al-ʿAzīz

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Abu l-Mansur Nizar ibn al-Muizz ( Arabic أبو المنصور نزار بن المعز, DMG Abū l-Manṣūr Nizār ibn al-Muʿizz ; * May 10, 955 in Mahdia ; † October 13, 996 in Bilbeis ) was from 975 until his death under the ruler name al-Aziz billah (العزيز بالله / al-ʿAzīz biʾllāh  / 'the one who is mighty through God'), briefly called al-Aziz in German-language literature , the fifth caliph of the Fatimids and the fifteenth imam of the Shia of the Ismailis .

Gold dinar of al-Aziz, minted in Palestine .

Life

Early years

Prince Nizar was born on May 10, 955, the third son of Caliph al-Muizz . His mother, the father's main concubine (as-Sayyida al-Muʿizzīya) , was called Durzan (died 995) and was of Arab-Bedouin origin. Probably because of her singing skills, she was also called "twittering" (Taġrīd) . The prince's older brothers were Tamim (d. 984/86) and Abdallah (d. 974), of whom the second-born was designated as the father's successor. At the age of fifteen Nizar became a father for the first time when his first concubine (d. 995) gave birth to a daughter in 970, who became known as the "mistress of the realm" (Sitt al-Mulk) . A little later he was also the father of a first son, who, however, died in childhood.

In 973 the caliph's family and their court moved from "Africa" ​​( Ifrīqiya , today Tunisia ) to their new palace city of Cairo in Egypt . Crown Prince Abdallah died of an illness the following year, which also affected his father. On December 23, 975, Nizar was designated as his new successor in camera by his seriously ill father. His older brother Tamim, who was still alive, was again passed over in this decision. Al-Muizz died only a few days later, but his death was kept secret for over six months in order to make the takeover of Nizar as smooth as possible. Only at the sacrifice festival on August 9, 976 the death of the old and the enthronement of the new caliph with the ruler called "by God Mighty" was (al-'Azīz bi'llāh) the people announced. In 979 the caliph married an unidentified cousin whom he endowed with a dowry of 200,000 gold dinars. But his second son Mansur was born to him on August 18, 985 from a relationship with a Christian-Melkite concubine , who should also be his successor as Caliph al-Hakim (d. 1021).

Domination

The long-serving general Dschauhar as-Siqilli , the conqueror of Egypt, was able to make a name for himself as the kingmaker of the year 976 in Cairo , who even served as the actual regent for the first few months under al-Aziz. After its defeat in Syria in 978, however, the caliph personally took over the reins of the state and only on April 18, 979 appointed Yaqub ibn Killis , who had converted from Judaism to Islam, as the new vizier, who became a lifelong friend and confidante of al-Aziz, yes to the actual architect of the Fatimid state. This marked the beginning of a twenty-two year fruitful collaboration between the caliph and the vizier, which led Egypt into an era of internal stability and prosperity that lasted almost a hundred years. Based on a civil service dominated by Christians and Jews who represented the legacy of Byzantine statecraft, a renewal of the Egyptian administrative apparatus could be undertaken, which laid the foundations for the great development of power of the Fatimids under al-Aziz and the caliphs immediately following him. Investments in security and infrastructure, a functioning judiciary, efficient tax collection and a stable currency made the rise of the Nile country, both economically and politically, to become the second major power of the eastern Mediterranean alongside the Byzantine Empire .

The new prosperity was also evident in extensive building activity and the promotion of scholarship by the caliph and his vizier. Because the scholars of the Sunni Amr Mosque refused to include the principles of the Ismaili school of law in their curriculum and to take them into account in their legal opinions ( fatwā ) , al-Aziz, after the advice of his vizier, founded thirty-five chairs for the Ismaili school at the al -Azhar Mosque , which made him the actual founder of the most important teaching institution for Islamic law to date. For Ramadan of the same year, the foundation for the new al-Anwar mosque was laid in front of the north gate Bab al-Futuh , which was to replace the al-Azhar, which had become too small, as a Friday mosque. Exactly five years later on the lunar calendar for Ramadan 993, al-Anwar, which was still under construction, was inaugurated by al-Aziz, who on the occasion presented his son Mansur to the public under the golden parasol ( miẓalla ) and thus as his successor.

