west side, at the beginning of the beautiful garden which Kafur had laid out, and which the Fatimid Khalifs maintained. A great thoroughfare led through the midst of Kahira from the Bab al-Zuwayla on the south side, communicating with the old city of Fustat, and passing through the Bayn al-Kasrayn to the Bab al-Futah, which led out to the open country on the north. To the north of the Khalif’s palace lay the Wazir’s official residence, and to the south the mosque of al-ʾAzhar, which Jawhar commenced soon after the foundation of Kahira and finished on the 7th of Ramadan, 361. Although the existing building has been much modernised it retains enough of the older structure to show the typical character of Fatimid architecture. The horse shoe arch, commonly regarded as of Persian origin, seems to have been developed in Egypt, and appears first in the Nilometer and then in the mosque of Ibn Tulun: it had an Indian parentage, and was not introduced into Persia until it had already been employed in Egypt (Rivoira: _Moslem Architecture_, E.T. 154, etc.), at least no dated example is found until later than the mosque of al-ʾAzhar. The Fatimid style shows this horse-shoe arch combined with high imposts which occur in the mosque of Ziadat Allah in Kairawan (A.H. 816-837); “nor does it seem an unnatural conjecture that it was Jauhar, not only a distinguished general, but also a man of letters, and therefore of culture, who suggested the form to some Christian architect of Egypt: and that, under these circumstances, the designer of the building, wishing to endow it with some distinctive feature marking the accession of the new dynasty, modified the pointed arch of Tulun’s time under the influence of the Indian ‘cyma reversa’ or ogee arch” (Rivoira: op. cit. 157).

In general plan, style, the use of brick piers, etc., the mosque of al-ʾAzhar followed the model of the mosque of Ibn Tulun, and so was a development of Egyptian native taste. The minaret was of heavy square type with outside stairs which has always remained popular in western Islam.

The most novel feature introduced by the Fatimid architects was the pendentive, the pensile cusped framing arch over a recessed angle. This appears clearly in the interior of the dome of the mihrab in the mosque of al-Hakim, commenced in 380 but not completed until 404. But this reproduces the pendentive as it appears in the mosque of Cordova (A.H. 350-366) in the bay in the front of the mihrab, and had its precursor more than four centuries before in the church of St. Vitale at Ravenna.

It is impossible, therefore, to connect Fatimid architecture with Persia: obviously it was developed out of the older Egyptian Muslim style under the influence of western and European, _i.e._, Italo-Greek, models. As usual, art is a clear indication of the general line of culture contact and intellectual influences. Though Asiatic and Persian in origin the Fatimids were, by their heretical character, entirely cut off from the Islamic world in Asia, a severance which the Fatimid rule in Syria, being one of purely military occupation, did not bridge over. Isolated in art, it was isolated in philosophy and literature, although this isolation from the Muslim world at large was richly compensated by its close contact with Shiʿite circles, and by some contact with the Greek and Roman Empire along the shores of the Mediterranean.

The wall surrounding the whole city of Kahira was finished in 359. To its south-east lay the old city which remained the centre of commercial and non-official life until the end of the Fatimid dynasty, and to the west the suburbs of Maqs, which extended down to the river and remained the port of Cairo until the shifting of the Nile in the 13-14th cent. A.D. gave the opportunity for the building of Bulaq.

The first serious problem with which Jawhar had to deal was the famine due to the successive bad Niles. Fortunately al-Moʿizz had sent a number of ships laden with grain as soon as he heard that Jawhar had occupied the country, and this caused some temporary relief in the city, and showed the people that they had a ruler anxious to assist them. At the same time Jawhar established a public corn exchange under an inspector (_muhtasib_), who had to prevent hoarding and excessive prices, and several offending millers were flogged. Of course these primitive expedients produced no serious relief, although they evoked the sympathy of the people, and a state of famine continued until the end of 360, and there were still cases of plague. In the following winter, _i.e._, in the early months of 361 (October, etc., of A.D. 971), the famine came to an end, and in the course of the next few months the country began to recover, and as a consequence the plague disappeared.

In the year 361 an Ikhshid officer in the district of Bashmur revolted, but was put down, chased to Palestine, captured there, and put to death. So far there had been very little reluctance to the change of government, in this insignificant revolt as in the first efforts to oppose Jawhar it is only a few of the Ikhshid officials who seem to feel the slightest grievance.

