Suleiman ibn Daoud

Badr ad-Din Suleiman ibn Daoud ( Arabic بدر إد الدين سليمان بن داود, DMG Badr ad-Dīn Sulaimān ibn Dāwūd ; † February 1248 in Cairo ) was the last imam of the Shia of the Hafizi Ismailis and one of the last members of the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt .

Suleiman was a grandson of the last Fatimid caliph al-Adid , after whose death in 1171 the Sunni vizier Salah ad-Din (Saladin) Yusuf declared the Shiite caliphate in Egypt to be over and assumed sole rule as sultan. His father Daoud († 1207 or 1218) was recognized by loyal followers as the rightful heir to the throne and imam of their Shia, but he spent his entire life in isolated imprisonment in which he succeeded in procreating Suleiman by means of a secretly brought slave. Although he was born in Upper Egypt and raised there under the care of an underground missionary ( dāʿī ) of his Shia, Sultan al-Kamil Muhammad's attention was drawn to him, who had him captured and locked in the citadel of Cairo .

According to the contemporary chronicler Ibn Wasil , who received information about Suleiman through an informant, the Fatimid offspring was said to have been uneducated. As far as the author is aware, Suleiman died in the citadel in February 1248 without any descendants of his own, but the few remaining followers of his Shia in Egypt are said to have claimed that a son of his had raptured into seclusion ( ġaiba ) , whose return as Imam they have been expecting ever since would. The alleged son Daoud ibn Suleiman ibn Daoud appeared against the rule of the Mamluks in 1298 , but this was probably just an impostor. The Shia of the Hafizi Ismailis existed as the last relic of Ismailishness in North Africa in some small communities of Upper Egypt with a hidden imamate until the 14th century, after which its trace is lost. Today it is considered non-existent.

literature

• Heinz Halm , caliphs and assassins. Egypt and the Middle East at the time of the First Crusades 1074–1171. Munich: CH Beck, 2014. pp. 298 f, 324 f.
• Farhad Daftary , The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines. 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 2007. pp. 253 f.

predecessor	Office	successor
Daoud	26. Imam of the Hafizi Ismailis	---