Under al-Aziz the genealogy of his dynasty got its final form (see family table of the Shiite imams ). Officially, the Imam-Caliphs have never actually presented a family tree of the Fatimids, in dispute with the rival Kalifenhof the Abbasids of Baghdad but they were forced legitimacy to justify their caliphate and the basis of this legitimacy was based on their claimed descent from the Prophet's daughter Fatima from their marriage to Ali . But the powerful protector of the Sunni Abbasids, the Shiite Adud ad-Daula (d. 983), who despite this tolerated the Ismaili mission in his domain, demanded a detailed statement from Cairo. With the decisive participation of Ibn Killis, the family tree was created as it is recognized in the Ismaili Shia to this day. The genealogical link between the Fatimids and the descendants of Ali was established via the ancestor of the dynasty and founder of the Ismaili mission, Abdallah al-Akbar , who, according to their confession, was the biological son of the seventh Imam Muhammad ibn Ismail and thus a descendant of the Prophet in the eighth generation was. In contrast to the Abbasids, who, as members of the vast Quraish clan, were only distantly related to the Prophet, the Fatimids could claim such a direct descent. The Abbasids declared this ancestry to be a fraudulent fiction. Based on an expert opinion from them-minded sheriffs / "nobles" , i.e. recognized descendants of the house of prophets, they rejected the genealogy of the Fatimids and thus their claim to the caliphate. Depending on the point of view represented, this aspect is still controversially treated today in historical studies.

Ibn Killis had already died on February 23, 991. Al-Aziz said the funeral prayer for him and laid him in the grave with his own hand. It was not until 994 that the caliph again entrusted the supervision of the ministries to a person, the Coptic Christian Isa ibn Nasturus (d. 997), who, however, did not receive the title of vizier.

Conquest of Damascus

The dominant theme in the rule of al-Aziz was the continuation of the territorial expansion of the Fatimid caliphate eastwards, with the ultimate goal of overcoming the Sunni Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad . After the conquest of Egypt, completed under his father, that of Palestine and Syria now had first priority. In previous years, however, the Fatimid armies had encountered strong resistance from the Qarmatians' scrappings , the renegade sister sect of the Ismailis, as well as the warlike Turkish ruler Alp Tegin . In July 976, General Jawhar al-Siqilli led the Fatimid army to Syria again, but failed there during the siege of Damascus , whereupon he had to withdraw to Ashkelon with losses and was besieged there in turn by the Qarmatians. After more than a year, the general finally had to capitulate under humble conditions in March 978, but was able to withdraw to Egypt, where he was retired. Now al-Aziz moved personally to Syria at the head of an army, and he was the last Fatimid caliph ever to appear as a field army. After he had subjugated Palestine in a coup d'état, he was able to achieve a complete victory over Alp Tegin on August 15, 978 in the Battle of the Mill River, which was taken prisoner. Al-Aziz was able to return to Cairo in triumph on October 28, 978, but Syria itself remained in a state of anarchy for the next few years, as the Fatimid armies did not succeed in taking the heavily fortified capital Damascus or subjugating the notoriously insubordinate Bedouin tribes .

As a consequence of the repeated failures, the government undertook an army reform under the leadership of the vizier Ibn Killis. The Fatimid army was traditionally characterized by compulsions of Berber tribal warriors, preferably from the tribes of the Kutama , who were considered capable of fighting, but proved inferior to the Dailamites and Turks opposing them there due to their light armament in the Syrian theater of war. The Turks in particular were much more heavily armed and armed and had a more professional military discipline. In order to change the balance of power, the Fatimid army was now supplemented on a large scale with Turkish and Dailamite contingents, which were acquired as military slaves ( mamlūk ) and which from then on represented the defining element in Egyptian warfare. The warrior caste of the Mamluks that had just emerged in this way was to continue to shape the fate of Egypt for centuries and to fight against Napoleon Bonaparte in front of the pyramids .

In the summer of 982 the newly formed Fatimid army could be led into the field under the command of the Turk Yal Tegin . After a complete victory over the Banu Tayyi, Palestine was finally conquered for the caliphate. This was followed by the capture of Kerak and thus the securing of the Transjordan plain down to the Gulf of Aqaba and with it the pilgrimage route to Mecca . The army then turned north and captured the border fortress Laodicea on the Orontes . Taking advantage of the momentum of the successful offensive, Yal Tegin received the order in the spring of 983 to move directly against Damascus. Another attempt to conquer the Syrian capital appeared promising, since the protector of the Abbasid caliphate Adud ad-Daula had died in March of that year and the city could not hope for any support from Baghdad. After a little more than three months of siege Damascus surrendered on July 12, 983 and from then on the name of the Fatimid was spoken here in the Friday sermon.

Last years

The expansion of the Fatimid power into Syria had presented it with new challenges, since parallel to it that of the Byzantine Empire was also about to take hold in this area. In the understanding of Christian Byzantium, its expansion policy corresponded to a religiously conditioned " reconquista ", since it was necessary to recapture for Christianity the provinces that had been lost to the Muslim Arabs three hundred years ago. In the same year as the Fatimids conquered Egypt (969), Byzantium had conquered the northern Syrian capital Antioch under Emperor John I Tzimiskes and made the principality of Aleppo a tributary vassal. Thirteen years later, the Fatimid offensive, which came from a different direction, caused the two powers to collide in northern Syria. Already the conquest of Laodicea in 982 marked the beginning of the direct confrontation, as this border fortress was taken from the Byzantine Empire.

