Value of Poetry in Reconstructing History PDF
Value of Poetry in Reconstructing History PDF
Value of Poetry in Reconstructing History PDF
History
The Value of Poetry
in Reconstructing
Arab History
Edited by
Ramzi Baalbaki
Saleh Said Agha
Tarif Khalidi
Poetry and History
Edited by
Ramzi Baalbaki
Saleh Said Agha
Tarif Khalidi
© 2011 American University of Beirut Press
First Edition
This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of
the American University of Beirut Press.
The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this book are entirely those of the
authors and should not be attributed in any manner to the American University of Beirut, to
its affiliated organizations, or to members of its Board of Trustees.
For permission to reprint excerpts from this publication, submit a request by fax to
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Introduction
In Genres/Phenomena
Peter Heath
Some Functions of Poetry in Premodern Historical and
Pseudo-Historical Texts: Comparing Ayyām al-ʿArab,
al-Ṭabarī’s History, and Sīrat ʿAntar ...................................................... 39
Ramzi Baalbaki
The Historic Relevance of Poetry in the Arab
Grammatical Tradition
.............................................................................. 95
Werner Diem
The Role of Poetry in Arabic Funerary Inscriptions ............................ 121
Beatrice Gruendler
“Farewell to Ghazal!” Convention and Danger
of the Abbasid Love Lyric .................................................................... 137
In Defined Eras
Suleiman A. Mourad
Poetry, History, and the Early Arab-Islamic Conquests
of al-Shām (Greater Syria).................................................................... 175
Tahera Qutbuddin
Fatimid Aspirations of Conquest and Doctrinal
Underpinnings in the Poetry of al-Qāʾim bi-Amr
Allāh, Ibn Hāniʾ al-Andalusī, Amīr Tamīm b.
al-Muʿizz, and al-Muʾayyad al-Shīrāzī ................................................ 195
William Granara
Ibn Ḥamdīs’s al-Dīmās Qaṣīda: Memorial
to a Fallen Homeland ........................................................................... 247
In Genres/Phenomena
Leslie Tramontini
Poetry Post-Sayyāb: Designing the Truth
in Iraqi War Poetry of the 1980s ........................................................... 289
Asʿad E. Khairallah
Maḥmūd Darwīsh: Writing Self and History as Poem ......................... 335
Maher Jarrar
“A Tent for Longing”: Maḥmūd Darwīsh and al-Andalus.................... 361
In Popular Poetry
Tarif Khalidi
ʿUmar al-Zʿinnī and Mandate Lebanon................................................ 397
Noha Radwan
The Land Speaks Arabic: Shiʿr al-ʿĀmmiyya and Arab
Nationalism........................................................................................... 413
Tahera Qutbuddin
University of Chicago
At the high point of the Fatimids’ two hundred and fifty plus years of
rule, their territory spanned large parts of the Islamic realm — all of North
Africa, Egypt, Sicily, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, the Ḥijāz, and even the
Abbasid heartlands of Iraq, with additional covert mission cells in Byzantine
Armenia and Anatolia, Central Asian lands, and places as far away as India.1
Traditional historical sources supply ample data regarding the Fatimids’
appearance on the political scene in the Maghrib, their conquest of Egypt
and their move there, and their battles in Syria and Iraq. Internal histories of
the Fatimid and Ṭayyibī “daʿ wa” even provide some doctrinal commentary.
(The term “daʿ wa”, which denotes the Fatimid’s religio-political mission
of education, proselytizing, and activism, is used frequently in this paper).
But neither the external nor the internal histories discuss the motivation
steering these conquests, and many questions about whys and wherefores
remain — such as why the Fatimids moved east from North Africa rather
than continuing there or going north into neighboring Spain; in what manner
they differed from other more opportunistic and locally ambitious North
African dynasties like the Aghlabids whom they replaced; and the nature
of the claims they made in their challenge of the Abbasid caliphate. We
could turn to the Fatimid theological and philosophical tracts for answers,
but although these provide detailed expositions about the imam’s role in the
spiritual and temporal leadership of the world, they are less concerned with
factual details of political history. It is primarily the literary materials, and
particularly Fatimid poetry, that systematically bring together both categories
of information, the mundane and the abstract. There are limitations, of
196 tahera qutbuddin
course, to the use of poetry as a historical source, for it is dense and intense,
and it alludes to actions and ideas without actually spelling out a cohesive
narrative of events. But when utilized alongside the traditional sources,
the poetry tells us what specific historical events mean in their ideological
framework, connecting military actions with the doctrines that drove them.
In this paper, I analyze the verse of four major poets spanning the heyday
of Fatimid power in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries — the caliph-imam
al-Qāʾim bi-Amr Allāh (d. 334/946), the court poet Ibn Hāniʾ al-Andalusī
(d. 362/973), the royal prince Tamīm b. al-Muʿizz (d. 374/984), and the
chief dāʿ ī (missionary and activist) al-Muʾayyad fī l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d.
470/1078) — with a view to identifying the lands the Fatimids sought to
rule, and understanding the multifaceted mahdist ideology of the imamate
that underpinned their gradual conquest of large parts of the Islamic empire.
Within the Fatimid poetic tradition, certain types of poetry and particular
brands of poets provide data particularly relevant to hegemonic aspirations.
While genres such as wine and love poetry have little or no bearing on affairs
of state, poems composed in praise of the caliph-imams (or certain of their
commanders), and verse written in challenge to the Abbasids, offer much
insight on this issue. Among these, the lines composed by poets closely
connected with the Fatimid daʿ wa and its leadership — particularly our four
poets noted above — afford us precious inside information about military
agendas and ideological rationales.2
At the time of their original dissemination, Fatimid panegyrics and poems
of challenge were a valuable public relations tool. Giving voice to aspirations
of hegemony, they also played a role in realizing them. Suzanne Stetkevych
has shown how the poems of Akhṭal in the Umayyad period, those of Abū
Tammām and Mutanabbī in the Abbasid era, and the verse of Ibn Darrāj al-
Qasṭallī in Andalusia, legitimized the ruling party.3 There are differences
between the ideological bases of the Fatimids and those other dynasties,
and these differences are discussed later in the concluding remarks; but in
a similarly legitimizing vein, the panegyrics of the Fatimid poets verbally
confronted enemies, proselytized among the uninitiated or vacillating, and
uplifted hopes among loyal followers and subjects. We know for certain that
the Fatimid poems were read and heard by a public audience across political
and sectarian lines, for poets in Baghdad composed formal retort verses
(muʿāraḍas) confronting Qaʾim’s own,4 Ibn Hāniʾ expressed satisfaction at
his own poems reaching Baghdad and Syria,5 and Muʾayyad claimed that his
poetry propagated the Fatimid daʿwa.6
In addition to the few collected dīwāns extant (including those of three of
our poets: Ibn Hāniʾ, Tamīm, and Muʾayyad), a quantity of Fatimid poetry
(such as the verse of Qāʾim) is preserved only in the later synthetic histories,
mostly daʿ wa sources, such as al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān’s (d. 363/974) Iftitāḥ al-
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 197
daʿwa and dāʿ ī Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn’s (d. 872/1468) ʿUyūn al-akhbār. Several
poems are also recorded in the Muqaffā of the Mamluk historian Maqrīzī (d.
845/1442), and sporadic verse citations are found in his other works as well
as in the writings of his fellow historians.7 But the authors of these medieval
narratives quote poems for the most part as simple historical artifacts, as
records of literary events that have political or religio-political bearings,
without analyzing them for historical data, much less for issues of ideology
and motivation.
Modern scholars of Fatimid poetry have established that a significant
proportion of its themes were devoted to politico-historical and doctrinal
issues. In his book on Ibn Hāniʾ’s poetry, Muḥammad al-Yaʿlāwī discussed
at length these two aspects of his dīwān;8 R. Rubinacci in the Cambridge
History of Arabic Literature mentioned the highly political nature of Fatimid
verse in general;9 ʿAbdalraḥmān Ḥijāzī discussed in some detail the political
discourse of Fatimid verse;10 and in my own work on Muʾayyad’s daʿ wa
poetry, I analyzed its theological ideas, and constructed the poet’s life and
career largely from his verse.11 Moreover, as Muḥammad Kāmil Ḥusayn
correctly pointed out in his seminal work on Fatimid belles-lettres, it was
primarily due to the doctrinal references in Fatimid poetry that the succeeding
Ayyubids suppressed it in a radical Sunnī backlash against the ideology it
espoused.12 A case in point is the Ayyubid scribe ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī,
who, as he himself tells us, deliberately omitted from his anthology the praise
poetry of Āmir’s dāʿ ī Ibn al-Ḍāyf for its “ideological exaggeration” (li-farṭi
ghuluwwihi), and of Ẓāfir al-Ḥaddād, for his being among the “panegyrists of
the Egyptian” (muddāḥ al-Miṣrī); this, despite the high quality of their verse,
again as ʿImād himself took pains to note.13 As this polemical source and
the studies cited above confirm, many Fatimid poems combined political and
religious themes. This combination is clearly visible in the verse of the poets
who referenced the conquest aspirations of the Fatimids.
In their celebration of Fatimid victories, poets focused on two major religio-
political themes. Firstly, they elucidated the Fatimid accession to power and
subsequent expansion as a fulfillment of God’s promises (waʿd) of victory (fatḥ)
and victorious aid (naṣr) to believers made through the Qurʾān, and through
the words of earlier prophets; together with Muḥammad’s pronouncements
regarding the coming of the righteous savior or ‘mahdī’ in his line, who would
establish light and justice in the world. Several Islamic movements, both
Sunnī and Shīʿa, legitimized hegemony through mahdist arguments,14 but the
Fatimids were arguably one of the most successful in length and compass
of rule. Nuʿmān in his Sharḥ al-akhbār provided the most comprehensive
Fatimid recounting of mahdist ḥadīth (and prophecies attributed to ʿAlī b.
Abī Ṭālib and the early Shīʿa imams) foretelling the realization of the imam’s
terrestrial power, which may be summarized in seven main points:15 (1) The
198 tahera qutbuddin
Towards the end of the 3rd century A.H. (beginning of 10th c. C.E.), decades
before the establishment of their empire in North Africa, the ancestors of the
Fatimid caliphs lived in hiding in Salamiyya in northern Syria. From here,
they sent dāʿ īs to proselytize in secret to far-flung places of the Islamic world
and beyond.
