¹ Klemm, V., Die Mission des fatimidischen Agenten al-Mu'ayyad fi d-Din in Siraz (Frankfurt, 1989), 2Google Scholar.

² Al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi, Sira al-Mu'ayyadiyya, ed. Husayn, M. K. (Cairo, 1949), 63–64Google Scholar; Klemm, , Die Mission, 25, 142–145Google Scholar, 150. B. I. Beshir, The Fatimid Caliphate 386–487 A.H./996–1094 A.D. (DPhil thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1970), 151, n. 108, first indicated that in School of Oriental and African Studies MS. No. 25740 Idris ‘Imad al-Din, Risala al-Bayan lima Wajab, folio 41a, al-Mu'ayyad refers to himself as a “trustee” (mutawali) of the da‘wa in Fars, rather than by the title of any recognizable da‘wa post. In Idris ‘Imad al-Din's other work, the ‘Uyun al-Akhbar, however, there appears to be no discussion of this presented in the course of al-Mu'ayyad's biography. See Qutbuddin, B. T., Al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi: Founder of a New Tradition of Fatimid Da‘wa Poetry (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1999), 19–53Google Scholar. Qutbuddin's thesis has recently been published as Al-Mu'ayyad al-Shirazi and Fatimid Da‘wa Poetry (Leiden, 2005). References throughout cite Qutbuddin's PhD dissertation.

³ Sira, 9–12, 54–68. The Sira al-Mu'ayyadiyya also recounts the weekly Isma‘ili majlis held in Shiraz and Ahwaz amongst the Daylamis.

⁴ This is bolstered by further evidence, in that al-Mu'ayyad, as a member of the Fatimid da‘wa, would have most likely followed da‘wa protocol for the use of certain texts in religious instruction. See Sira, 44–46.

⁵ Makdisi, G., “Baghdad, Bologna, and Scholasticism,” in Centres of Learning, ed. Drijvers, J. W. and MacDonald, A. A. (Leiden, 1995), 155Google Scholar.

⁶ Köhler, B., Die Wissenschaft unter den ägyptischen Fatimiden (Hildesheim, 1994), 56–64, 76–80Google Scholar.

⁷ Qadi al-Nu‘man, Majalis wa al-Musayarat, ed. el-Feki, H., Chabbouh, I. and el-Yalaoui, M. (Tunis, 1978), 361Google Scholar, para. 185.

⁸ Brett, M., “Realm of the Imam,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 59 (1996): 446Google Scholar; Hamdani, S., Between Revolution and State (London, 2006)Google Scholar (References throughout cite Hamdani's PhD dissertation, unless otherwise indicated); al-Qadi, W., “An Early Fatimid Political Document,” Studia Islamica, 48 (1978): 103Google Scholar.

⁹ See in particular, Brett “Realm of the Imam”; Poonawala, I. K., “Al-Qadi al-Nu‘man and Isma‘ili Jurisprudence,” in Mediaeval Isma‘ili History and Thought, ed. Daftary, F. (Cambridge, 1996), 127Google Scholar, who states that there is a “legalistic place to al-walaya” in the introduction of this doctrine as a “pillar” of practice.

¹⁰ al-Qadi, “An Early Fatimid Political Document,” 104. The Majalis wa al-Musayarat, 419–420, para. 219, specifically refers to the problem of ghuluww.

¹¹ For the text of the ‘ahd of ‘Ali, see Da‘a'im al-Islam, 411–431; The Pillars of Islam, trans. I. K. Poonawala (New Delhi, 2002), 436–456. Al-Qadi, “An Early Fatimid Political Document,” 105–107. Qadi al-Nu‘man's incorporation into the Da‘a'im of what al-Qadi explains was already a widely circulated recension of the ‘ahd, used in conjunction with older versions of the sayings of ‘Ali from Nahj al-Balagha, ensured its continued textual authority, acclaim and transmission. Al-Qadi's research strongly suggests the earlier recension of this chapter of the Da‘a'im al-Islam circulated in the form of a compendium, though points to an established oral transmission of the work as well.

