A Short History of the Fatimid Khalifate

by De Lacy O'Leary

Not long after Abu Muslim we hear of a pseudo-prophet named Bih-afaridh, a Zoroastrian who had travelled in the far East, and afterwards accepted Islam at the hands of two duʿat who were preaching the cult of Abu Muslim. Very little is known of his teaching, but he certainly maintained the doctrine that the Imam is an incarnation of the Deity, and seems to have attached a particularly sacred signification to the numeral seven. This superstitious reverence for particular numbers was a common feature in the pre-Islamic religions of Mesopotamia, and we shall meet it again in the doctrines of the Ismaʿilians.

Another sect, of similarly pre-Islamic origin, was that known as the Rawandiyya from its origin at Rawand near Isfahan. Its members were king-worshippers in the old Persian sense, and a body of them travelled to Hashimiyya, where the Khalifs then had their residence, and tried to acclaim the Khalif al-Mansur as a god. He not only rejected the proffered adoration, but cast the leaders into prison. This was followed by an attempt to attack the palace, the Rawandis considering that, as the prince had disclaimed deity, he could be no valid ruler. For some centuries the sect, strongly disaffected towards the Khalifate, lingered on in Persia and had many sympathisers.

Under the next Khalif al-Mahdi, came the still more serious rebellion of al-Muqannaʿ, the “veiled prophet of Khurasan,” who asserted his own deity. He was killed in A.H. 169, but his followers, as usual, believed that he had not really suffered in person, but had passed into concealment and would in due course return again: they continued to form a distinct sect for some three hundred years.

Another pseudo-prophet of the same type was Babak al-Khurrami, who was executed in A.H. 222 or 223. He also declared himself to be an incarnation of the Divine Spirit, and asserted that the soul within him had already dwelt in his master Jawidan.

We might continue to extend the series very considerably by enumerating the various prophets and sects which reproduce these same general characteristics. The latest example occurs in the Babi movement, which still flourishes and has many converts in this country and in America. The first teacher of the Babists, Mirza ʿAli Muhammad (A.D. 1820-1851) claimed only to be a Mahdi or fore-runner of One who was to come, but his successor, Mirza Husayn ʿAli, declared himself to be the expected One, the incarnation of the Divine Spirit, which is an emanation of the Deity and is fairly equivalent to the Reason, Word, or Spirit of the Plotinian philosophy. In later times this doctrine has rather fallen into the background, perhaps as the result of western influences, but the earlier phase shows a repetition of the traditional Persian position. All these sects show common matter in the doctrines of incarnation, of transmigration, and of an esoteric teaching to be revealed only to the elect. Such were the extremer Shiʿite sects of mediaeval times, and such are their descendants of modern times. Even in Persia to-day, side by side with the more orthodox “Twelvers” of the state church and off-shoots such as the Babists, the latest of a long series of mystical developments from the Shiʿite stock, are the ʿAli Allahis who believe in the deity of the Imam ʿAli, and combine with this belief many elements from the ancient Zoroastrian religion, a survival of the older mediaeval Shiʿism which caused so much trouble to the Khalifate of Baghdad.

In the teaching of most of the Shiʿites it is believed that some deceased Imam was an incarnation of deity, and it is he who, not really dead as men suppose, has passed into concealment, to return again in the fulness of time, when this evil age in which the true Khalifate no longer exists has passed away. Meanwhile there is no valid Khalif or Imam upon earth, but only some Shah or king who acts as vicegerent of the hidden Imam until his return.

This digression serves to show us how strongly Persian thought always has inclined towards the idea of a divine incarnation in the honoured religious teacher, and towards that of transmigration of the soul from one such teacher to his successor. In the 3rd century A.H. probably no sect which did not hold such theories could have obtained a favourable hearing amongst the Persians who found Islam of the Arab type unsatisfying, and every radical religious movement was necessarily compelled to assume at least the externals of Shiʿism.

The Shiʿite party organised by ʿAbdullah is known by various names. It is called Ismaʿilian as representing the party adhering to Ismaʿil, the son of Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, and his son Muhammad, as against those who continued the succession of the Imamate through Musa; but the name is not strictly accurate as it seems that there was an Ismaʿilian sect proper existing before ʿAbdullah, and that his re-organisation was so drastic that we may regard the continuity as being severed; and it seems certain that some part of the earlier sect continued to exist independent of his reforms. It was, no doubt, its attachment to a deceased or “hidden” Imam which made it a more promising field for the advocates of a speculative philosophy than any sect whose Imam was living and might dissociate himself from the doctrines held. It was also called the Sabʿiya or “Seveners” because it accepted seven Imams, and also because it attached a sacred significance to the numeral seven; there were seven prophets, seven Imams, seven Mahdis, seven grades of initiation (afterwards changed to nine), etc. In many respects Sabʿiya is the most accurate name, but it is open to the same objection as Ismaʿilian. More commonly its members are called Fatimites as recognising Fatimid Imams who claimed descent from ʿAli and Fatima: but this, although convenient because of its frequent use amongst mediaeval Arabic writers, is peculiarly inaccurate. The Ithna ʿashariya or sect of “Twelvers” was equally Fatimite, and so were the Zaydites, indeed these last were the true Fatimites as holding that any person descended from ʿAli and Fatima might be a valid Imam: but common usage allows the use of “Fatimites” for the sect organised by ʿAbdullah. Another name is Batinites or advocates of an allegorical interpretation, but this also applies to other Shiʿite groups. Sometimes they are called Qarmatians, but this name is only applicable to one branch of the sect which originated in the district of Sawad between Basra and Kufa, and should be reserved for that branch which at a later period became alienated from the main Ismaʿilian body.

The new sect carried out its propaganda by means of missionaries (daʿi) on the lines developed by the Hashimites. In this, as in most of its external features, it reproduces the characteristics usual amongst the mediaeval Shiʿites.

The organiser of the sect or masonic fraternity was ʿAbdullah, who is stated to have been the son of one Maymun. Sometimes ʿAbdullah is surnamed al-laddah (“the oculist”), as is done by Abu l-Feda, but more often this surname is given to his father Maymun. Maqrizi, referring to the Fatimids, says, “this family was traced to al-Husayn, the son of ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, but men are divided in the matter between two opinions: some treat it as true, but others deny that they are descendants of the Prophet and treat them as pretenders descended from Daysan the Dualist, who has given his name to the Dualists, and (say) that Daysan had a son whose name was Maymun al-Qaddah, and that he had a sect of extreme views. And Maymun had a son ʿAbdullah, and ʿAbdullah was learned in all the canon law and customs and sects” (Maqrizi, i. 348).