Among these dāʿ īs was one Abū l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawshab whom they sent
in 268/881 to the Yemen, where he had much success and came to be known
as the “Manṣūr al-Yaman” (the Victor of Yemen). Nuʿmān in his Iftitāḥ al-
daʿwa tells us that when the dāʿ ī was praised with this epithet, he quoted a line
by an anonymous earlier poet saying that the title belonged more accurately
to “the manṣūr (victor) from [the Prophet] Aḥmad’s progeny” who would rise
and defeat the Abbasids:17
When the manṣūr (victor) from the المن�صور ِم ْن � ِآل �أحم ٍد
ُ �إذا َظ َه َر
Progeny of Aḥmad appears,
say to the Abbasids, “Get up [to ا�س ُق ْو ُم ْوا على رِ ْجل َ َف ُق ْل لبني
ِ الع ّب
leave] and be fearful!”
In North Africa, Shiʿite poets not apparently connected with the Fatimid
daʿ wa had also anticipated the coming of a mahdī at the end of the third hijri
century, as demonstrated by their references to mahdist ḥadīth. In 280/893, the
200 tahera qutbuddin
very year dāʿ ī Abū ʿAbdallāh arrived in Kutāma territory or shortly thereafter,
a poet named Muḥammad b. Ramaḍān from Billizma (in the north of present-
day Algeria) prophesied: “The days of the empire of the qāʾim, the mahdī, are
imminent — the [prophetic] Tradition has foretold them!”22 A little before
289/902, an elderly shaykh from Tunis named al-Ḥarbī al-Aʿrābī declared:
“God’s sun will rise from the West … a man from the sons of Fāṭima … [will]
fill God’s Earth with justice.”23 In the following decades and centuries, poets
of the Fatimid dynasty would tap into this more general mahdist tradition;
they would consistently refer to the various themes of mahdist ḥadīth and
highlight the mahdist titles; in their treatment of empire-related topics, they
would combine the mahdist discourse with Qurʾānic vocabulary of imminent
victory to produce a specific Fatimid religio-political vision.
In 296/909, the Fatimid dāʿ ī Abū ʿAbdallāh defeated the ruling Aghlabids,
who were vassals of the Abbasids and the major power in North Africa at the
time. Meanwhile, the scion of the Prophet’s family who would become the
first Fatimid caliph-imam had traveled secretly from Salamiyya to Sijilmāsa in
the western Maghrib, whence Abū ʿAbdallāh conveyed him to the conquered
Aghlabid capital of Raqqāda. There in early 297/909, a large portion of the
notables of the Maghrib pledged allegiance to him as the Mahdī. The Fatimid
empire was born. Upon Mahdī’s investiture, the former Aghlabid court
poet Saʿdūn al-Warjīnī (or Warjīlī) congratulated him with a clear mahdist
reference, proclaiming that all Muslims had won with his triumph, for they
had “won his … justice.”24 Over the next sixty-three years, the first four
Fatimid caliph-imams would consolidate their control of the Maghrib, but
they had very early begun to look eastward. In 302/914, just five years after
Mahdī’s inauguration, the crown-prince and future caliph-imam Qāʾim led
the first Fatimid army east to Egypt; in 306/918, he commanded a second
Egyptian campaign. He did not take Egypt from its Ikhshīdid rulers, but
continued to push an agenda for its conquest; his poetry confirms these hopes.
In four poems composed in the context of his Egyptian campaigns,
Qāʾim lengthily expounded ideologically rooted ambitions of dominion. In
each of these poems, he addressed a different audience, but the (mahdist)
message was the same: The Fatimid caliph-imams were the descendants
of the Prophet and the righteous leaders of the Muslims; they would defeat
the Abbasids and conquer the East; and God would fulfill His pledge
to the prophets through them.
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 201
that the imam of the Muslims, their v. 12 إمام الم�سلميــــــــــــن ور� ُأ�سهم
ُ � كون
ُ َي
leader,
the custodian of God’s religion on ْ أر�ضه َ�ش
غَب ِ � الله في
ِ و َق ِّي ُم ِد ْي ِن
His earth, be rabble?
Qāʾim went on to state that he had long endured this subversion (presumably
in the sense that he was the heir of the true imams who, over many centuries,
had endured it); until finally, upon God’s resolve to strengthen His religion,
he rose up to fight (vv. 13-14), calling upon the people of the West, who
answered (vv. 16-18):
Next, Qāʾim brought up another fundamental motif in the Fatimid ideology
of conquest, and one that all later Fatimid poets would loudly reiterate: God
had fulfilled His pledge (waʿd), bringing “aid” (naṣr) and “victory” (fatḥ)
(v. 21). He combined in this line references to three key Qurʾanic concepts:
victory verses, such as “Aid from God and victory are nigh!” �ص ِم َن ٌ ْ( َن ر
ِ
) ;الله َو َف ْت ٌح َق ِر ْيبverses asserting the veracity of God’s pledge, such as
26
“[This is] God’s pledge — God does not renege on His pledge” ال َ (و ْع َد الله
َ
); ُي ْخ ِل ُف الل ُه َو ْع َده27 and verses declaring that the godfearing would “inherit”
the lands, such as “… the earth will be inherited by my pious servants”
)ال�ص حِال ْون
َّ �ض َيرِ ُث َها ِع َب ِاد َي
َ ( أ� َّن الأ ْر:28
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 203
God will conquer the East for us v. 5 َّاح َلنَــــــــــــــــــــــا َ�ش ْر َق ُه
ٌ الله َفت
ُ
and the West — God will conquer
all. الله
ُ ــــــــــــــــــرا َي ْف َت ُح
ًّ والغرب ُط
َ
God has given us [the victories] v. 6 َ
الله �أ ْعطانَا الذي ق ْد ت ََرى َ َ ُ
you see,
a gift that God has been generous الله
ُ ـــــــــــــــــــــن ب َِها
َّ َع ِط َّي ًة َم
with.
…
God has revealed his Mahdī, v. 8 َم ْهـــــــــــــ ِد َّي ُه �أَ ْخ َر َج َق ْد الله
ُ
His proof — God has made him
manifest. الله
ُ ـــــــــــــــر َهــا
َ أَ� ْظ َه ـج َتــه
َّ ُح
…
God is my sufficiency, after all v. 11 الله َح ْ�سبِــــــــــــــي َب ْع َد َذا كُ ِّل ِه
ُ
this.
How good is the one whose الله
ُ ــــــــــــــن َح ْ�س ُب ُه
ْ َيا َح َّبذَا َم
sufficiency is God!
to gain from me that which you v. 24 َت� ُأم ُلون َُه با ّلذي ِع ْن ِد ْي َفت َْح َظ ْو َن
desire:
protection from every fear and ِوها ِئل
َ ف
ٍ َخ ْو ِّل ْح ِم َي ُك ْم ِم ْن ُكل
أ
apprehension?
If you have heard the caller (dāʿ ī) v. 25 الح ِّق َفا ْن ِف ُروا
َ اع َي
ِ �إذا ما َ�س ِم ْعت ُْم َد
to the Truth, then come
to me in haste, swooping like ا�ض الأَ َج ِاد ِل َ إلي ِ�س َراع ًا َكا ْن ِق
ِ ـ�ض َّ �
hawks.
My cavalry has come to you v. 26 فقد �أَ ْز َم َعت َخ ْي ِلي �إليكم َ�سرِ ْي َع ًة
hastening,
traversing the lands of God, lands ِ ذات ا ْل َم َر
ِاحل ِ الله
ِ َ ت َُج ْو ُب ِب
ال َد
with many stages,
to the soil of Egypt and Iraq, and v. 27 والعراق وبع َدها
ِ ٍأر�ض ِم ْ�صر
ِ � �إلى
beyond —
For Baghdad is my goal, among all َازل
ِ المن
َ جميع
ِ فبغداد َه ِّم ْي ِم ْن
ُ
stopping places.
Next, Qāʾim supplied vital information about his reasoning and goals in the
endeavor for conquest: he would bring down the Abbasids’ injustice (jawr,
note mahdist term); moreover, it was but self-defense, for the Abbasids
sought to kill the Fatimids. He continued from the earlier line about targeting
Baghdad thus:
After that, Qāʾim provided a list of the lands that he meant to conquer: first
and foremost, Iraq (“Babylonia”, emphasized by deliberate repetition of
the name, v. 30), as well as the Syrian towns of Raqqa (lit. al-Raqqatayn,
comprising the adjoining cities of Raqqa and Rāfiqa in northern Mesopotamia
on the Euphrates near Aleppo, later known collectively as Raqqa, v. 32),34
Bālis (in Syria, between Aleppo and Raqqa, v. 32), Damascus (v. 39), Ḥimṣ,
Salamiyya, and the frontier towns (thughūr and maʿāqil), up to the highlands
of Armenia (v. 40); also Kabul (v. 37). All this will happen in battles, he
promised, just like the earlier battle in Egypt which he had already won (v.
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 207
41). In talking of these battles, Qāʾim produced yet another rationale for
the overthrow of the Abbasids: blood revenge for the Prophet’s grandson
and Qāʾim’s forbear Ḥusayn, who had been slain by the Umayyads —
the Abbasids’ culpability arising from their ‘spiritual descent’ from the
Umayyads, as elaborated in some later Fatimid poems (details shortly). Note
that the verse about remembering Ḥusayn (v. 35) is linked to the line about
the Euphrates (v. 34), for it was at the banks of this river that Ḥusayn and
his small band of family and followers were denied water for three days, and
then killed.
Qāʾim then closed the poem by making a statement about his intention to give
security to all who came peacefully and to strike all those who would fight
him (v. 43):
the only rightful incumbents of the leadership of the Islamic world. Indeed,
Qāʾim himself was offered suzerainty over northern Egypt by the Abbasid
commander Muʾnis if he would accept the overlordship of Baghdad —
Qāʾim refused in a biting letter asserting his own superior claim to the
Islamic caliphate.37 The Fatimids claimed to be the inheritors of the spiritual
and temporal authority of their forefathers Muḥammad and ʿAlī. With this
mandate, declared their poets, the Fatimids would defeat the Abbasid usurpers
and restore the true leadership of Islam, first in the lands of the central Islamic
empire, then beyond in the frontier lands of the Byzantines as well as India
and Sind, and finally in “the eastern and western lands of the earth.”