¹² Hamdani, S., From Da‘wa to Dawlah (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1995), 86–91Google Scholar, 224–225. Hamdani (86–87) states the following: “Qadi al-Nu‘man's zahiri formulation of a mandate for the authority of the Fatimid imams, should thus be seen as responding not only to the exigencies and realities of the actual rule of an imam, but also to the issue of his universal legitimacy.” F. Dachroui, ed., Iftitah al-Da‘wa (Tunis, 1975), (Intro.), 22: “In actuality, al-Nu‘man contributed largely to the elaboration of Isma‘ili law (fiqh) in the light of the doctrine of the impeccable Imams and especially in close collaboration with al-Mu‘izz himself. One notices in the Magalis the zeal and effort that he displays in codifying Isma‘ili law and in its ‘vulgarization’ for the public teaching (durus al-hikma) of the doctrine of the Imams.”

¹³ Daftary, F., The Isma‘ilis, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2007), 167–172Google Scholar, 215 ff.; Halm, H., The Fatimids and their Traditions of Learning (London, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Halm, H., “The Isma‘ili Oath of Allegiance (‘ahd) and the ‘Sessions of Wisdom’ (majalis al-hikma) in Fatimid Times,” in Mediaeval Isma‘ili History and Thought, ed. Daftary, F. (Cambridge, 1996), 91–115Google Scholar; Stern, S. M., “Cairo as the Centre of the Isma‘ili Movement,” reprinted in Studies in Early Isma‘ilism (Leiden/Jerusalem, 1983), 238–239Google Scholar; Walker, P., “Fatimid Institutions of Learning,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 34 (1997): 179–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Daftary, The Isma‘ilis, 214–216.

¹⁵ Stern, “Cairo as the Centre of the Isma‘ili Movement,” 238–239.

¹⁶ Stern, “Cairo,” 241–242.

¹⁷ Stern, “Cairo,” 240.

¹⁸ Stern, “Cairo,” 240.

¹⁹ Brett, “The Realm of the Imam”; Dachroui, Iftitah al-Da‘wa, 22, n. 3.

²⁰ Brett, “The Realm of the Imam”; Dachroui, Iftitah al-Da‘wa, 22, n. 3.

²¹ See in particular, Sira, 4–76; Richards, D. S., ed., Islamic Civilisation (Oxford, 1973), viiGoogle Scholar.

²³ Sira, 43; Hamdani, The Sira, 43; Klemm, Die Mission, 16, 157–158. Klemm divides the majalis held by al-Mu'ayyad with Abu Kalijar into four parts: reading from the Qur'an; a chapter from the Da‘a'im; the discussion of a “theme” between al-Mu'ayyad and Abu Kalijar; and finally, the khutba for “mawlana al-imam.”

²² Shah, The Imam as the Interpreter of the Qur'an (MA thesis, McGill University, Montreal, 1984), 13; Sira, 43, on al-Mu'ayyad reading a chapter from the Da‘a'im al-Islam to Abu Kalijar.

²⁴ Qutbuddin, Al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi, 28–29.

²⁵ According to Qadi al-Nu‘man's own account in his Majalis wa al-Musayarat, the Da‘a'im al-Islam was written under the scholarly direction of the caliph al-Mu‘izz at the time of the foundation of the Fatimid dynasty in Cairo. Both the Fatimid and the later “Egyptian” sources attest to the fact that Qadi al-Nu‘man read the Da‘a'im al-Islam in the setting of the tenth-century Fatimid da‘wa's majlis. S. M. Stern points to the “evolution” of Qadi al-Nu‘man's works: “It is remarkable that the Ta'wil al-Da‘a'im is divided into majalis; this clearly indicates its origin as a lecture course.” Also see Stern, “Cairo as the Centre,” 238. H. Halm has indicated (Empire of the Mahdi, Leiden, 1996, 376, citing Majalis wa al-Musayarat, 283, para. 283) that Qadi al-Nu‘man's Majalis refers to the drafting of the Ta'wil al-Da‘a'im al-Islam, in addition to the audience of individuals who have taken an oath of loyalty in order to attend the sessions discussing this work. See Majalis wa al-Musayarat, 142, para. 83; 212, para. 106; 269, para. 134; 301, para. 156; 305, para. 158, refers specifically to Qadi al-Nu‘man's reading of the Kitab Da‘a'im al-Islam in the majlis. Qadi al-Nu‘man's reading of the majlis “lectures” is also referred to in Maqrizi's Khitat. See Khitat, Bulaq Edition, (Beirut, 1971), Volume I, 390–391, 388–400; Volume II, 341–342.