Jawhar now felt anxious to raise the prestige of Egypt, which had suffered greatly since the death of the first Ikhshid governor. In 355 the Nubians had invaded the country, so now in 362 he sent an embassy to king George of Nubia, inviting him to become a Muslim and to pay tribute. The Nubians, it must be noted, remained Christians down to the 14th cent. A.D. The embassy was politely received, tribute was paid, but no further reference was made to religious differences.

Jawhar found that as ruler of Egypt he was necessarily involved in the politics of Syria, some portions of which had been, at least nominally, part of the Ikhshid dominions. Indeed, Egypt never has been free from Syrian connections, either in ancient, mediaeval, or modern history. At this time independent Shiʿite princes were ruling at Aleppo, and Husayn the Ikhshid, who had returned to Syria after plundering the Wazir Ibn al-Furat, held his own at Ramla. Against him Jawhar sent his lieutenant Jaʿfar b. Fellah, who attacked and defeated him. Husayn was brought a prisoner to Fustat, publicly exposed as a proof of the power of the Fatimids, and viewed with great satisfaction by the inhabitants of the Egyptian city who remembered his cruelties. He was then sent on to a prison in Ifrikiya, where he died in 371. After defeating Husayn, Jaʿfar marched north and occupied Damascus. But this brought the Fatimids into conflict with the Qarmatians, for Damascus had for some time past been paying tribute to the Qarmatian leader Hasan b. Ahmad, and this payment was now stopped. After the death of Abu Saʿid, the _kabir_ of the Qarmatians, in 301, as we have already noted, the leadership was held temporarily by Abu l-Kasim Saʿid, and then passed to Abu Tahir Sulayman who attacked Mecca. Abu Tahir died in 332, as well as a third son of Abu Saʿid named Abu Mansur Ahmad. Then the eldest brother, Abu l-Kasim, resumed the leadership. In 360, the date we have now reached, the chieftain was Hasan b. Ahmad (Abu l-Feda, _Ann. Moslem._ ii. 325, 350, 509). It seems that at this time there had been a complete rupture between the Shiʿites of Africa and the Asiatic Qarmatians, though we are quite in the dark as to when or why this took place. It may have arisen from this attack upon the tribute paying city of Damascus, which the Qarmatians regarded as aggressive: or it may have had an earlier origin, perhaps in the relaxation of Ismaʿilian doctrine and practice amongst the African Shiʿites when they accommodated themselves to the tone generally current at Kairawan. Now Hasan had no hesitation in proposing an alliance with the orthodox Khalif of Baghdad against the Fatimids, but this was rejected by the Khalif with contempt. The Shiʿite Buwayhid prince who was the real ruler of ʿIraq, however, was more complaisant, and a third ally was found in the Hamdanid prince of Rabha on the Euphrates, whilst various Arab tribes, always ready to join in any fighting and usually as much an embarrassment to their allies as to their enemies, readily agreed to take part. Thus helped Hasan captured Damascus and celebrated his achievement by the public cursing of al-Moʿizz in the great Mosque. Theoretically, the Qarmatians professed to believe in the divine right of the Fatimid Imam, and so this cursing seems strange. It may be that the people of Damascus, who were fanatically anti-Shiʿite, were responsible, or it may be that the Qarmatians no longer troubled to pretend an attachment to the reputed house of ʿAli, but displayed their total indifference to all religious considerations without reserve. After taking Damascus Hasan marched south rapidly and, avoiding Jaffa where Jaʿfar and his army were stationed, passed through Ramla and made a lightning descent on Egypt itself. He surprised Kulzum (Suez) and Farama (al-Arish), and thus commanded the whole Isthmus of Suez, whilst Tinnis declared in his favour. He then advanced into the country and encamped at ʿAyn Shams (Heliopolis), and threatened Cairo. Jawhar had commenced defensive measures as soon as he heard that Hasan had reached the Isthmus and had made a trench before the city. The real danger lay in the possible treachery of officials of the old régime, and a spy was told off to watch Ibn al-Furat. At the same time men were sent to Hasan’s army who, under the pretence of being discontented citizens, made treacherous overtures to its officers. After some delay Hasan attempted to storm the trench, but was driven back with heavy losses, the most surprising incident being the unexpected courage shewn by the Egyptian volunteers who were enrolled in Jawhar’s army. A number of Ikhshid officers who were serving with Hasan were taken prisoner, and Hasan was compelled to retire to Kulzum, leaving his baggage to be plundered by the Egyptians.

News of the attack on Egypt had been sent to al-Moʿizz, and soon after the defeat reinforcements arrived from Kairawan under Ibn ʿAmmar. Thus supported Jawhar advanced on Tinnis, which was now penitent for its defection and was pardoned. A Qarmatian fleet which had sailed up the Nile to support Hasan fled hurriedly, and was obliged to abandon seven vessels and some 500 prisoners.

