al-Mustaʿlī bi-Llāh

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Abū l-Qāsim Ahmad ibn al-Mustansir ( Arabic أبو القاسم أحمد بن المستنصر, DMG Abūʾl-Qāsim Aḥmad ibn al-Mustanṣir ; * August 24, 1076 in Cairo ; † December 10, 1101 ibid) was under the ruler name al-Mustaʿlī bi-Llāh ( Arabic المستعلي بالله, DMG al-Mustaʿlī bi-Llāh , in Western Europe also Almostali ) the ninth caliph of the Fatimids (1094–1101) and nineteenth imam of the Mustali Ismailis .

Dinar of the Caliph al-Mustali from Tripoli

Life

Dispute over the succession

The succession of Prince Ahmad to the Caliphate throne of the Fatimids in Cairo after the death of his father al-Mustansir bore the features of a coup in which the ruling vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah was the decisive actor. He had first heard of the death of the old caliph and immediately enthroned his younger son under the ruler's name al-Mustaʿlī billāh (“the one exalted by God”). This happened on December 29, 1094, the eighteenth day of the month of Dhu l-hiddscha in the Islamic calendar , the holy day of Ghadir Chumm for all Shiites . The vizier then ordered the older brothers of the new caliph into the throne room and asked them to pay homage to their brother and new ruler. The vizier justified this coup with a designation (naṣṣ) given by al-Mustansir on his deathbed in favor of the young Ahmad, who had thus acquired the indisputable right of succession. The eldest of the brothers, Prince Nizar , however, denied the existence of such a designation, as he had already received one from his father, so that the successor was rightfully due to him.

Prince Nizar was able to flee from Cairo by a ruse and proclaim a personal counter-caliphate to his brother in Alexandria , but he was militarily defeated and captured as early as 1095. He was quickly disposed of in a dungeon in Cairo, probably at the behest of the vizier. However, the rapid clarification of the succession dispute with al-Mustalis favor had devastating consequences for the Shi'ism of the Ismailis , which he ex officio should protrude with his Caliph office as Imam. While this claim was recognized by Ismailis living within the power of the Fatimid Caliphate, those living beyond it refused to recognize it. This particularly affected the entire Ismaili community of Persia , which was led by the charismatic missionary Hassan-i Sabbah . Under his leadership, the Persian Ismailis recognized the right of succession of Nizar and his descendants as imams of the religious community and terminated his allegiance to al-Mustali, who from their point of view was a usurper. This marked the beginning of the split in the Ismaili Shia, which from then on formed the groups of Mustali Ismailis and Nizari Ismailis (the " assassins " of Christians), each of whom claimed the continuation of true Ismailis and who therefore now became mutually hostile used.

Confrontation with the crusaders

While this was happening in the Orient, in the distant French town of Clermont in November 1095 the Christians were called to the crusade to liberate Jerusalem from the rule of the “infidels”. The city, like all of Syria and Palestine, had been a hard-fought area between the Sunni Seljuks and the Shiite Fatimids for several decades . During the persecution of the Christians of the caliph al-Hakim , al-Mustalis's great-grandfather, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher , which is holy to Christians, was destroyed here, which was mentioned as a motif in the appeal for the crusade.

When the knights of the first crusade invaded the Near East from Cilicia in late 1097 , Jerusalem was still under the control of the Seljuks, who were enemies of the Fatimids. Vizier Shahansha therefore made contact with the crusaders encamped in front of Antioch for the purpose of a common alliance. In August 1098, after a brief siege, he succeeded in bringing Jerusalem back under Fatimid control. A possible alliance with the "Franks", whose embassy was present in Jerusalem, no longer came about, probably because the vizier did not want to fulfill their condition for giving up the holy city. In June 1099, the Christian knights marched up in front of Jerusalem and stormed the city after a one-month siege on July 15, 1099 , causing a massacre among the Muslim population, whereby the number of victims reported in the various traditions varies greatly. A reconquest of the vizier failed with his defeat in the battle of Askalon against the numerically inferior Franks under Gottfried von Bouillon on August 12, 1099. The conquest of the Franks in the Middle East was accompanied by drastic territorial losses for the Fatimid caliphate. With the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader states , they lost the connection to Syria and with it the possibility of the removal of the Sunni caliphate of the Abbasids in Baghdad, which they were striving for . In the strongly fortified sea cities of Tire , Sidon , Beirut , Tripoli and Ashkelon , as well as in Apamea on the Orontes , Fatimid garrisons were able to hold their own for the time being.

The young caliph al-Mustali had no personal share in the government of his caliphate or in the fight against the Franks. He was entirely under the control of the vizier Shahanshah, who was also his brother-in-law. The caliph died on December 10, 1101 at the age of twenty-five, and the vizier had the young Prince Mansur enthroned as al-Amir as the new caliph.

literature

  • Heinz Halm : Caliphs and Assassins: Egypt and the Near East at the Time of the First Crusades 1074–1171. CH Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-66163-1 .
  • Paul E. Walker, Paul Walker: Succession to Rule in Schiite Caliphate. In: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt , Volume 32, 1995, pp. 239-264.

source

  • Ibn Challikan , "The Demise of Great Figures and the News of the Sons of Time" (Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-Anbāʾ abnāʾ az-zamān). Edited by William Mac Guckin de Slane : Ibn Khallikan's biographical dictionary , Volume 1 (1842), pp. 159-162.

Remarks

  1. See Ibn Challikan, p. 160.
  2. See ibid.
  3. See Walker, p. 253 f, Halm, p. 88 f.
  4. See Halm, p. 90 f.
  5. See Halm, pp. 95 ff.
  6. See Halm, p. 100 f.
predecessor Office successor
al-Mustansir Ruler of Egypt ( Fatimid Dynasty )
1094–1101
al-Amir