Abdarrahim ibn Ilyas (Fatimide)

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Abu l-Qasim Abdarrahim ibn Ilyas ibn Ahmad ibn al-Mahdi ( Arabic أبو القاسم عبد الرحيم بن إلياس بن أحمد بن المهدي, DMG Abū l-Qāsim ʿAbd ar-Raḥīm ibn Ilyās ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Mahdī ; † between 1021 and 1023 in Cairo ) was a prince (amīr) of the Shiite caliph dynasty of the Fatimids and the designated successor of his cousin al-Hakim for the caliphate .

Prince Abdarrahim was a great-grandson of the dynasty's founder al-Mahdi (died 934) and initially lived in the prince's quarter of the palace city of Cairo . His mother was a Christian. To everyone's surprise, he was proclaimed already in adulthood standing in 1013 by his cousin Caliph al-Hakim in a double throne publicly successor to the caliph dignity and to entitled "heir to the Muslims" (Wali'ahd al-Muslimin) excellent . At the same time, another cousin, Prince Abbas , was named "heir to the throne of the believers" (walī ʿahd al-muʾmimīn) for the succession in the religious dignity of the head ( imām ) ofShia of the Ismailis , who had been associated ex officio with the dignity of caliph since the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate . With this succession plan, al-Hakim intended to separate secular and religious power, so that the caliphate, freed from all religious implications, could in future be viewed by all Muslims, Shiites and Sunnis, as the highest secular authority. The Imamate of the Ismailis, on the other hand, was only supposed to restrict itself to the religious leadership of its followers, analogous to the other denominations of the Sunnis, Christians and Jews existing within the Fatimid caliphate.

In the following years, Abdarrahim was further built up by al-Hakim as heir to the throne and included in the affairs of state leadership. He was appointed governor of Syria , for which he moved to Damascus . In the Druze canon he is named as the first adversary of their teaching, which did not recognize a mortal human being in the person of al-Hakim, but the physical incarnation of the Creator God ( Allaah ) himself. From the leading propagandist of this extreme faction of the Ismailis , Hazma al-Labbad , he was asked in writing for a statement in which he should declare his honorary title as "cousin of the commander of the believers". It could mean nothing else than that al-Hakim had no biological offspring, since the Creator God was neither conceived nor did he himself ( Sura 112: 3 ).

On February 13, 1021, al-Hakim disappeared during one of his nocturnal rides. While the Druze saw this as confirmation of their doctrine, according to which the Creator God had returned to his disembodied incarnation, the court in Cairo assumed that he had been murdered. The leading court camarilla around Princess Sitt al-Mulk used the situation to quickly clarify the succession and take over the leadership. At the instigation of the princess, her brother's succession to the throne was immediately discarded and instead al-Hakim's young son Prince Ali was proclaimed the new caliph and imam under the ruler name az-Zahir . The Prince Abbas designated for the Imamate had to declare the renunciation of his right of succession "with the sword over his head". Abdarrahim was arrested on March 26, 1021 in Damascus and taken to a dungeon in Cairo. There, according to the official announcement, he is said to have exterminated himself with a bread knife after a while; According to unofficial reports, he was killed with a sword by one of their slaves at the behest of Sitt al-Mulk (d. February 5, 1023).

literature

  • Heinz Halm : The Caliphs of Cairo. The Fatimids in Egypt 973-1074. CH Beck, Munich 2003.
  • Yaacov Lev: The Fatimid Princess Sitt al-Mulk. In: Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. 32 (1987), pp. 319-328.
  • Yaacov Lev: State & Society in Fatimid Egypt. EJBRILL, Leiden 1991.
  • Sami Nasib Makarem: Al-Ḥākim bi-amrillāh's appointment of his successors. In: Al-Abḥāṯ, Vol. 23 (1970), pp. 319-324.
  • Paul E. Walker and Paul Walker: Succession to Rule in the Shiite Caliphate. In: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 32 (1995), pp. 239-264.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Alternative spelling of the proper name: Abd al-Rahim.
  2. ↑ See Lev (1987), p. 323.
  3. ↑ See Halm, pp. 279 ff; Walker, p. 247.
  4. ↑ See Halm, p. 294.
  5. ↑ See Halm, p. 296.
  6. ↑ See Halm, pp. 308, 318; Walker, p. 248; Lev (1991), p. 35.
personal data
SURNAME Abdarrahim ibn Ilyas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prince of the Fatimids, heir to the throne
DATE OF BIRTH 10th century
DATE OF DEATH between 1021 and 1023
Place of death Cairo