In late 983, a Fatimid army attacked Aleppo to complete the conquest of northern Syria, but it was forced to retreat when a superior Byzantine relief army under Bardas Phokas rushed to the city's aid. Byzantium regarded Aleppo as a vassal under his protection, even if the city was ruled by the Muslim Hamdanid clan . The situation was made more complicated in 985 by the formal submission of the emir Sa'd ad-Daula to Fatimid suzerainty, which in turn was recognized as treason by the no less power-conscious Emperor Basil II . Al-Aziz tried to use the death of the emir in December 991 to finally capture Aleppo, thus starting an eventful war with Byzantium over several years for this city. When the victory of the Fatimid armies began to emerge, Emperor Basil II unexpectedly appeared in May 995 with a large army in Syria, from which the Fatimid generals retreated to Damascus. Within a few weeks, the emperor regained control of the Orontes Valley, conquered Homs and fortified Tortosa as the southernmost outpost of his empire against the Fatimid caliphate.

In August 995, after his mother and his first concubine had died, al-Aziz took up armaments in Cairo for a large-scale offensive into Syria, which he intended to lead himself in order to carry out the fight against Emperor Basil II personally. The campaign was to be accompanied by a sea operation in parallel. Before the end of the year he received news of the emperor's departure to Constantinople and his offer for a seven-year armistice, which al-Aziz willingly accepted. Nevertheless, he let the armaments continue and in the spring of 996 he moved into his camp in Bilbeis . On May 15, 996, the fleet that had just been reported ready for departure was destroyed in a fire while it was still in port. The angry Kutama Berbers in particular sensed an act of sabotage by Christians, which led to pogrom-like riots in Cairo that killed over a hundred Christians, including the Nestorian bishop. The Christian chief minister Isa ibn Nasturus was able to bring the situation under control and punish some of those responsible, but in doing so he had made himself an enemy among the Kutama. In a hurry, a new fleet of 24 ships could be brought to the water, which immediately set out to support the siege of Tortosa, which had already begun, but was driven in a storm to the Levant coast, where it fell into the hands of the Byzantines.

At that time, al-Aziz himself was suffering from a chronic illness described as colic and stone disease . On October 13, 996, wearing his son Mansur's clothing, he rode into the bathhouse of Bilbeis between the noon and afternoon prayers. The eyewitness ar-Rudhbari remembered that the caliph, already clearly drawn, could no longer wave to the people as usual. In the dressing room of the bathroom, al-Aziz sent his son out to play in the front garden, no more than an hour later the caliph was found dead in the same room by the eunuch Bardjawan (d. 1000). He took the ruler's turban and put it on the head of the prince climbing a tree as a passing on of the caliph's dignity. Caliph al-Hakim later recalled in the presence of his confidante al-Musabbihi (d. 1029) the events surrounding the death of his father and the beginning of his caliphate.

source

  • Ibn Challikan : "The Death of Eminent Personalities and the News of the Sons of Time" (Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-Anbāʾ abnāʾ az-zamān) , ed. by William Mac Guckin de Slane : Ibn Khallikan's biographical dictionary, Vol. 3 (1868), pp. 525-530.

literature

  • Delia Cortese, Simonetta Calderini: Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam. Edinburgh University Press 2006.
  • Heinz Halm : The Caliphs of Cairo. The Fatimids in Egypt 973-1074. CH Beck, Munich 2003.
  • Heinz Halm: princes, princesses, concubines and eunuchs at the Fatimid court. In: Maurice A. Pomerantz, Aram A. Shahin (eds.), The Heritage of Arabo-Islamic Learning (2015), pp. 91–110.
  • Shainool Jiwa: Fāṭimid-Būyid Diplomacy during the reign of al-ʿAzīz billah (365 / 975–386 / 996). In: Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 3 (1992), pp. 57-71.
  • 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.
  • Paul E. Walker: The Fatimid Caliph al-Aziz and his daughter Sitt al-Mulk: a case of delayed but eventual succession to rule by a woman. In: Journal of Persianate Studies, Vol. 4 (2011), pp. 30-44.

Remarks

  1. See Cortese / Calderini, p. 51; Halm (2015), p. 99.
  2. See Halm (2003), p. 119.
  3. See Halm (2003), p. 312; (2015), p. 100.
  4. See Halm (2003), p. 149.
predecessor Office successor
al-Muizz Single Color Flag - FFFFFF.svg
Caliph of the Fatimids
975–996
al-Hakim
al-Muizz Ruler of Egypt
975–996
al-Hakim
al-Muizz 15. Imam of the Ismailis
975–996
al-Hakim