²⁶ “Madjlis,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1960–2005), 1031–1033Google Scholar; Sezgin, F., Geschichte des arabischen Schriftum (Leiden, 1967), vol. II, 83–85Google Scholar, primarily on works of majalis and amali. There are some prime examples of the caliph's majlis in al-Jahiz's Kitab al-Taji, ed. A. Z. Pasha (Cairo, 1914). French trans., Ch. Pellat, Le Livre de la couronne (Paris, 1954). Other examples are given in Brookshaw, D., “Palace, Pavilions and Pleasure-gardens: the Context and Setting of the Medieval Majlis,” Middle Eastern Literatures 6, no. 2 (2003): 99–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohen, M. R. and Somekh, S., “Interreligious Majalis in Early Fatimid Egypt,” in The Majlis, ed. Lazarus-Yafeh, H. and Cohen, M. (Wiesbaden, 1999), 128–136Google Scholar; Stroumsa, S., “Ibn al-Rawandi's su’ adab al-mujadala: the Role of Bad Manners in Medieval Disputations,” in The Majlis ed. Lazarus-Yafeh, and Cohen, , 66–67Google Scholar. During the reign of the Fatimid caliph al-Mu‘izz, the vizier Ibn Killis also hosted his own private majlis study sessions. The majalis at the Fatimid court in the presence of al-Mu‘izz discussed in this article are supported by an important Genizah document. S. Stroumsa, with regard to the extant Ibn al-Rawandi material, examines the majlis as a forum for debate. For an additional discussion of the majlis, albeit neither from the Isma‘ili nor Fatimid contexts, see Pourjavadi, N., “Majalis-i Ahmad-i Ghazzali ba hudur-i Yusuf-i Sufi,” Ma‘arif 55 (1381): 3–20Google Scholar, which presents detailed information on the majalis Ahmad-i Ghazzali (d. 1161 CE) delivered in Baghdad and which are partially preserved in Ibn al-Jawzi's work on sermons, the Kitab al-Qussas wa al-Mudhakirin.

²⁷ Sira, 16–25. In the text of the debate, al-Mu'ayyad is referred to as Hibat Allah b. Musa. See Sira, 16.

²⁸ Sira, 43–44.

²⁹ With regard to al-Mu'ayyad's accounts of his debates held at the Buyid court of Abu Kalijar, Wasserstein states (110): “Unlike the great majority of such texts, the memoirs of this Isma‘ili missionary appear in large part to offer a reflection of historical truth.” Wasserstein, D. J., “The ‘Majlis of al-Rida’: A Religious Debate in the Court of the Caliph Al-Ma'mun as Represented in a Shi‘i Hagiographical Work about the Eighth Imam ‘Ali ibn Musa Al-Rida,” in The Majlis, ed. Lazarus-Yafeh, and Cohen, , 108–118Google Scholar; 109–110 (on al-Mu'ayyad in particular).

³⁰ Busse, interestingly enough, does not discuss any of the Buyid period Sufi autobiographical and biographical works of the Kazeruni tradition as possible primary sources for the social history of medieval Western Iran in his Chalif und Grosskönig. See in particular, Busse, H., “al-Daylami, Abu'l-Hasan ‘Ali b. Mohammad,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. VII, 338–339Google Scholar; Sobieroj, F., Ibn Hafif as-Sirazi und Seine Schrift zur Novizenerziehung (Kitab al-iqtisad) (Beirut, 1998), 13–33, 238Google Scholar.