Qāʾim’s verse is our weightiest source of information about Fatimid
hegemonic aspirations. Not only does it form the largest set of poems from
this earliest period of their rule, but being from the pen of the imam-to-be, it
constitutes the most direct record of how the Fatimid leadership — indeed,
the Fatimid caliph-imams themselves — conceived of their messianic role.
Preserving the Empire from the Onslaught of the Khārijite Rebel “Dajjāl”
during the Reigns of al-Qāʾim bi-Amr Allāh (r. 322-334/934-946) and
al-Manṣūr bi-L-lāh (r. 334-342/946-953): Sermons by the Caliph-Imam
al-Manṣūr bi-L-lāh
In 322/934, six years after Qāʾim composed his lāmiyya, Mahdī died and
Qāʾim succeeded to the caliphate-imamate. In contrast to his earlier public
role as the supreme military commander who consolidated the West for the
Fatimids and began the push eastward, Qāʾim remained during his entire
twelve-year caliphate in complete seclusion in the palace city of Mahdiyya.
Also, he composed no more poems, or at least none that have come down to us.
Towards the end of Qāʾim’s reign began the tumultuous four-year
rebellion of the Khārijite Berbers, led by Abū Yazīd Makhlad b. Kaydād
— the “Dajjāl” (The Great Deceiver or The Antichrist), as he is known in
Fatimid sources — which almost overthrew the Fatimid caliphate. Qāʾim
sent his son and successor al-Manṣūr bi-L-lāh (whom he appointed publicly
at that time)38 into the battlefield against the rebels. He himself died soon
thereafter, and Manṣūr concealed his father's death for reasons of political
prescience. After a campaign that lasted for two hard years, Manṣūr defeated
the Dajjāl in 336/947. Upon the captured rebel’s death a few days later,
he made known to the people his father’s demise and proclaimed his own
caliphate.
While in pursuit of the Dajjāl, Manṣūr had composed and sent two
poignant poems to his son and successor Muʿizz, in which he detailed the
physical hardships he faced on the battle trail, and emphasized his willingness
to endure them for God; but these poems contained no larger aspirations of
210 tahera qutbuddin
judge on this same day. The Mamluk historian Ibn Ẓāfir reports that the qāḍī
Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Marwarūdhī told him the following:
“I recited to [Manṣūr] some verses in which I encouraged him to take the
pledge for his son Muʿizz. [Manṣūr] replied: ‘Indeed, I hope that prayers
will be invoked for [Muʿizz] upon the pulpits of Mecca and Medina, and
elsewhere, in addition to these places [in North Africa].’ And that came
to pass.” �إين لأرجو �أن:الع ْه ِد ِل َو َل ِده املُعز فقال
َ �ضه على �أ ْخ ِذ
ُّ (و�أن�شد ُته �أ ْب َيا ًتا �أ ُح
)ان كذلك ِ املو
َ َ فَك،ا�ضع َ ال عن هذه
ً �ض ِ
ْ واملدينة وغريِهما َف َ ُي ْد َعى له على َم َنا ِب ِر َمكَّة.45
Manṣūr did not mention the Abbasids or Baghdad directly, but his prayers
and hopes for control of Mecca and Medina were an explicit articulation of
hopes for dominion over the heartlands of the Islamic empire.
The Conquest of Egypt and Hegemony over Syro-Palestine and the Ḥijāz
during the Reign of al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh (r. 342-365/953-975): Poems
by the Court Poet Ibn Hāniʾ al-Andalusī
Manṣūr died in 342/953. In the first ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā sermon his son and
successor al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh delivered after his father’s death, he too
prayed for the opportunity for ḥajj, spelling out clearly the connection
between such a plea and aspirations of dominion. Praying that he reach the
holy places “with his banners”, he asked God (just as Qāʾim and Manṣūr had)
to fulfill His pledge to his forefathers promising such a victory:
For the first seventeen years of Muʿizz’s reign, Fatimid fleets and cavalry
consolidated the dynasty’s authority in North Africa and the Mediterranean.
They were led by his Slavic general al-Qāʾid Jawhar al-Ṣiqillī. During
Jawhar’s western campaign in 347/958 or 348/959, the eminent Andalusian
212 tahera qutbuddin
I have not seen a visitor of enemies v. 24 للعدى ك�سيفك زَ َّوار ًا �أَ َر و َل ْم
like your sword —
َ
Is there greeting and welcome ُ الر ْو ِم �أ ْه ٌل وت َْر
حيب ِ َف َه ْل ِع ْن َد َه
ُّ ام
among Byzantine skulls?
…
Perhaps what lures the [Armenian v. 32 َيغُ ُّر ُه َ الجا َث ِل
يق َ ََّل َعل ولكن
ْ
Church Patriarch] Catholicos
to Aleppo is the [easy] booty to be ُ على َح َل ٍب ن َْه ٌب ُهنَا ِل َك َمن ُْه
وب
looted there,
a frontier town on the borders of v. 33 ُم َ�ض َّي ٌع َّ
ال�ش� ِآم ِ ِب�أَ ْط َر
اف و َثغْ ٌر
Syria laid waste,
the discord of views [of its Abbasid وتخريب
ُ ا�ض
ٍ ِم َر ُ
ٍوتفريق �أهواء
commanders], infirm anyway, and
[its] rampant destruction.
…
The darkness [engulfing] the v. 53 الحنيف ُ�س َر ِاد ٌق
ِ َ�س َي ْج ُلو ُد َجى ال ِّد ْي ِن
Straight Religion will be removed
by pavilions روب
ُ ال�شم�س فوق ال َب ِّر والبحرِ َم ْ�ض
ِ من
of sun, set up over land and sea
…
Armenia and her inhabitants will be v. 55 و ُي ْ�س ِل ُم �أرمين َّي ًة وذواتــــــــــــــــــــها
surrendered by
the cross, established [there] to
corrupt the Armenians.
ُ ين َمن ُْ�ص
وب ِ �صليب ِل َف ْ�س
َ ـــــخ ال ْأر َم ِن ِّي ٌ
About two years later in 353/964, the Fatimids achieved a naval victory over
the Byzantines closer to home in Sicily. Ibn Hāniʾ, who had joined Muʿizz’s
personal entourage that same year, composed another poem in which he stated
that Syria could wipe away her tears (the ones she had shed over the recent
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 213
Byzantine attacks upon her soil). He again prophesized Fatimid victory over
her frontier towns, saying these would go as far as Armenia (vv. 53-56).49
The land [of Sicily] which the v. 53 �إن التـــــــــــي رام ال ُّد ُم ْ�ست ُُق َح ْر َبها
[Byzantine High Commander]
Domestikos tried to attack, ُ �صارم َم ْ�س ُل
ول ٌ ل ّله فيهــــــــــــــــــا
[was protected by] a sword drawn
for God’s cause.
Its earth is not Aleppo, its v. 54 �ساحاتها وال َح َل ٌب أر�ضها
ُ � ال
courtyards not
Egypt, [its] waterways not the Nile. الخليج ال ِّن ْي ُل
ِ ُ م�صر وال ُع ْر
�ض ٌ
Would that [the Byzantine v. 55 َ َل ْي َت الهِ َر ْق َل َب َدا بها حتى ا ْن َق
ـ�ضى
Emperor] Heraclius had appeared
there [and stayed] till the end, ُ وخ ُم
ول ُ ِذ َّل ٌة الدم�ستق
ِ وعلى
[to see] the Domestikos [covered
in] humiliation and abasement.
That which [the Fatimid forces] v. 56 ً َكَ لْك
ال عليهم ألقت
ْ � التي تلك
have thrown upon them [in Sicily]
is the chest,
but it [also] has a neck in the land َ �ض الأَ ْر َم ِن
ُ ين َت ِل
يل ِ َو َل َهــــــــــــا ِب�أَ ْر
of the Armenians!
Sometime before 358/969, a few years later when the Fatimids were
planning their next campaign to conquer Egypt, Ibn Hāniʾ addressed the
Abbasids saying that the time to return the usurped caliphate had come (v. 9).
He claimed that the Egyptians, or perhaps Egypt herself, embraced “longings
for the coming of [the Fatimids].” The following are some verses from this
looking-to-Egypt poem:50
So say to the Abbasids, return that v. 9 العبا�س ُر ُّد ْوا َم َظا ِلم ًا
ِ َف ُق ْل ِلبني
which [you] have usurped!
The time to return that which was المظالم
ُ َف َق ْد � َآن منكم �أَ ْن ت َُر َّد
usurped has come
…
O sons of the shining state [i.e., the v. 25 الغَراءِ ِ�ش ْي ُموا ُ�س ُي ْو َفكم
َّ ولة
ِ َب ِني ال َّد
Fatimids], look to your swords —
for them I predict the Iraqi َ�شا ِئ ُم ا ْل ِع َرا ِق َّي الم ْل َك
ُ َل َها َف�إني
kingdom
…
214 tahera qutbuddin
In all these early praise poems, Ibn Hāniʾ grounded his themes of conquest
in the larger Islamo-Arabic political and literary panegyric traditions. Other
than the “returning of usurped territories” (v. 9 in the “looking-to-Egypt”
poem), there is little specific Fatimid ideology evident. Rather, we see in
these poems traditional themes of courage, strength, and auspicious auguries,
and a conventional melding of love and war imagery.
Muʿizz’s vast army led by Jawhar deposed Egypt’s Ikhshīdid rulers in the
same year (358/969) easily and largely without the use of force. Jawhar took
control of Egypt and began building a new first city for his master near Fusṭāṭ.
Four years later, in 362/973, Muʿizz left the Zīrid princes in charge of North
Africa and, accompanied by his books, his family, and the coffins of the first
three Fatimid caliph-imams, moved to his new capital of Cairo: in Arabic,
al-Muʿizziyya al-Qāhira, “The Victorious City of Muʿizz”, a name clearly
deriving from the Fatimids’ imperial aspirations.
Ibn Hāniʾ composed a poem upon the conquest of Egypt which is perhaps
his most famous. Offering felicitations to the caliph-imam, the poet predicted
the follow-up conquest of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Contrary to his
earlier poems, he proffered for these prophecies a clearly ideological context.
