Ismaili Studies on Fatimid Egypt Shainool JIWA, Transl

514 Review Articles / JESHO 56 (2013) 514-522

Ismaili Studies on Fatimid Egypt

Shainool JIWA, Transl., Towards a Shiʿi Mediterranean Empire: Fatimid Egypt and the Founding of Cairo. The Reign of the Imam-caliph al-Muʿizz from Taqi al-Din Ahmad b. ʿAli al-Maqrizi’s Ittiʿaz al-hunafa’ bi akhbar al-a’imma al-Fatimiyyin al-khulafa’. Ismaili Texts and Translation Series 11. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies London, 2009. 234 pp. ISBN: 978-1-84885-913-5 (hbk.). £29.50.

Verena KLEMM and Paul E. WALKER Eds. and Transl., A Code of Con- duct: A Treatise on the Etiquette of the Fatimid Ismaili Mission. A Criti- cal Edition of the Arabic Text and English Translation of Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Naysaburi’s al-Risala al-mujaza al-kafiya fi adab al-duʿat. Ismaili Texts and Translation Series 15. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies London, 2011. xii + 148 pp. ISBN: 978-1-78076-126-8 (hbk.). £29.50.

Mohamad ADRA, Transl. Mount of Knowledge, Sword of Eloquence. Col- lected Poems of an Ismaili Muslim Scholar in Fatimid Egypt. A Translation from the Original Arabic of al-Muʾayyad al-Shirazi’s Diwan. Ismaili Texts and Translation Series 14. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies London, 2011. xiv + 210 pp. ISBN: 978-1-84885-913-5 (hbk.). £29.50.

Thanks to the efforts of the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, a wealth of manuscripts relating to Ismaʿili Shiʿism and the Fatimid empire (909-1171) have become available through critical editions and translations. The three titles reviewed here are among them. While the Ismaʿili Shiʿa themselves represent a fraction of Islam’s community today their influence was quite significant historically, especially during the Fatimid period. Subsequent to the demise of the Fatimid caliphate in 1171, the Ismaʿili Shiʿi community became dispersed and greatly reduced and the political, cultural and economic impact of the Fatimid caliphate largely elided from the narrative of Islam’s classical or golden past. Recent studies1 have nevertheless made the effort to reassess if not reintegrate the

1) P. Walker’s Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and its Sources (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002).

Fatimids and Ismaʿili Shiʿism into the narrative by examining sources that demonstrate the Fatimid or Ismaʿili origins of political, economic, and cultural institutions in Islam, such as certain court ceremonial, taxation and administration practices, the establishment of important trade routes and economies, technological innovations, philosophical treatises, literary classics and so on. The three editions and translations examined here are part of this effort and address three critical moments in Fatimid history in particular: the establishment of the Fatimid Empire in Egypt in the time of al-Muʿizz li-din Allah (r. 953-975), the consolidation attempted during the turbulent reign of al-Hakim bi-amr Allah (r. 996-1021), and the efforts to build on and expand Fatimid influence beyond Egypt during the reign of al-Mustansir bi-llah (r. 1036-1094). The transfer of the Fatimid Empire from its original seat in North Africa to Egypt in 969 inaugurated a new era for the dynasty and for Egypt. The capital of Cairo was built, the empire reached its territorial zenith (through the control of North Africa, Egypt, the Syr- ian coast of the Mediterranean, and the Hijaz or west coast of Arabia to Yemen), with the result among other things of exceptional prosperity and cultural vigor due to the connecting of Mediterranean with Indian Ocean trade. Additionally the rule of a living Shiʿi imam generated many significant and enduring innovations in Islamic thought and literature. Even at a remove of a few centuries, the Sunni Mamluk historian Taqi al-din al-Maqrizi (1364-1442) was compelled to memorialize the Fatimid origins and landmarks of the city of Cairo and Egypt’s achievements under Fatimid rule through a series of works including a history devoted to the Fatimids (the Ittiʿaz al-hunafa). The section on the Fatimidimam and caliph al-Muʿizz is here presented in translation by Shainool Jiwa in Towards A Shiʿi Mediterranean Empire, the 11th volume in the Institute of Ismaili Studies’ Texts and Translations Series. As she argues in her ‘Introduction’, the significance of al-Maqrizi’s Ittiʿaz rests on two things: its having pro- vided a valuable and detailed record of the Fatimid era in Egypt, and its having done so with the use of sources and archival materials no longer extant (2). Her ‘Introduction’ also explores al-Maqrizi’s interest in the Fatimids, which as she points out had something to do with personal interest in the Fatimid dynasty itself, as well as a regard for the Fatimids inhaving established an empire that eclipsed that of their Abbasid rivals (32-44). As much in fact is acknowledged by al-Maqirizi himself, in his dismissal of anti-Fatimid sentiment in the historiography of the Abbasid east (46-47).