³¹ Radtke, B., The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism (Richmond, 1996), 9–10Google Scholar. Radtke has indicated that Hakim al-Tirmidhi's Bad‘ Sha'n is one of the earliest surviving autobiographical works written in Arabic. In fact, al-Tirmidhi's work was not discovered until after Rosenthal had completed his seminal study on Islamic historiography. With regard to the autobiographical works of al-Tirmidhi, al-Mu'ayyad, and other authors, Robinson claims that the genre of autobiography was taken up by “non-traditionalist rationalists and iconoclasts (philosophers, mystics and Isma‘ili Shi‘ites.” In his opinion, prior to the thirteenth century, autobiographical works were not indicative of the mainstream, traditionalist oriented method of historical narration. See in particular, Robinson, C., Islamic Historiography (Cambridge, 2003), 95–96Google Scholar. Robinson, however, does not address Ibn Banna's eleventh-century autobiographical diary in this particular presentation of medieval autobiographical works. Likewise, he does not take a clear stance on Makdisi's theories about the development of a historiographical tradition from the diaries of traditionalist, hadith-focused scholars and historians. See Robinson (Islamic Historiography, 182). In many respects, Ibn Banna's diary is a parallel text to al-Mu'ayyad's Sira, especially given the fact that Ibn Banna, as a contemporary of al-Mu'ayyad, narrates many events from the vantage point of Baghdad and pays particular attention to outbreaks of fitna in different neighborhoods of mid-eleventh-century Baghdad. See Makdidi, G., “Autograph Diary of an Eleventh-Century Historian of Baghdad-I,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 18 (1956): 9–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 239–260.

³² Radtke, , The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 2, 20–23Google Scholar. A debate is held at the court in order that Tirmidhi might defend his public preaching on the doctrine of love, from which he emerges victorious.

³³ Aigle, D., “Un Foundateur d'ordre en milieu rural,” in Saints orientaux (Paris, 1995)Google Scholar, which includes a number of examples concerning disputes between the Zoroastrian community of Kazerun and Sufi leaders; Radtke, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism, 2.

³⁴ Meisami, J., Persian Historiography (Edinburgh, 1999), 185–188Google Scholar, explains that the Farsnama is replete with accounts of fitna in both the pre-Islamic and Islamic contexts as they concern the history of the Iranian province of Fars.

³⁵ See Klemm's most recent monograph, for a summary of the “other” Isma‘ili's intrigues against al-Mu'ayyad. Klemm, V., Memoirs of a Mission (London, 2003), 36–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ Sira, 44, 46; Qutbuddin, Al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi, 29.

³⁷ Sira, 57–68.

³⁸ Sira, 60-64.

³⁹ Sira, 44, 46; Qutbuddin, Al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi, 29.

⁴⁰ Sira, 63.

⁴¹ See Sira, 3–79, 44–49; Klemm, Die Mission, 183–184; Meisami, Persian Historiography, 185–188. It is important to note here that in the thirteenth-century Persian history, the Nizam al-Tawarikh of al-Baydawi (c. 674 AH/1275 CE), there is no mention of Isma‘ili influence on Abu Kalijar. See, however, the accounts on Abu Kalijar and the Buyid dynasty. Nizam al-Tawarikh, ed. H. S. Qadri (Hyderabad, 1930), 63–68.

⁴² Farsnama, 118; Kitab-i Firdaws al-Murshidiyya, ed. F. Meier (Leipzig, 1943), 117–119; Sobieroj, Ibn Hafif as-Sirazi, 199. The Kitab-i Firdaws al-Murshidiyya contains a great deal of relevant information on the strength and continuity of certain religious communities in tenth–eleventh-century Shiraz and its surrounding environs—the Sufis, the traditional Qur'anic storytellers, and jurists. One sub-chapter from this work, entitled “The Account of the Beginning of the Majlis of the Shaykh Murshid (may God bless his inner-most secret),” records several accounts of sermons being delivered at the congregational mosque of the old town (dar masjid-i jami‘-i shahr-i kuhna) and the almost visceral tensions which subsequently developed between the sufi shaykh and the traditional deliverers of the Friday sermons (wa‘z) in Kazerun, the traditional storytellers. See Kitab-i Firdaws, 134–135.

⁴³ Ibn Zarkub-i, Shirazi, Shiraznama, ed. Jawadi, I. W. (Tehran, 1351), 53, 151Google Scholar. In addition, see Sobieroj, Ibn Hafif as-Sirazi, 18, on the Shiraznama's use of Sufi works.

⁴⁴ Shadd al-Izar, ed. M. Qazwini and A. Iqbal (Tehran, 1328/1950), 358–365, 396–397.

⁴⁵ See Sira, 66, 69; Farsnama, ed. G. LeStrange and R. A. Nicholson (London, 1921), 117–119; Klemm, Die Mission, 37–38; Sobieroj, Ibn Hafif as-Sirazi, 181–182.

⁴⁶ Farsnama, 117–119; Sira, 63: the qadi denounces al-Mu'ayyad.