Using theological allusions to praise the Imam as the descendent of the Prophet,
he explicitly predicted the conquest of Baghdad. Declaiming in one of the
strongest opening lines in Arabic poetry, Ibn Hāniʾ mocked the Abbasids,
and their being taken completely unawares by the Fatimid victory, thus:52
About fifty verses of praise later, Ibn Hāniʾ declared that the [promised] time
had drawn near. Waxing ideologically lyrical, he asserted that the fragrance
of the imam who was the descendent of the builder of the House perfumed the
precincts of the Kaʿba, so it was unsurprising that the House itself yearned for
him (vv. 58-60). Referring to the official colors of the Fatimid and Abbasid
states, white and black respectively, he stated, “If you come to it, the covers
of [the Kaʿ ba] will be removed, and its dusky sites will shine white.” In a
more traditional frame, he declared that the imam’s dealings with Egypt were
so virtuous that Baghdad wished it could be Egypt (v. 72).
216 tahera qutbuddin
The vale of Mecca would adore a v. 61 َم ْو ِ�س ٌم َمكَّ َة َِب ْط َحاء �إلى ِيب
ٌ َحب
season
in which Mecca and [its holy site والح ْج ُر
ِ َم َّك ُة ِف ْي ِه َم َع ًّدا ت َُح ِّيي
of the] Ḥijr greet Maʿadd [Muʿizz]
…
It is as though I see him — having v. 72 َ ار في ال َق ْو ِم ِ�س
ير ًة َ َك�أَنِّي ب ِِه َق ْد َ�س
dealt with the [Egyptians so
virtuously] بغداد َل ْو �أَن ََّها ِم ْ�ص ُر
ُ ت ََو ُّد َل ُه
that Baghdad wishes it could be
Egypt!
and the Ḥijr leaning forward to see v. 51 والح ْجـــــــــــــرِ ُم َّط ِل ًعا �إليك ت ََ�ش ُّو ًقا
ِ
you in longing,
and the Rukn, tremblingly bending ـــــــــــــن ُم ْهتَزًّ ا �إليك ت ََ�ش ُّو َفا
ِ والر ْك
ُّ
to look at you.
Most importantly from an ideological point of view, Ibn Hāniʾ again affirmed
that God’s pledge would be fulfilled, couching this affirmation in his wish
to see himself preaching a sermon for the Fatimids in Mecca and Baghdad
(vv. 52-56):
Two years later in 362/973, when Muʿizz had moved or was moving
to Cairo, Ibn Hāniʾ wrote a long 202-verse poem in his praise which is
particularly interesting for its declaration that blood revenge for Ḥusayn
would soon be achieved (picking up on Qāʾim’s earlier threats in the same
vein), for although Ḥusayn had been killed, his waliyy al-dam, Muʿizz, was
alive (v. 137). In these verses, the moral equivalence that Ibn Hāniʾ assumed
between the Umayyads and the Abbasids as perpetrators of these crimes
becomes clear, for while he made Yazīd responsible for the battle of Karbala
(v. 132), while he warned Marwanid women of impending widowhood
(v.130) and cited Umayyads as the killers (v. 146), he subordinated this entire
Umayyad-naming section to earlier verses threatening the Abbasids in Iraq of
imminent ruination at Fatimid hands (v. 123 ff.):60
[Swords are rising in wrath to v. 123 بغداد � ِإذ ُر َّد َع ْر ُ�ش ُه
َ و ِل ُلم ْل ِك في
protect] the kingdom [of Islam]
in Baghdad, for its throne has ِ �إلى َع ُ�ض ٍد في غَ ْيرِ َك ٍّف
وم ْع َ�ص ِم
been turned over
to an arm (ʿaḍud = ʿAḍud al-
Dawla, the Buyid sultan) without
a palm or a wrist.
…
It is as though you [O Muʿizz] v. 127 َك�أَ ْن َق ْد َك َ�ش ْف َت ال ْأم َر َع ْن ُ�ش ُب َها ِت ِه
have removed doubts from [these]
affair[s], ُيت ََه َّ�ض ِم ولم َح ٌّق ُي ْ�ض َط َه ْد َف َل ْم
no right is [now] denied or
swallowed up.
The waves of the Euphrates have v. 128 ِ ا�ض َدم ًا َم ْو ُج ال ُف َر
ْات و َل ْم َي ُجز َ و َف
run bloody — it is unlawful
for one who waters at it to perform َت َي ُّم ِم ِبِغَ ْير ُط ْه ٌر ِل َوارِ ِد ِه
ritual ablutions rather than the
tayammum (the substitute
ablution with earth)
222 tahera qutbuddin
May stallions not bear the cavaliers v. 129 ان َح ْر ٍب ِج َي ُاد َها َ َفال َح َم َل ْت ُف ْر َ�س
of war
if you do not visit the [Abbasids] �إذا َل ْم تَزُ ْر ُه ْم ِم ْن ُك َم ْي ٍت و�أَ ْد َه ِم
with bay and dusky horses!
May limpid water not run sweet for v. 130 وال َع ُذ َب
ل�شارب
ٍ ُ الماء ال ُق
راح ُ
[its] drinker
while there is a Marwanid woman غير �أَ َّي ِم
ُ أر�ض َم ْروان ّي ٌة
ِ وفي ال
on earth who is not widowed!
Lo! A Hāshimite hawk hovers over v. 131 �أَ َظ َّل ُه ْم ها�شم ًّيا �ص ْقر ًا
َ � َّإن َ �أ
ال
them,
making the butterfly-thin bones of ام َع ْن ُك ِّل َم ْج َث ِم
ِ اله َ ير َف َر
َ ا�ش ُ ُي ِط
the skull from each bodily frame
fly away,
Just like the battle day of Yazīd, when v. 132 َطرِ ْي َد ٌة وال�س َبا َيا
َّ َيزِ ْي ٍد َك َي ْو ِم
the captured [Hāshimite] women
were sent away in exile َع َث ْم َث ِم َ الم
ال ِط ِ َِم َّوار ُك ِّل على
on rough camels with swaying
sides.
…
But even if the best of v. 137 َف� ْإن ُيتَخَ َّر ْم َخ ْي ُر ِ�س ْب َط ْي محم ٍد
Muḥammad’s two grandsons
(Ḥusayn) has been killed, ُيتَخَ َّر ِم َل ْم َِو ِل َّي ال َّث�أر ف� َّإن
indeed, the avenger of his blood
has not been killed.
Lo! Revenge for them [note the v. 139 َ �أ
َ ال � َّإن ِوت ًْرا فِيهِ ُم غَ ْي ُر
�ضا ِئ ٍع
plural — Ḥusayn and the imams
in his progeny] will not be lost — ن َُّو ِم غَ ْي ُر ِمن ُْك ُم ٍِوتْر ال ُب ُ
َّ وط
and seekers of revenge from among
you [O Fatimids] are not asleep.
This is in all likelihood Ibn Hāniʾ’s last poem. After accompanying Muʿizz
on his journey towards Cairo as far as Barqa, Ibn Hāniʾ turned back to collect
his family before proceeding to Egypt; a few days later he died.
The Tunisian historian Ibn Abī Dīnār (fl. end of 5th/11th c.) reports an
interesting conversation between the Fatimid Caliph-Imam Muʿizz and a
Byzantine envoy to his court in Cairo, who had earlier called on him in North
Africa. In this dialogue, Muʿizz reminded the ambassador Nikūlā: “Do you
remember that when you visited me in Mahdiyya I told you that you would
come to me in Egypt and I would be king over her? I tell you now that you
will come to me in Baghdad and I will be king over her.”61 Muʿizz never
achieved actual dominion over the Abbasid capital, but in his time, major
steps were taken towards larger Fatimid hegemony, and as we have seen
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 223
through Ibn Hāniʾ’s poetry, his takeover of Abbasid lands was particularly
successful. Shortly after the conquest of Egypt, the Fatimids made their
initial thrust into Syria, and the amīrs of Mecca and Medina also announced
fealty. During the rest of Muʿizz’s reign, the khuṭba was pronounced for
him in the two holy cities, as well as in other parts of the Ḥijāz, large parts
of Syria and Palestine, and in Sicily in the Mediterranean, in addition to the
large stretch of land extending from the farthest Maghrib across North Africa
and Egypt to the Red Sea.
The Muʿizzī conquests, particularly the events leading up to the capture of
Egypt and the immediate aftermath, are nowhere better expressed than in the
verse of Muʿizz’s court poet Ibn Hāniʾ, as are the specifics of the imperialist
intentions that accompanied them and gained momentum under them. I have
discussed nine of these poems here, and there are many more. Yaʿ lāwī (who
edited and analyzed Ibn Hāniʾ’s dīwān) appositely commented thus: “There
is no doubt that when [Ibn Hāniʾ] prophesizes these desired victories, he is
verbalizing the opinion of the caliph and announcing [concrete] upcoming
military programs. It is as though his poetry were a speaking book regarding
the manifest and hidden aims of the State.”62 However, although Ibn Hāniʾ’s
themes of hegemonic desires contained allusions to Fatimid ideology, they
were not steeped in it in the same manner as the poems of the Caliph-Imam
al-Qāʾim, or the dāʿ īs Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman and Muʾayyad Shīrāzi, or
even Prince Tamīm. Ibn Haniʾ was not a dāʿ ī himself, and may not have
been versed in the deeper Fatimid doctrines. In declarations of impending
Fatimid victories in his later poems, he did use some ideas of the imamate (he
had, after all, become close to Muʿizz, perhaps even converted to the Fatimid
madhhab and studied its doctrines). But on the whole, particularly in his
earlier panegyrics, his presentation grounded itself in the commonly shared
literary traditions of political panegyric from the Arabic heritage.
During the reign of Muʿizz’s son and successor al-ʿAzīz bi-L-lāh, Fatimid
hegemony in the territories conquered by his father stayed essentially constant.
Egypt remained the seat of their empire, the Maghrib and Sicily more or less
loyal, and large parts of the Ḥijāz and Yemen in acknowledgement of their
suzerainty. Syria and Palestine continued to be an arena of military tussle
among the Fatimids, the Abbasids, the Byzantines, and the local rulers. ʿAzīz
personally led armies into Syrian territories and achieved victories there.
Amīr Tamīm — eldest son of Muʿizz, brother of ʿAzīz, and a distinguished
poet — composed several poems praising ʿAzīz. During Muʿizz’s reign
Tamīm had perhaps been overshadowed by Ibn Hāniʾ, but in ʿAzīz’s time
224 tahera qutbuddin
he came into his own. In four panegyrics for his brother the caliph-imam, he
dwelt upon Fatimid hopes for dominion, particularly the conquest of Baghdad
and the two holy cities of the Ḥijāz.