Jawhar had effectively repelled the Qarmatian invasion, and acted prudently in following up the retreating enemy and relieving Jaffa. Hasan fell back upon Damascus, but after some delay there began to recover and commenced preparations for a new attempt.

At this juncture Jawhar felt that the time had arrived when al-Moʿizz ought to be commanding in Egypt in person, and wrote earnestly entreating him to come and take up the reins of government, and this appeal decided the Khalif to remove from Kairawan to Cairo.

Early in 363 al-Moʿizz appointed Bolukkin b. Ziri of the Sanhaja tribe as deputy in Ifrikiya, advising him “never cease levying contributions on the nomadic Arabs, and keeping the sword on the (necks of the) Berbers; never appoint any of your own brothers or cousins to a place of authority, for they imagine that they have a better right than you to the power with which you are invested; and treat with favour the dwellers in towns” (Ibn Khall. i. 267).

Having thus provided for the government of Ifrikiya al-Moʿizz then set out. Passing by Qabus, Tripoli, Ajdabiya, and Barqa, he reached Alexandria in the course of the spring, and there received the Qadi of Fustat and other officials. At the beginning of the summer he encamped in the gardens of the monastery at Giza, and there received Jawhar who came out to welcome him on his arrival. After resting a short time he made his solemn entry into the capital. Although Fustat was decorated ready for his coming, he paid it no visit, but marched straight to his palace in Kahira where he took up his abode. In this solemn entry the coffins of the three Khalifs who had been his predecessors were carried in the first ranks, escorted by two state elephants, and the Khalif himself rode surrounded by his four sons and other kinsmen. He entered the royal city by the “gate of the arch,” one of the two openings in the Bab az-Zuwayla. The other opening which no longer existed in Maqrizi’s time was generally regarded as unlucky. This _bab_ is now commonly regarded as the mysterious dwelling place of the head of all the darwishes who, wherever he may be, is supposed to be able to fly in spirit to this abode, and there the spirit is placated. The legends connected with this gate seem to have varied from age to age, but it has always been regarded as haunted by mysterious presences.

Soon after taking up his abode in the royal palace, on the great feast day which terminates the fast of Ramadan, al-Moʿizz conducted prayers in the newly finished mosque of al-ʾAzhar which, it will be remembered, lay within the guarded precincts, and so was not accessible to the public. The mosque, commenced by Jawhar in 360, had been completed in 361. In 378 the following Khalif, al-ʿAziz, devoted it especially to the learned, and from this it has gradually become the leading university of Islam.

But al-Moʿizz was not able to remain as a sacred character in the seclusion of the guarded city, although that perhaps was his first intention. The Qarmatians were still threatening. Al-Moʿizz wrote to Hasan proposing negotiations, but the Qarmati chief merely replied, “I have received thy letter, full of words, but empty of sense: I will bring my answer.”

In the following spring the Qarmatians appeared again at ʿAyn Shams, and helped by Ikhshid partisans, spread far and wide through Egypt. Al-Moʿizz sent his son ʿAbdullah with some 4,000 men into Lower Egypt and he gained several minor advantages over some of the marauding bands of Qarmatians, but this did not prevent the main body from assembling before Jawhar’s trench which they prepared to assault. By means of spies the Khalif managed to bribe the Arab tribe of B. Tayy, the strongest factor in Hasan’s army, allies but not themselves of the Qarmatian sect, to desert, the price being 100,000 dinars. As the treasury did not contain sufficient gold these coins were specially struck of lead and gilt. In the next attack the B. Tayy rode away and Hasan was routed, his camp plundered, and some 1,500 of his irregular followers slain. The advantage was pressed home by the Egyptians who advanced into Syria, but after this defeat the Qarmatians began to fall to pieces as the result of internal disputes.

The defeat of the Qarmatians was followed by the appearance of a new danger in the person of the Turkish leader Haftakin. This man had been a slave in the service of the Buwayhid prince, Moʿizz ad-Dawla, and rose to a leading position in command of the Turkish mercenaries under his son Azz ad-Dawla Bakhtiar (Maq. ii. 9). In the course of a battle which took place outside Baghdad between the Turks and the Daylamites, Haftakin, though himself acting with exemplary courage, was deserted by most of his men and compelled to flee with a small body of some 400 followers. At first he took refuge at Rabha on the Euphrates, but afterwards moved to Syria. The Syrian Arabs were alarmed at his approach, and appealed for help to Ibn Jaʿfar, the Fatimite governor of Damascus, who was easily convinced that Haftakin was acting on behalf of the ʿAbbasid Khalif of Baghdad, and so took the field against him. But the Emir of Aleppo sent a force under the eunuch Bashara to the help of Haftakin, and as soon as this became known the Arabs deserted Jaʿfar and went home. Bashara then escorted Haftakin to Aleppo (Abu l-Feda) or Emessa (Maqrizi), where the Emir received him well and bestowed on him many presents.

