Copyright by Christine Danielle Baker 2013
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Copyright by Christine Danielle Baker 2013 The Dissertation Committee for Christine Danielle Baker certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Challenging the Shiʿi Century: the Fatimids (909-1171), Buyids (945-1055), and the Creation of a Sectarian Narrative of Medieval Islamic History Committee: ___________________________________________ Denise A. Spellberg, Supervisor ___________________________________________ Kamran Scot Aghaie ___________________________________________ A. Azfar Moin ___________________________________________ Alison Frazier ___________________________________________ Stephennie Mulder Challenging the ‘Shiʿi Century’: the Fatimids (909-1171), Buyids (945-1055), and the Creation of a Sectarian Narrative of Medieval Islamic History By Christine Danielle Baker, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2013 For mom and Frank Acknowledgements This dissertation was produced over the course of several years, during which I was fortunate to have the support and assistance of many advisors, colleagues, friends, and family. I must begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Denise Spellberg, who patiently guided my inquiries without ever attempting to force me in a direction that was not mine. I know that, without her guidance, support, and careful comments on my many drafts and revisions, I would have never completed this dissertation. I must also thank the other members of my committee. Kamran Aghaie has always dealt well with my fits of enthusiasm and anxiety and was in his office when I needed someone to listen to my developing thoughts about early and medieval Shiʿi identity. Azfar Moin read numerous drafts of chapters and was always ready to offer helpful comments or to meet for tea and pastries to talk over particularly knotty questions of medieval kingship. I must thank Alison Frazier for introducing me to medieval European historiography and opening my way to a wealth of new methodologies for thinking and writing about the past. Finally, Stephennie Mulder, who agreed to serve on my committee at an especially late date, generously shared her unfinished book manuscript with me and offered much helpful advice during an early presentation of a part of this dissertation. v Without my friends and colleagues, I would not have been able to maintain the sanity required to keep working. I was fortunate to have a large cohort of supportive friends who were always ready to read something that I couldn’t make sense of, talk through ideas, or meet up when I was done making sense of anything for the day. Thanks to Kristin Tassin, Libby Nutting, Shari Silzell, Rachel Ozanne, Lior Sternfeld, Shaz Ahmadi, Ellen McAmis, Johanna Sellman, and Beeta Baghoolizadeh. I am also grateful to my cohort of friends outside of the university community who were there both to distract me from my dissertation and give me the support to keep going. In this, I give my most sincere thanks to Kim Giles, who lived with me and put up with my late nights, early mornings, and dissertation- related stress, and Daisie Huang, who proofread several long portions of the dissertation and was always there to keep me company and cheer me on me via Skype. I also offer thanks to Kim Dahl and Richard Dunn, who were always ready for emergency drinks, as well as Vanessa Heggie and Andrea Denny, who answered many late-night emails when I needed support. Finally, I need to thank my family. My mom and step-dad, Lorraine and Frank, were a constant source of humor, support, love, and cheerleading. Last but not least, I am grateful for Finnick and Mow, who kept me company through many late nights of writing. vi Challenging the Shiʿi Century: the Fatimids (909-1171), Buyids (945-1055), and the Creation of a Sectarian Narrative of Medieval Islamic History Christine Danielle Baker, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisor: Denise A. Spellberg This dissertation focuses on two Shiʿi dynasties of the tenth century, the Fatimid caliphate (909-1171) of Egypt and North Africa and the Buyid Amirate (945-1055) of Iraq and Iran. It traces their rise to power from eighth and ninth- century missionary movements, the ways in which they articulated their right to rule, and reactions to their authority. By bringing the Fatimids and Buyids into a comparative framework, the goal of this dissertation is to challenge the notion of the ‘Shiʿi Century,’ a term used to describe this era, as a label that has needlessly narrowed analyses of this period into binaries of Sunni versus Shiʿi and privileged the urban, elite, Sunni textual tradition over experiences of medieval Muslims that are often discredited as ‘heterodox.’ This dissertation focuses on three aspects of Fatimid and Buyid history that have never been studied together. First, it explores the role of eighth- and ninth- century non-Sunni missionary movements in the conversion and Islamization of vii the non-urban peripheries of the Middle East, which led to the rise to power of the Fatimid and Buyid dynasties. Second, it analyzes the pragmatic ways that these two Shiʿi dynasties combined multiple forms of authority to articulate their legitimacy in a way that appealed to the heterogeneous populations of the tenth- century Middle East. Third, it compares tenth-century reactions to the rise of these two Shiʿi dynasties with depictions of them from the eleventh century and later, arguing that it was only in retrospect that the story of the tenth century was rewritten ex post facto as a sectarian narrative. By comparing the Fatimids and the Buyids and focusing on contemporary Sunni depictions of these dynasties, this dissertation concludes that the significance of the Shiʿi identity of these two dynasties has been exaggerated. Rather than being only Shiʿi anomalies, these dynasties fit into existing processes in the development of Islamic society. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction................................................................................................................1 The Fatimids and the Buyids: A Brief Historical Overview .................................3 The ‘Shiʿi Century’ and the ‘Sunni Revival’ in Secondary Sources....................9 The Fatimids and Buyids in Secondary Sources....................................................12 The Development of Concepts of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy in Secondary Sources ....................................................................................................................................18 Ideas of Islamic Kingship and Authority: The Secondary Sources ................23 The Fatimids and the Buyids in Primary Sources: Source Selection and Methodology .........................................................................................................................25 Organization..........................................................................................................................33 Chapter Two: The Origins of Fatimid and Buyid Support: Heterodox Movements in North Africa, Yemen, and the Daylam and their Role in the Conversion and Islamization of the Middle East ...................................................................................................37 The Ismaʿili Missionary Movement in North Africa and Yemen ....................46 The Zaydi Missionary Movement in the Caspian Provinces of Iran (Daylam, Gilan, and Tabaristan).......................................................................................................59 Conclusion..............................................................................................................................69 Chapter Three: The Early Fatimid Caliphate’s Hybrid Claims for Legitimacy: Appeals to a Diverse Muslim Audience and Competition with Imperial Rivals.....71 Al-Qaʿim’s Revolutionary Rhetoric .............................................................................75 Fatimid Use of Regnal Titles and Architecture to Mimic the Authority of the Abbasid caliphate................................................................................................................84 Caliphal Authority as Symbolic Performance: the Khutbas of al-Mansur and al-Muʿizz .................................................................................................................................91 ix Combating Criticism from Sunni Jurists: The Fatimids as Ideal Muslim Rulers .......................................................................................................................................97 Representing the Sacrality of the Earliest Muslim Community through Narration of the Past ...................................................................................................... 106 Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 115 Chapter Four: ʿAdud al-Dawla’s Hybrid Forms of Authority as Buyid Amir ........ 117 ʿAdud al-Dawla’s Patronage of Historical Narrative ........................................ 128 ʿAdud al-Dawla’s Arabization of Persian Kingship ........................................... 144 ʿAdud al-Dawla’s Use of Honorary Titles in Creating Hybrid Forms of Authority: Shahanshah and al-Amir al-ʿAdil (The Just King) ........................ 155 ʿAdud al-Dawla’s Patronage of Poetry: Blending