In 368/978, Tamīm composed a 76-verse poem in alif congratulating ʿAzīz
upon a major victory under the caliph-imam’s personal command near Ramla
over the former Buyid-Abbasid commander [Aftakīn] “al-Turkī.” The poet
declared that news of ʿAzīz’s triumph was “making the rounds in Baghdad
driving sleep from the eyes of the heretic [Abbasids]” and “scorching the
souls of the Daylamite Buyid sultans” who ruled Baghdad in their name
(vv. 61-66). Let them realize — said Tamīm, like other Fatimid poets before
him — that “the time had drawn nigh” and the kingdom of the Abbasids
would come to a “terrible end” (v. 67):63
In the next few lines (vv. 68-73), Tamīm further underscored the doctrinal
rationale behind such conquest by addressing ʿAzīz as the descendant of
the Prophet, the son of ʿAlī and Fāṭima, and also — in an interesting use of
taʾ wīl motifs — the “son” of the holy ḥajj sites of Ṣafā, Marwa, and the
Ḥaṭīm.
Further elaborating these same motifs in a short rāʾiyya, Tamīm celebrated
the fact that “the dāʿ ī” had prayed for ʿAzīz “publicly” (muʿlinan) in Mecca
during the ḥajj season, such that the ritual was blessed for that year’s pilgrims
(v. 1). The hills of Ṣafā and Marwa, and the well of Zamzam — all part
of the ḥajj rites — longed for the caliph-imam to come, and the Rukn and
the Ḥijr — also holy sites in the Kaʿba — plainly prayed for his well-being
(vv. 2-3). Being the son of the Prophet who had brought Islam and the Qurʾān,
ʿAzīz was the legitimate possessor of the lands in which the Qurʾān had been
revealed and Islam had gained might (vv. 4-5):64
The dāʿ ī prayed for you publicly at v. 1 اعي ب َِم َّك َة ُم ْع ِلنًا ِ ِا�س ِم َك ال َّد
ْ َد َعا ب
Mecca,
and the ḥajj and its culmination الح ُّج وال َّن ْف ُر
َ الم ْو ِ�س ِم
َ َِف َطاب لأَ ْهل
became pleasing for the people of
the holy season.
Ṣafā and Marwa yearned for you, v. 2 وزَ ْمزَ ٌم َان
ِ الم ْر َوت �إليك وحن َّْت
َ
َ
as did [the well of] Zamzam.
The Rukn and the Ḥijr overtly والح ْج ُر
ِ ُّ َ�صرِ ْيح ًا بك
الر ْك ُن ْ و َث َّو َب ت
pronounced benedictions upon you.
The pastures and meadows of the v. 3 و�أَ ْر ُب ٌع ِ ال ُق َر
ان آيات
ِ � َم َ�سارِ ُح
verses of the Qurʾān —
In them, belief became apparent, ُ
الك ْف ُر ُ بها َظ َه َر ال
َإيمان َوا ْن َد َمغ
and disbelief was overcome.
A land in whose courtyards v. 4 ِ أر�ض غَ َدا ِل ْل َو ْح ِي بين ِع َر
ا�صها ٌ �و
Revelation
promenaded, and by [the hands of] َ�ص ُر
ْ إ�سالم في �أه ِلها ن ٌ َم َج
ِ ال ولل
whose inhabitants Islam was
aided —
You, O son of the Prophet v. 5 النبي محم ٍد ِّ أنت ب َِها يا �ٱ ْب َن
َ �و
Muḥammad,
are worthier of it, if the shining الح َج ُج الزُّ ْه ُر
ُ �أَ َح ُّق �إذا ما َبان َِت
proofs [are viewed].
Although Tamīm penned more wine and love poems than panegyrics, the
latter are beautiful illustrations of classical Arabic literature, and powerful
examples of Fatimid praise poetry. As the texts cited here demonstrate, the
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 227
doctrinal aspect in Tamīm’s praise verses is deep. More so, it appears, than
in Ibn Hāniʾ’s poetry, for although not active in proselytizing or preaching,
Tamīm was a prince of the palace; he identified closely with the family
and its ideology, and one presumes that the imam and his dāʿ īs had trained
him in the doctrines of Fatimid esoterics (taʾ wīl) since childhood. Tamīm
differed from Ibn Hāniʾ in another way as well. Contrary to that court poet
(and also different from Qāʾim in this regard), the prince named no specific
places as targets of conquest in his serenade of Fatimid victories. But (like
Qāʾim), he couched his laudations in Fatimid doctrine: themes of divine
pledge fulfillment, holy images of Meccan ḥajj sites, allusions to the Qurʾān
and Revelation, and motifs of descent from Muḥammad. And he tied these
aspects firmly with the person of the Caliph-Imam ʿAzīz.
other such mahdist ideas, he praised the Fatimids as “imams for the people of
the East and the West.”72 In 448/1056, Muʾayyad escorted supplies to Syria
in readiness for a Fatimid attack on Baghdad, to be led by a former Abbasid
general, Abū l-Ḥārith al-Basāsīrī.73 At this time, the Buyid protectorate of the
titular Abbasid caliph in Baghdad had been taken over by the Saljuks and was
headed by the Sultan Ṭughril Bēg. Having negotiated hard and effectively
to unite the refractory Syrian princes under the Fatimid banner, Muʾayyad
declared in a stylized paronomasia filled fakhr poem that his campaign had
been the most successful of all those aimed at felling the rival power. He
coupled his vaunting of the physical blows he had dealt to the Abbasid
caliphate with the verbal blows he had inflicted on their authority with his
“wise” and “rational” expositions, his correspondence with the Syrian rulers,
his discourses among the believers, and his poems:74
Baghdad’s eye has never seen v. 8 بغداد َمــــــــــــــا َر�أَ ْت �أَ َب ًدا
َ َو َع ْي ُن
dust like the dust raised by my feet.
ار ُه َق َد ِمــــــــــــــــي َ
َ َن ْق ًعا َك َن ْقع ٍ �أ َث
After I stopped the palms of a tyrant v. 9 اغ َي ٍة
ِ َط َك ِّف ْي �أَ ُك َّف َب ْع ِد ِم ْن
[Ṭughril],
my pen clipped the nails of his evil. أظفــــــــــــــــــــار َ�ش ِّرها َق َلمي
َ � َق َّل َم
…
Indeed, the salvation of souls is in v. 11 ِ ِح
كَمي في �س
ِ ال ُّنف ُْو ن ََجا َة � َّإن
my wise words,
and the intellect is my arbiter in َح َك ِمي �أَ ُ�س ْو ُق ُه ِف ْي َما والع ْق ُل
َ
what I bring forth.
A scowling day for the son of v. 4 ب ِِه عبا�س ال ْب ِن َي ْو ٍم و�س
ٍ ِ ُ وع ُب
َ
ʿAbbās, in which
he met Death, appearing in person ِل ِع َيا ِن ِه ُمت ََ�شخِّ �ص ًا الر َدى
َّ َ
ال َقى
in front of his eyes.
[The Abbasid caliph] spent the v. 5 ول َم َذ َّل ٍة
ِ ات َي ْعث ُُر في ُذ ُي
َ � ْإذ َب
night stumbling in the train of
humiliation[’s robes] يوا ِن ِه
َ ِ�س عن �إ
ِ الح ْب
َ َ َا�ض ِ�ض
يق ُ َي ْعت
exchanging his audience hall for
the narrow confines of a cell.
He saw on the mast [his vizier] Ibn v. 6
َّ ور�أَى على
ال�صارِ ي ا ْب َن ُم ْ�س ِل َم َة ا ّلذي َ
Muslima,
from whose violence the mouth of َ �ض َّج ْت َف ُم ال ْإ�س
ال ِم ِم ْن ُع ْد َوا ِن ِه َ
Islam had screamed [for help].
May God water with buckets of his v. 7 ال رحم ِته َث َرى َ إله ِ�س َج
ُ َف َ�س َقى ال
mercy, the earth
of the grave in which ِع ْم َرا ِن ِه ِف ْي ِه �أَ ُبو َث َوى ٍَق ْبر
[Muʾayyad’s father] Abū ʿImrān
lies!
Indeed, how many difficult v. 8 َك ْم
َ َق
ام ُه ٍ َم َق
ام ِم ْن ا ْبن َُه � َّإن
situations has his son stood firm in,
with steadfast heart and tongue, و ِل َ�سا ِن ِه َجنَا ِن ِه ِب َث ْب ِت �ص ْع ًبا
َ
in order to raise the banners of the v. 9 و�آ ِل ِه ّبي َر ْف ِع
Prophet and his progeny,
ِّ الن ات
ِ َرا َي في
and to strike and pierce their وط َعا ِن ِه
ِ لِعِ َدات ِِه ْم ِ
ِو�ض َرا ِبه
enemies.
How well does he shore up v. 10 ارو ِن ِه
ُ َه َب ِن ْي ق َُوى َي ُ�ش ُّد َكَم
the strength of the sons of [the
ْ ول
Prophet’s] Aaron, اما ِن ِه
َ َه َب ِني ِبنَا َي ُه ُّد و َل َك ْم
and how well does he destroy
the edifice of the children of his
Hāmān.
their power base as far away as India, and eventually — without actually
identifying places further distant — achieve worldwide hegemony.
As we have seen, the verse of Qāʾim and Ibn Hāniʾ (and to a lesser extent
Tamīm and Muʾayyad) specifies the lands the Fatimids intended to conquer,
and using concurrent ideological motifs, it frames these expected conquests
in the broader Fatimid perception of themselves — the progeny of the Prophet
— as the sole rightful rulers of the Islamic world.