At Damascus Jaʿfar was faced with a discontented group of citizens, and they even formed themselves into armed bands under the leadership of one Ibn Maward. As soon as these men heard of Haftakin’s arrival in Syria, they opened negotiations with him and invited him to Damascus, promising to join him in expelling the Fatimid garrison and to recognise him as emir. Damascus, it must be remembered, was fanatical in its hatred of the Shiʿites. Haftakin agreed to these proposals, and towards the end of Shaban 364 proceeded as far as Thaniyyat al-Okab on the road to Damascus.

At this juncture Ibn Jaʿfar heard that the Greeks were intending to make an attack upon Tripoli in Syria, and so marched his forces out of Damascus to intercept them. This gave Haftakin his opportunity, and he was able to enter Damascus without opposition. After a brief stay there he went down to Baʿalbak to chastise the Arabs who had taken up arms to assist Jaʿfar against him, but was surprised by a large Greek force, which was pillaging Baʿalbak and laying waste the surrounding country: he was only just able to escape before them and seek safety in Damascus whither the Greeks soon followed him. The citizens sent out an embassy to ask for terms, and were informed that the city would be spared in return for a substantial fine. Soon Haftakin went out to the Greek camp and explained that he was unable to raise the promised fine because of the obstacles put in his way by Ibn Maward and his partisans, the free militia of Damascus. As a result of this the Greek Emperor, John Tzimisces, sent officers into the city, who arrested Ibn Maward and brought him out a prisoner. By this means the city was cleared of its irregular forces and Haftakin took full possession, raising the sum of 30,000 pieces of gold as a fine with great rigour. He paid the sum to the Greeks, who forthwith retired to Beirut and thence to Tripoli.

Thus Haftakin became absolute master of Damascus, and formally recognised the suzerainty of the ʿAbbasid Khalif of Baghdad. He was afraid, however, that the Fatimid Khalif would before long take steps to recover his hold over Syria, and so wrote to the Qarmatians at Lahsa, their headquarters in the Bahrayn, asking them to ally themselves with him against al-Moʿizz. They accepted these proposals and a large body of them arrived before Damascus in 365, where they encamped for a few days; after resting and conferring with Haftakin they passed on to Ramla, where the Fatimid general Ibn Jaʿfar was in command, and at their approach he retired to Jaffa, and they occupied Ramla. Meanwhile Haftakin, as agreed with the Qarmatians, marched along the coast, and at Saʿida (Sidon) engaged two subordinate Fatimite generals, Dhalim b. Marhub and Ibn ash-Sheikh, whom he defeated. Dhalim then withdrew to Tyre, and Haftakin had the hands of the slain of the Fatimite army cut off and sent as a trophy to Damascus (Maq. ii. 9).

Just about this time the Khalif al-Moʿizz died, his son ʿAbdullah having pre-deceased him. He had spent only two years in Egypt but, besides the decisive repulse of the Qarmatians, he had established a government, which on the whole was a fair one and kept good order in the land. To avoid racial disputes, such as had disturbed Kairawan, he settled his African troops at al-Khandaq near ʿAyn Shams and, although they were allowed to visit Fustat freely during the day, all were required to leave the city before nightfall. In dealing with the inhabitants of Egypt both al-Moʿizz and Jawhar put aside all prejudices, whether of race or religion, and took a simply practical attitude, at heart no doubt regarding all religions as equally worthless. The Copts were as a rule far more efficient as clerks, accountants, and scribes, than their Muslim fellow countrymen, and they, as well as some Greek Christians, were largely employed in all the subordinate branches of the administration, and even to rise to some of the higher offices. As a practical measure this was thoroughly satisfactory, but the fact that the tax collectors and practically all the finance officials were Christians or Jews, caused the gradual evolution of a strong feeling of dislike against members of these two religions. Undoubtedly also the methods of oriental finance gave opportunity for much oppression and dishonesty, and the Copts and Jews were unable to avoid these temptations, so that much of the prejudice felt against them was justified. Although the employment of Christians and Jews in the civil service is more or less an established tradition in Muslim lands, it was carried much further by the Fatimids than had been usually the case.