⁴⁷ Sira, 63. See Sanders, P., Ritual and Politics in Fatimid Cairo (Albany, NY, 1994), 26, 60–61, 64–67Google Scholar. On the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim leading the Friday prayer at different mosques throughout Cairo during the month of Ramadan, see al-Maqrizi, , Itti‘az, ed. Hilmi, M. (Cairo, 1971–1973), vol. II, 97–99Google Scholar. I would like to thank Professor P. Sanders for pointing out this detail to me.

⁴⁸ Mujmal al-Tawarikh (2000), 311.

⁵¹ Sira, 5.

⁴⁹ Sira, 3–5; Buyid critique of the Fatimid da‘wa, p. 4.

⁵⁰ Farsnama, 119.

⁵² Sira, 55; Busse, Chalif und Grosskönig, 125–127; Qutbuddin, Al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi, 42.

⁵³ Sira, 54–57; Hamdani, The Sira, 37; Klemm, Die Mission, 20–22; Qutbuddin. Al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi, 42.

⁵⁴ Sira, 55 ff..

⁵⁵ Sira, 55, n. 2. Kamil-Husayn points out that the qadi of Khuzistan and Fars, Abu al-Hasan ‘Abd al-Wahab b. Mansur b. al-Mushtari (d.ca. 436–37 AH/1044 CE) is mentioned in Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Ta'rikh, vol. IX, 36. I have not, however, been able to locate this reference. Klemm, Die Mission, 40, n. 2, indicates that there are two other biographical references to Ibn Mushtari as a judge, in Ibn Kathir's al-Bidaya and al-Baghdadi's Ta'rikh. See in particular, Massignon, L., The Passion of al-Hallaj, trans. Mason, H. (Princeton, 1982), Volume I, 140Google Scholar ff., for his discussion of public preaching in tenth-century Ahwaz in addition to how both scribes and judges in Ahwaz maintained strong ties with ‘Abbasid Basra and Baghdad throughout the third AH/ninth CE.

⁵⁶ Sira, 55–61.

⁵⁷ Sira, 57. Al-Mu'ayyad describes how the Zaydi Shi‘i scholar was someone who associated with the Sufis, the traditional storytellers, and the hadith scholars (ashab al-hadith). See Hamdani, The Sira, 38. On Zaydi Shi‘ism in tenth- to eleventh-century Buyid Iran, see Busse, Chalif und Grosskönig, 286 ff; “The Minor Dynasties of Northern Iran,” in, The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge, 1974), vol. IV, 206–225; Madelung, W., “Zu einigen Werken des Imams Abu Talib an-Natiq bi l-Haqq,” Der Islam, 63 (1986): 5–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁸ Sira, 57–60.

⁵⁹ Sira, 12; Hamdani, The Sira, 30–31. Hamdani also notes that qasida No. 23 from al-Mu'ayyad's collection of poetry, the Diwan, discusses how Isma‘ilis were massacred and the tombs of the Shi‘i imam Musa al-Kazim and Ja‘far b. Khaddad were destroyed on the order of Ibn Muslima. See Hamdani, The Sira, 125.

⁶⁰ Halm, H., Die Kalifen von Kairo (Munich, 2003), 352–353Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Sira, 66–67, referred to by Qutbuddin, al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi, 43, n. 63; Klemm, Die Mission, 27.

⁶² Hamdani, The Sira, 40–45; Klemm, Die Mission, 26–27; Massignon, The Passion of al-Hallaj, 57, n. 24.

⁶³ Sira, 16–43; Klemm, Memoirs of a Mission, 27–29.

⁶⁴ Klemm, Memoirs of a Mission, 48–49. The Sira refers to Abu Kalijar by the title of shahanshah. See Sira, 62.

⁶⁵ Sira, 43–44. There is another account in the Sira that lends more credence to the theory that Abu Kalijar might have been seriously considering an alliance with the Fatimids. A year after al-Mu'ayyad leaves Shiraz, Abu Kalijar writes a letter to al-Mu'ayyad, suggesting that he draft a treaty for an alliance between the Buyids and the Fatimids, in order to stave off the threat of the impending Saljuq invasions. See Sira, 76–78.

⁶⁶ Sira, 44–54.

⁶⁷ Klemm, Memoirs of a Mission, 48.