The poets most often targeted Baghdad. Capital of the Abbasids, it
was not only the physical hub of their power, but also the symbol of their
caliphate. If Baghdad fell, the Fatimid caliphate would have no serious rival
in the Islamic world. Beginning with the pre-establishment poets in Yemen
and North Africa, we see prophecies of Abbasid downfall at the hands of the
mahdī from the Banū Fāṭima, with the declaration by dāʿ ī Abū l-Qāsim, “Say
to the Abbasids, get ready to leave!” These prophecies persisted and gathered
specificity and strength as the decades went on — Qāʿīm loudly and clearly
proclaimed: “Our fighting will focus on Baghdad” (v. 3) and “Baghdad is
my goal” (v. 27, lāmiyya) — until they crescendoed in the poems of Ibn
Hāniʾ just before and after the Fatimid conquest of Egypt, an Abbasid vassal-
state. When Fusṭāṭ fell, Ibn Hāniʾ immediately urged Muʿizz “Onward to
Iraq! Leave Egypt to [Jawhar’s care]!” (v. 39, fāʾiyya).78 Prince Tamīm
continued to emphasize the inevitability of Fatimid victory over Baghdad,
pronouncing in the wake of ʿAzīz’s victorious battle with Aftakīn in Syria
that “its report was making the rounds in Baghdad, driving sleep from the
eyes of the heretic [Abbasids].” Muʾayyad in his verse celebrated the actual
victory in 450/1058, saying it had been “a scowling day for the [captured and
deposed] son of ʿAbbās” (v. 4, nūniyya) and that he, Muʾayyad, had “raise[d]
the banners of the Prophet and his progeny” (vv. 8-9, nūniyya) by striking at
the core of the Abbasid empire.
Egypt was another key land mentioned as a potential conquest by the
Fatimid poets. Not only was it a necessary capture if the Fatimids wanted to
take Baghdad, but in its own right, it was a wealthy, self-sustaining province
strategically placed in the center of the Islamic lands — the perfect hub from
which to launch a program of universal dominion. Early on in the dynasty,
Qāʾim had led two expeditions to Alexandria in 302/914 and 306/918, and
had declared in his poetry that he would conquer Egypt. In one of his poems
he said, “My cavalry hastens towards … Egypt” (vv. 26-27, lāmiyya) and in
another, he invited his father Mahdī who had “sent [him] to Egypt” (v. 8) to
“await victories at … [the banks of] the Nile (and the Euphrates and Tigris)”
(vv. 16-17, lāmiyya). In 358/969, Qāʾim’s grandson Muʿizz conquered
Egypt. Ibn Hāniʾ celebrated the victory, portraying it as the prelude to the
conquest of Baghdad. Mocking the Abbasids, he intoned “The sons of
ʿAbbās ask: ‘Has Egypt been conquered?’ Say to the sons of ʿAbbās: ‘[Your
232 tahera qutbuddin
Byzantine skulls? What lures the Catholicos to Aleppo is the [easy] booty to
be looted there … [But] the darkness … will be removed … the cross will
relinquish control over Armenia” (vv. 24, 32, 53, 55, bāʾiyya). Elsewhere,
Ibn Hāniʾ compared the Fatimids’ success against the Byzantines in Sicily to
the Abbasids’ poor record in Syria: “The land which the Domestikos attacked
(i.e., Sicily) was protected by a sword drawn for God’s cause (i.e., the Fatimid
imam). Its earth is not Aleppo (which, being under the Abbasids, is poorly
defended) …” (vv. 53-54, lāmiyya). The Fatimids, said their poets, would
safeguard the domains of Islam from the marauding Christian armies in a way
that the Abbasids could not.
Palestine and its city of Ramla (near Jerusalem) were singled out by Ibn
Hāniʾ, who declared in his tribute to Jawhar’s forces (which were then moving
towards Egypt) that “Palestine has given over her reins, no area within her
boundaries remains defended. Ramla the well-protected is not the first place
to find no refuge from you[r strike]” (vv. 69-70, ʿayniyya).
Khurasan, Kabul, Sind, and India — lands successively east of the central
Islamic lands — also figured in the Fatimid scheme of conquest. After
defeating the Abbasids and taking control of Iraq and Persia, the Fatimids
hoped to extend their control ever further eastward. Early on in the dynasty,
Qāʾim addressed his father saying, “You sent me to conquer Egypt, Syria,
Khurasan, Iraq and Persia (lit. the two Iraqs) in their entirety” (v. 8, lāmiyya).
Half a century later, Ibn Hāniʾ declared in the same vein that with Muʿizz’s
taking of Egypt “there [had] shone forth … a road to the far end of Khurasan”
(v. 76, ʿayniyya). Eyeing lands yet further east, Qāʾim in another poem
avowed “My cavalry will night-march beyond the Nile seeking the enemies
of religion until it rests in Kabul!” (v. 37, lāmiyya). “Kabul” fits the rhyme
scheme of his lāmiyya poem, and this could be the literary reason Qāʾim
brought it up, but seen as a logical subsequent step east from Khurasan
towards India, it could also have been a real target. The next eastern country
of consequence was India, and Ibn Hāniʾ connected the awaited defeat of the
Abbasids with a forward march east, prophesying in one verse Baghdad’s
fall, then asserting that “Indian kings and Sindi ones have been tested by
nights [of fearful anticipation of the Fatimids’ coming]” (v. 54, khāʾiyya).
As mentioned earlier, the western and north-western parts of the Indian
subcontinent were home to a covert Fatimid mission overseen by the daʿwa
in the Yemen.
In addition to the lands that the Fatimids aspired to, it is interesting to
think about which ones did not interest them as much and why, particularly
the obvious one just across the Mediterranean to the north from the Maghrib
— Andalusia. At the onset of the Fatimid empire, Muḥammad b. Ramaḍān
prophesied the downfall of the Spanish Umayyads, the “Banū Marwān” (v.
12, rāʾiyya) and later, Ibn Hāniʿ assured Muʿizz that “the Umayyads … are
234 tahera qutbuddin
stunned [by Jawhar’s victories in the western Maghrib c. 348/959], such that
they imagine you appearing” (v. 42, ḥāʾiyya).79 But by and large, Andalusia
does not appear to have figured as an important target conquest in Fatimid
poetry. In addition to possible military and political reasons for the Fatimids’
relative indifference to Spain, our poetry highlights an ideological one: their
long-term plan to move eastward. Spain was too far away from the central
Islamic realms to play a role in aspirations for the conquest of the latter, and
the Fatimids saw themselves not just as a peripheral dynasty, but as rulers of
the Islamic world.
While poets of other early Islamic dynasties also ascribed their patrons’
dominion to God’s will and aid, their verse was relatively less oriented
towards religion, and generally did not bear messianic overtones. Moreover,
although these poets celebrated their patrons’ immediate victories, they do not
seem to have laid out plans for future conquests by him or his progeny. This
difference becomes clear if we glance at victory odes composed by some of the
preeminent poets of the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Spanish Umayyad dynasties
(translated and analyzed by Stetkevych in her work on poetic legitimation
mentioned earlier). Akhṭal, in his poem “The Tribe Has Departed”, asserted
that “God made [the Umayyad Caliph ʿAbdalmalik] victorious [over the
rebelling Ibn al-Zubayr],” where rather than the Qurʾanic terms fatḥ and
naṣr he used the word ẓafar to mean victory, and where, although he used
the weighty appellation “Caliph of God” for his patron, he applied no other
overt religious doctrine.80 Abū Tammām, in his famous poem celebrating the
Abbasid Caliph Muʿtaṣim’s conquest of the Byzantine fortress of Amorium
that begins “The sword is more veracious than books”, utilized relatively
more religious allusion: he used Qurʾānic references saying the caliph was
“nourished on victory (naṣr)” and in his line “God hurled you against her
two towers”;81 and he connected his patron’s triumph over the Christians
with the Prophet’s defeat of the Meccans, claiming that “The closest lineage
connect[ed] the days of Badr to [the caliph’s] victorious days”.82 But despite
this relatively copious religious base, Abū Tammām’s legitimation was quite
different in character from that of the Fatimids messianic imamate doctrine.
Unlike them, he used no references to the establishment of just rule on earth, or
of expectations of retribution for past oppression; nor did he bring in allusions
to universal hegemony and the fulfillment of God’s pledge The later Abbasid
poet Mutanabbī played on his patron’s title and constantly referred to him as
the “Sword of God”, as in his poem celebrating Sayf al-Dawla’s defeat of the
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 235
Byzantine domesticus Bardas Phocas that began “Each man’s fate is fixed
by his own custom”; but the sword-of-God motif is almost the full extent of
theological thematizing in Mutanabbī’s poem.83 Although the Abbasids had
come to power largely through a Shiʿite call for retribution which was itself
underpinned by messianism (both of which were symbolized in their black
banners), these two galvanizing themes appear to have disappeared from the
Abbasid propaganda vocabulary after their accession to power, perhaps as
a result of their early distancing of themselves from the Shiʿa movements,
which had formed the groundswell of their revolt. This ideological shift is
clear in the absence of mahdist and retribution motifs from the poetry of their
major panegyrists. As for the Spanish Umayyads, one of their famed poets,
Ibn Darrāj, writing in Andalusia at the very time of the Egyptian Fatimid
caliphate, came closer to the Fatimid doctrinal hegemonic motif of God’s
pledge when he said to Sulaymān, his prince of Qurashī Meccan lineage,
“Your house found repose in Mecca’s broad valley until the return of days
whose promised time drew near”; but Ibn Darrāj’s “promised time” was for
“processions of cavalry” and other items of military glory with no clearly
professed religious connection: no reference to justice or other mahdist ideas,
no references to the Kaʿba or ḥajj rites, and no other Islamic references.84
In contrast, the Fatimids had a distinctive religious ideology driving their
conquest aspirations. Their poets grounded hopes for conquests in Egypt, Iraq,
Syria and elsewhere, as well as their broader desire for universal hegemony,
firmly in their mahdist doctrine of the imamate. They characterized their
anticipated conquests as the fulfillment of God’s pledge to humankind — to
provide retribution for past injustices, and to realize divine rule on earth —
through the victorious re-emergence (ẓuhūr) of the imam.
