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The History of the Ismā'īlī Da'wat and its Literature during the last phase of the Fāṭimid Empire1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Husain F. Al-Hamdānī
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Extract

The Fāṭiāmid Khilāfat, which had sprung into existence as the result of the widespread Ismā'ili propaganda at the end of the third century a.h., was at first consolidated on the soil of Northern Africa in the year 297 A.H. During the reign of al Mu'izz billāh, the centre of influence of the Fāṭimid Empire was transferred to Egypt, a change that was responsible for the foundation of Cairo. But the Fāṭimid conception of the state would not be contented merely with sovereignty over Egypt and the surrounding countries. The Fāṭimid movement strove to engulf the whole of the Islamic world and to unite the various small Islamic principalities in one 'Alid kingdom.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , January 1932 , pp. 126 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1932

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References

page 127 note 1 His activities are described by Nizāmu '1-Mulk in Siyāsat Nāmah, chap, xlvii.

page 127 note 2 Al-Birūnī (ed. , Sachau, p. 32)Google Scholar; Al-Baghdādī, Farq (ed. , Cairo, 1910), p. 267Google Scholar; Massignon, , Esquisse d'une Bibliographic Qarmate, volume of oriental studies (Gibb series), p. 332Google Scholar.

page 127 note 3 al-'Asqālānī, Ibn Ḥajar, Lisānu 'l-Mizān, p. 164Google Scholar. Ibnu 'n-Nadim, al- Fihrist, ed. , Flügel, p. 189Google Scholar; the Dā'i Idrīs, 'Uyūnu 'l-Akhbar, v, 260–3; Griffini, , ZDMG., lxix, 87Google Scholar; Massignon, , Esquisse, p. 332Google Scholar.

page 127 note 4 Griffini, , ZDMG., lxix, 87Google Scholar; Kraus, Paul, Hebräische und Syrische Zitatein ismā'īlitischen Schriften, der Islam, Bd. xix (1931), 243 seqGoogle Scholar.

page 128 note 1 The period during which the Imam of the day is concealed from the public eye is called the Period of Satar, and is opposed to the Period of Ẓuhūr (publicity). In the history of the Da'wat of the Sixth Nāṭiq, Muḥammad, there have been several periods of Ẓuhūr and Satar, e.g.:— (1) Period of Satar beginning with the concealment of Isma'īl b. Ja'far till the appearance of al-Mahdī billāh in Maghrib. (2) Period of Ẓuhūr: From al-Mahdi billāh till the concealment of aṭ-Ṭaiyib. (3) The ensuing Period of Satar commencing with the concealment of the Imam Ṭaiyib till the future appearance of an Imam from the descendant of aṭ-Ṭaiyib.

page 129 note 1 p. 188. This work, the text of which I intend to publish shortly, was written by the Yemenite Dā'ī Idrīs 'Imād u'd-dln in 838 a.h. (a.d. 1434).

page 131 note 1 In the MS. of the Sīrat the name is consistently given as Abū Kālīnjār. I have, however, adopted the other form in the light of the researches of Le Strange and Nicholson; see Farsnāma of u'l-Balkhī, Ibn, Gibb series, London, 1921, p. xiiiGoogle Scholar. See also JBAS. 1911, p. 672, a note by Amedroz, H. F.Google Scholar.

page 132 note 1 See u'l-Balkhī, Ibn, Farsnāma, ed. Le Strange, and Nicholson, (Gibb Series), p. 119Google Scholar:—

page 133 note 1 The Majālis were edited and arranged according to the subject matter by the Yemenite Dā'I Ḥātim b. Ibrāhim al-Ḥāmidi (d. 596 a.h.) in his book Jāmi' ul-Haqā'iq. The Ismā'ili Fāṭimid literature preserved by the Da'wat of the Yemen contains several works called majālis by different authors, such as those by al-Mu'aiyad, Badru '1-Jamālī, Abu'l-Barakāt, and others. This tradition of “majālis” literature has been carried down in the later Ismā'īlī literature of the Yemen.

page 134 note 1 JRAS. (1902), 289–90.

page 134 note 2 My friend Herr Pines has drawn my attention to the following lines, which he thinks might refer to al-Mu'aiyad:—

Diwān-i-Qaṣāid wa Muqaṭṭa'ātḤakīm Nāṣir-i-Khusrū, ed. Tehran, , 1304–07, p. 176Google Scholar.

Ibid., p. 313.

page 135 note 1 Leiden Gatalogus Codicum Arabicorum, ii, 1, 233. I am indebted to Dr. van Arendok for giving me the exact reference to its source, viz. Paris Bib. Nat. No. 3329 (ancien fonds 1414).

page 136 note 1 Edited by I. Goldziher, Streitschrift des Ghazali gegen die Batinijja sekte.