The set of poetic motifs that looked to the past sought retroactive justice
for the collective Hāshimite blood spilled in the years following the death of
the Prophet Muḥammad, particularly blood revenge (thaʾ r) for his grandson
Ḥusayn. Fatimid poets viewed the Abbasids as spiritual heirs of the Umayyad
perpetrators, and as successors of the first three Sunnī caliphs who “laid the
foundations” for the killings.85 On the other hand, the Fatimid poets regarded
their imams as spiritual heirs of the victims, heroes who sacrificed their lives
to save humankind. Yazīd’s army had slaughtered Ḥusayn, along with a
small group of family and companions, after denying them water for three
days on the banks of the Euphrates in Karbala. In our poetry, that river was
often the symbol that glued together the two themes of rule and revenge,
being at once the site of Ḥusayn’s suffering, and a symbol for Abbasid lands,
for it flowed physically through them. In one poem, Qāʾim mentioned the
banks of this river as the site of a looming battle with the Abbasids: “Our
souls shall be ‘quenched’ with their delicious blood … when they come [to
fight us] … from the opposite bank of the Euphrates!” (vv. 33-35, lāmiyya),
236 tahera qutbuddin
and he followed this forecast with a line about the martyr who had died
thirsty on its banks: “I remembered Ḥusayn, my eyes filled with tears, and
I said: I shall not forget my forbears! I shall kill each leader and follower
among the [enemy] …” (v. 36, lāmiyya). Ibn Hāniʾ used the very terms
thaʾr and witr (both meaning blood-revenge) to validate fighting the Abbasids,
affirming ominously that “revenge (witr) for [al-Ḥusayn’s killing] would not
be lost” (v. 139, mīmiyya). He declared that the Euphrates would run red
with Abbasid blood, then lamented the suffering of Ḥusayn and his family,
and affirmed in climax that “even if the best of Muḥammad’s two grandsons
ha[d] been killed, indeed, the avenger of his blood [waliyy al-thaʾ r, Muʿizz]
is alive” (v. 137, mīmiyya). He went on to announce: “More worthy of blame
than Umayya … are men who are the root of the disease … who nominated
Taym [to the caliphate] (alluding to Abu Bakr who was from this clan) …”
(v. 157, mīmiyya).86 The Twelver Shiʿite poet Samarqandī, in his praise of
Muʿizz upon his conquest of Egypt, accused the Abbasids of spilling the very
blood — i.e., of the same family, the Prophet’s kin — for which they had
claimed to seek vengeance when they revolted against the Umayyads: “You
have spilt the very blood that you sought vengeance (thaʾ r) for …” (v. 20,
rāʾiyya). Prince Tamīm too, applied the term thaʾ r to the Abbasids when he
stated: “O sons of ʿAbbās, you are blood-revenge targets (thaʾ r) for the sons
of [Fāṭima] al-Zahrāʾ” (v. 55, lāmiyya).
In speaking of the immediate oppression of the Abbasids, the righting-
of-earlier-injustices theme was channeled into the poets’ present. Qāʾim
explained why he was intent upon conquering Baghdad by saying that “there
is glaring oppression and sedition there … [the Abbasids] harbor unjust
enmity for us, they wish to kill us, O how many bitter cups of bereavement
have they made us drink [in the past]!”
In tandem with this retrospective rationale, the set of motifs that looked
to the future anticipated the fulfillment of God’s pledge to His prophets that
their heir, the righteous imam, the mahdī in the line of the last Prophet and
his legatee, would one day rule the earth. The kingdom belonged to him,
and God would restore it to him. Within this philosophy of cyclical time, the
Fatimid poets emphasized a dual suite of aspects: the injustice of Abbasid
usurpation of the caliphate, and the imminence of its replacement with a
reign of justice and light. At the beginning of the dynasty in a challenge
poem to the Abbasids after his march on Alexandria, Qāʾim used Qurʾānic
phraseology to signal realization of the Almighty’s assurance, declaring:
“When the [triumph] that I had been promised (kuntu mūʿadan bihi) arrived,
God’s aid (naṣr) hastened [to me] bringing victory (fatḥ)” (v. 21, bāʾiyya).
In the last few years of the North African phase, Ibn Hāniʾ belligerently
instructed the Abbasids to return what they had stolen: “Say to the Abbasids,
return that which you have usurped (ruddū maẓāliman), for the time for
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 237
you to return usurped things has arrived!” (v. 9, mīmiyya), and anticipated
invoking Muʿizz’s name on the pulpits of Mecca and Baghdad “while the
pledge of [Muʿizz’s] Lord ha[d] been fulfilled” (v. 56, fāʾiyya). Decades
later in Egypt, Tamīm added his assertions — several times over — that the
moment of triumph had approached. In a poem of congratulation to ʿAzīz, he
intoned “The time has drawn nigh (qad qaruba l-waqt), so let [the Abbasids]
acknowledge their imminent decline …” (v. 67, alifiyya).87 Elsewhere, he
connected the arrival of the awaited moment with the obligation upon his
own Fatimid family to take up arms, stating “The time has come (fa-qad āna
an naghzū) for us to fight in every place” (v. 9).
The poets pointed out that the imam was not undertaking this mission for
personal gain. It would be the people who benefited from his just rule; it was
they who longed for him to reveal his auspicious self. Indeed, not only people,
but — inverting the metaphor as mentioned earlier — the very land of Egypt,
the Kaʿ ba, and the holy places of Mecca and Medina, all anxiously awaited
his goodly presence among them. As Tamīm put it: “Ṣafā and Marwa yearn
for your coming!” (v. 2, rāʾiyya) and as Ibn Hāniʾ beseeched: “Egypt longs
for you … so quench her thirst …!” (v. 38, mīmiyya).
In the preceding pages, I have read Fatimid poetry for historical informa-
tion, and shown it to be a dynamic interface between political ambitions and
religious ideology. The verse of the Fatimid poets records their aspirations
— even as they first came on the scene in North Africa — to overthrow the
Abbasids, claim the full Islamic empire in progressive eastward stages, then
go beyond to conquer the world. Furthermore, it tells us that they anticipated
these victories in a mahdist frame, as retribution for past injustices suffered
by their forbears, and as a fulfillment of God’s pledge to humankind in the
Revealed Books that a righteous imam would one day establish just rule on
earth. In this manner, the case of the Fatimids speaks for the vital relevance
of poetry to the construction of a nuanced historical narrative.
238 tahera qutbuddin
Notes
1
For a comprehensive and careful evaluation of the medieval and modern sources
of Fatimid history, see Walker (2002). Detailed modern histories of the Fatimid
caliphate in North Africa and Egypt include: Dachraoui (1970), Ḥasan (1991),
Surūr (1994), Sayyid (2000), Brett (2001), Halm (1996, 2003), and Daftary (2007).
2
In contrast, praise poems by the later non-Ismāʿīlī Ḥāfiẓī poets, Ẓāfir al-Ḥaddād
(d. 528/1134) and ʿUmāra al-Yamanī (d. 569/1174), appear to be relatively less
consequential for our purposes.
3
Stetkevych (2002: 80-109, 144-179, 180-240, 241-282).
4
Maqrīzī, Muqaffā VI, 186-187.
5
Ibn Hāniʾ, Dīwān 278-279.
6
Qutbuddin (2005: 278-281).
7
Some poems are also cited in Nuʿmān, Sharḥ al-akhbār, Maqrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ, and
Khiṭaṭ; Muʾayyad, Sīra, Ibn Ḥammād, Akhbār, and Dawādārī, Kanz.
8
Yaʿlāwī (1985: “historical allusions”: 141-202, “theological themes:” 239-270,
“political themes”: 271-304; and in his ed. of Ibn Hāniʾ’s Dīwān, 1994: 207, n. 39;
290, n. 34).
9
Rubinacci (1990: 199-200).
10
Ḥijāzī (2005).
11
Qutbuddin (2005: “life and career”: 1-100, theological themes: 105-117, 143-218,
and passim).
12
Ḥusayn (1950: 137-140).
13
ʿImād, Kharīda XII, 3, XI, 285.
14
The earliest mahdist movement was probably the one espoused by Mukhtār al-
Thaqafī (d. 67/687) who proclaimed Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya (d. 81/700), son
of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, the Mahdī. For a broad history of mahdist beliefs and political
movements in Islam, as well as details of Sunnī and Shiʿī sources of prophetic
ḥadith foretelling the coming of the mahdī, see Madelung (2008).
15
Nuʿmān, Sharḥ al-akhbār III, 355-431; Urjūza 196, 201.
16
Q 21:105, regularly referenced by our poets.
17
Nuʿmān, Iftitāḥ 3. Trans. in Haji trans. of Iftitāḥ (2006: 21).
18
The Abbasid caliphs had used these same titles, an indication of their own
subscription to the mahdist doctrine.
19
Undermining the prevalent theory that the term “Fatimid” was a later back
projection, we find the phrase “the Fatimid imam” (al-imām al-Fāṭimī) as early
as 297/909, the very year the Fatimid caliphate was established, in a poem of the
former Aghlabid poet Saʿdūn al-Warjīnī. Nuʿmān, Iftitāḥ 301; Idrīs, ʿUyūn V, 174;
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 239
Maqrīzī, Muqaffā IV, 566; idem., Ittiʿāẓ I, 73. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 37). Trans.
by Haji in his trans. of Nuʿmān, Iftitāḥ (2006: 209).
20
Nuʿmān (Sharḥ al-Akhbār III, 413) reports that in 145/762, the fifth Fatimid Imam
Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq had sent two dāʿ īs named Ḥulwānī and Abū Sufyān to North Africa,
to “till the ground” in readiness for the one who would “sow the seeds” of Fatimid
dominion.
21
Nuʿmān, Iftitāḥ 251; Haji trans. (2006: 179).
22
Ibid., 73; idem., Sharḥ al-akhbār III, 426; Idrīs, ʿUyūn V, 55-56. Cited in Yaʿlāwī
(1986: 24). Trans. by Haji in his trans. of Nuʿmān, Iftitāḥ (2006: 72). Nuʿmān (and
following him Idrīs) tell us that Muḥammad composed this poem when he heard
that Ibrāhīm II had treacherously killed a thousand Billizmians to whom he had
given shelter in Raqqada; Ibn ʿIdhārī (Bayān I, 123) says this incident happened in
the year 280/[893].
23
Nuʿmān, Iftitāḥ 65-66; idem., Sharḥ al-akhbār III, 419-421, citation of poem and
context information, including poet’s name; Idrīs ʿUyūn V, 52. Cited in Yaʿlāwī
(1986: 15-16). Verses also trans. in Haji trans. of Iftitāḥ (2006: 68), and Brett
(2001: 174-175).
24
Nuʿmān, Iftitāḥ 301; Idrīs, ʿUyūn V, 174-176; Maqrīzī, Muqaffā IV, 566-567;
idem., Ittiʿāẓ I, 73. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 37). Trans. by Haji in his trans. of
Nuʿmān, Iftitāḥ (2006: 209). Also trans. and briefly commented on by Smoor
(1998: 134-137). Nuʿmān, Idrīs, and the Mālikī judge ʿIyāḍ b. Mūsā (Tartīb I,
104) call the poet ‘Saʿdūn al-Warjīnī’ with a nūn; al-Maqrīzī called him ‘Saʿdūn
al-Warjīlī’ with a lām. These sources do not cite the full poem, so I am unable to
provide verse numbers.
25
Maqrīzī, Muqaffā VI, 183. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 81-84). Some verses also trans.
by Halm (1996: 196-213], Canard (1942-47: 172-173) and Rubinacci (1990: 199).
26
Q 61:13.
27
Q 30:6. More than fifty Qurʾānic verses assert the idea of God’s pledge being
fulfilled; cf. wʿ d in any Qurʾān concordance.
28
Q 21:105.
29
Maqrīzī, Muqaffā VI, 186-187.
30
Idrīs, ʿUyūn V, 197-198. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 94-95). Some verses also trans.
by Halm (1996: 204).
31
Literally “the two Iraqs”. Passim.
32
Maqrīzī, Muqaffā VI, 184. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 101). Unfortunately, the impact
of the echoing rhetorical trope of anticipating the rhyme word (radd al-ʿajuz ʿalā
l-ṣadr) indicating this emphasis is lost in the translation. Due to differences in
standard word order between the English subject-verb and the Arabic verb-subject
sequence, the translation is unable to maintain the repetition of the word “God” at
the end of each line.
33
Idrīs, ʿUyūn V, 226. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 95-100).
34
Yāqūt, Muʿjam III, 15, 60.
240 tahera qutbuddin
35
“Its child is not called out to” is a proverb meaning “a grave matter in which the
young are not called upon to participate, rather, [mature] middle-aged and older
men are summoned.” Maydānī, Majmaʿ II, 390 (#4516).
36
Fatimid doctrines of the imamate are expounded in detail in daʿwa treatises,
including: Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim I, 3-78 (ch. on “Allegiance”); idem., Taʾwīl al-
daʿāʾim, passim; Kirmānī, Maṣābīḥ 36-75; Muʾayyad, Majālis, passim.
37
See text of letter in Idrīs, ʿUyūn V, 206.
38
Idrīs, ʿUyūn V, 338.
39
Ibid., 402. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 160-161).
40
Ibid., 409, 474, 488, 813. Cited in Stern (1958: 148-152) and Yaʿlāwī (1986: 189-
200).
41
Dachraoui (1970: 250).
42
Ibid.
43
Idrīs, ʿUyūn V, 45-46, 381-382. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 157-159).
44
Ibid., 429; Maqrīzī Muqaffā I, 147. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 169).
45
Ibn Ẓāfir, Akhbār 19.
46
Idrīs, ʿUyūn V, 541-548, relevant lines on p. 548. Cited in Yaʿlāwī (1986: 256-
264, relevant lines on p. 263).
47
For Ibn Hāniʾ’s dates, see Yaʿlāwī (1985: 117, 122).
48
Ibn Hāniʾ, Dīwān 41-47.
49
Ibid., 282-294.
50
Ibid., 387-327.
51
Ibid., 202-209; Idris, ʿUyūn VI (Yaʿlāwī ed.), 668-669.
52
Ibn Hāniʾ, Dīwān 136-143. Also cited by Idris, ʿUyūn VI (Yaʿlāwī ed.), 687-688.
The opening line, as cited here from the Dīwān and Idrīs’s ʿUyūn, is quite famous.
But the 7th/13th c. historian Ibn Ḥammād (Akhbār 46-47) cites it differently, with a
more direct statement of intent to attack Baghdad:
Get supplies ready for Baghdad, م�صر
ُ بغداد َق ْد ُف ِت َح ْت
َ ت ََج َّهزْ �إلى
for Egypt has been conquered,
َ
The dealing of the Age has fulfilled ف ال َّد ْهرِ َما َو َع َد ال َّد ْه ُر َ َو�أن َْجز
ُ �ص ْر
that which the Age had pledged
Ibn Ḥammād also gives the next two lines, which are identical to the lines in the
Dīwān and Idrīs’s ʿUyūn.
53
Idrīs in the ʿUyūn has taqūlu, while the Dīwān has yaqūlu (both ed. by Yaʿlāwī).
54
Idrīs, ʿUyūn VI (Yaʿlāwī ed.), 689.
55
Idrīs, ʿUyūn VI: Yaʿlāwī ed. 689-691, Ghalib ed. 161-162. Cited in Yaʿlāwī
(1986: 344-347). Cited by the Ṭayyibī dāʿ ī Ṭāhir Sayf al-Din in Risālat masarrāt
al-fatḥ al-mubīn, pp. 139-142; where there are variants in the above editions, I
have followed the Sayf al-Dīn edition, as it is based on the earliest manuscripts of
the ʿUyūn, perhaps even an autograph copy. Samarqandī’s verses about seeking
vengeance are as follows:
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 241
If you say you have killed the v. 18 �أم ّية قتلنـــــــــا �إنّا قلتم
ُ ف�إن
Umayyads
by removing their errant seducer َكفورِ ها ِوكفر غاويها بتبديل
and nullifying their disbeliever.
We have found you to walk after v. 19 بعدها ت�سيرون وجدناكم ف�إنّا
them
in worse paths and walks than theirs. وم�سيرِ ها منهاجها من أقبح
َ �ب
You have spilt the very blood that v. 20 بث�أره طلبنا قلتم دما �سفكتم
you sought vengeance for —
Can the palm of the perpetrator أوتار َك ُّف وتورِ ها
َ فهل ُيدرك ال
grasp retribution?
Blood of noble ones, whose blood v. 21 دم من كرام لم ت َُط َّل دما�ؤها
ٌ
cannot go unavenged —
the whole world is not sufficient ل�صغيرِ ها ت ًَوى الدنيا تعدل وال
compensation for the death of the
smallest one among them.
You must be made to drink from v. 22 ٍ ْوال بد �أن تُ�س َقوا بك�أ
ُ �س َ�س َق
يتم
the same cup you made them
drink from — ومبيرِ ها
ُ مجت ِّثها ي َدي من بها
by the hands of its slashers and
destroyers.
Lo! Give up those borrowed items v. 23 ف�إنّها الع َواري
َ تلك َ�س ّلموا �أال
[the caliphate]! They belong —
Despite your intense dislike — to لمعيرِ ها
ُ �آنا ُفكم رغمت و�إن
their lenders!
56
Cf. Nuʿmān, Iftitāḥ 18. Haji trans. (2006, 34).
57
Ibn Hāniʾ, Dīwān 88. The editor Yaʿlāwī tentatively dates this poem in the N.
African period in 350/961, but demurs that it could also be of much later provenance.
58
Ibid., 223-228.
59
Ibid., 309-317.
60
Ibid., 352-353. Ibn Hāniʾ attributed the killing of Ḥusayn, and the killing of
Ḥusayn's father ʿAlī before him, to the foundation that had been laid for such
oppression by the “election of the man from Taym [Abū Bakr]” (vv. 146-148).
61
Ibn Abī Dīnār, Muʾnis 66-67. Trans. of this episode in Walker (1977: n. 65).
62
Yaʿlāwī (1985: 161).
63
Tamīm, Dīwān 11-12.
64
Ibid.,161-162; Idrīs, ʿUyūn VI (Ghālib ed.), 217.
65
Idrīs, ʿUyūn VI (Ghālib ed.), 216.
66
From the medieval sources, for example, Maqrīzī does not mention any such
activity in his biography of Tamīm (Muqaffā II, 588-600). Neither do the modern
scholars who have worked on Tamīm. On the contrary, Aʿẓamī in the introduction
242 tahera qutbuddin
to his edition of Tamīm’s Dīwān (1971: 13) asserts that Muʿizz was careful not to
give Tamīm any post or specific function in the state.
67
Tamīm, Dīwān 328-334.
68
Ibid., 449-451.
69
Q 6:115. See photograph and discussion of Ḥākim’s coin inscription in Merchant
(2008: 114).
70
Q 28:5. From personal observation in 2009.
71
Maqrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ II, 257; cited in Walker (2002: 50).
72
Muʾayyad, Majālis III, 436, majlis #298.
73
While campaigning in Syria to unite its refractory princes under the Fatimid banner,
Muʾayyad (Dīwān 268) composed a poem of fakhr challenging Fatimid officials
unfriendly to himself, in which he declared that Baghdad’s eye had never had to
contend with dust such as the dust his feet had stirred up (v. 8). Text, trans. and
contextualization in Qutbuddin (2005: 73-74).
74
Muʾayyad, Dīwān 268. Text, trans. and contextualization in Qutbuddin (2005: 73-74).
75
Ibid., 281. Text, trans. and contextualization in Qutbuddin (2005: 75-76).
76
Muʾayyad, Sīra 183-184. Earlier, Nuʿmān (Sharḥ al-akhbār III, 393) had quoted
a prophecy by ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib that there would be two messiahs: al-Mahdī bi-L-
lāh, who would appear first (and who, according to Nuʿmān, had indeed emerged
in the person of the first Fatimid caliph-imam), and al-Marḍī bi-L-lāh, who would
be from his progeny, and who would come at the end of time.
77
References of verses cited in this section have been provided where first cited; to
facilitate cross referencing, verse numbers where known, and the rhyme letter of
the poem, are provided here.
78
Ibn Hāniʾ also expressed aspirations for the conquest of Baghdad in the lines “Your
cavalry will water in … al-Karkh [Baghdadian suburb]” (v. 53); “Baghdad wishes
it were Cairo” (v. 72); and “The earth of the two Iraqs felt such fear the ‘Abode of
Peace’ (Baghdad) almost shook with it” (v. 68).
79
Ibn Hāniʾ, Dīwān 75. Yaʿlāwī tentatively dates this poem’s composition in 350/961,
ibid. 72, n.* (sic). Ibn Hāniʾ also mentioned the Spanish Umayyads in seven other
poems: ibid., 75, 196, 200, 262, 355, 403.
80
Stetkevych (2002: 90, vv. 18-19).
81
Q 8:17.
82
Stetkevych (2002: 160, 163, vv. 38, 41, 70).
83
Ibid., 188, 189, vv. 4, 14.
84
Ibid., 274, v. 5.
85
Ibn Hāniʾ, Dīwān 355.
86
Ibid.
87
In a revenge line he followed his naming of the Abbasids as targets with
the phrase “… and the time has drawn near (qad danā l-ajal)” (v. 55.).
Fatimid Aspirations Of Conquest And Doctrinal Underpinnings 243
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