Second Qarmatian invasion of Egypt

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Second Qarmatian invasion of Egypt
Datelate 973 – May 974
Location
Egypt
Belligerents
Qarmatians of Bahrayn
Banu Tayy
Egyptian rebels		 Fatimid Caliphate
Commanders and leaders

The Second Qarmatian invasion of Egypt occurred in 974, when Qarmatians of Bahrayn unsuccessfully invaded Egypt, the seat (since 973) of the Fatimid Caliphate. The Qarmatian attack followed upon a failed invasion in 971, which had nevertheless succeeded in evicting the Fatimids from their initial conquests in the Levant. The Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz was hard put to contain the Qarmatian threat, as his treasury was empty and the populace resentful at the high taxation. His efforts to bring the Qarmatians, who belonged to a different branch of the same Isma'ili sect of Shi'a Islam that had given birth to the Fatimid dynasty, into recognizing his authority as imam, were brusquely rebuffed by the Qarmatian leader, al-Hasan al-A'sam. With the assistance of the Alid Akhu Muslim and other disaffected Alid ashraf, the Qarmatians infiltrated the country in late 973 and provoked revolts across Egypt, before launching their main attack in spring 974. The Qarmatian army occupied the Nile Delta before turning south towards Cairo, but was defeated by the Fatimid heir apparent, Abdallah ibn al-Mu'izz, in battle north of Ayn Shams, close to where the 971 invasion had also been turned back. The Qarmatians retreated to their home territory in Bahrayn, and despite al-A'sam's urgings, reached an accommodation with the Fatimids and largely withdrew from interference in the affairs of the Levant thereafter. The rebellions in Egypt were quickly stamped out by the Fatimid forces. Akhu Muslim managed to evade capture and flee across the Red Sea, but was poisoned by his former Qarmatian allies. The failure of the Qarmatian invasion opened the way for the Fatimid conquest of Egypt over the following years.

Background

In 969, the Fatimid Caliphate, established in Ifriqiya since 909, conquered Egypt from the Ikhshidids.[1] The Fatimid armies were then launched into the Levant, to carry out the jihad against the advancing Byzantine Empire, which had recently captured Antioch,[2] and open the way to Baghdad, the seat of the Fatimids' rivals, the Abbasid caliphs an fulfill their claims to an ecumenical imamate.[3] While the Ikhshidid remnants in the southern Levant were quickly overcome by the Fatimid general Ja'far ibn Fallah in April 970, who captured Ramla and Damascus,[4][5] the Fatimid advance was stopped by an external enemy, the Qarmatians of Bahrayn.

The Qarmatians had a common origin with the Fatimids, being a dissident branch of the Isma'ili sect of Shi'a Islam that had split away from the mainstream, pro-Fatimid branch in 899.[6] The most notable Qarmatian community was that of Bahrayn, established by the missionary Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi in the 890s. Allied with the local Bedouin tribes of the Banu Kilab and Banu Uqayl, as well as with the Persian Gulf merchants, Abu Sa'id was able to capture the region's capital, Hajr, and in 900 cemented his independence by defeating an Abbasid army sent to recover control of Bahrayn.[7][8] In the 920s, driven by millennialist expectations of Abu Sa'id's younger son, Abu Tahir al-Jannabi, launched a series of attacks on the declining Abbasid Caliphate that culminated in the Sack of Mecca in 930. As the expected mahdi failed to come, the Qarmatians returned to more peaceful relations after 939, sustained through payments of money to abstain from attacking the Hajj caravans.[9] Another wave of Qarmatian raids was launched in the 960s, directed against the Ikhshidid holdings in the Levant. Led by al-Hasan al-A'sam, these raids brought the Qarmatians enormous booty, as well as the promise of an annual tribute of 300,000 gold dinars from the Ikhshidid governor.[4][5][10]

Medieval historians, as well as some of the first modern scholars to examine Isma'ili history, saw a collusion between the Fatimid enterprise in the west and the Qarmatian attacks in the east, but more recent scholarship has disproven this.[11][12] The Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz (r. 953–975) made several attempts to get the scattered Qarmatian communities to recognize his leadership, but although these efforts were successful in some areas, the Qarmatians of Bahrayn persistently refused to do reconcile themselves to Fatimid claims.[13] In reality, the Fatimid conquest of Egypt and their expansion into the Levant ran counter to Qarmatian intestests, as it meant the end of the annual tribute; the Fatimids' declared intention to restore the safety of the Hajj routes threatened to put an end to the Qarmatians' extortion of the Hajj caravans for protection money as well.[14][15]

References

  1. ^ Kennedy 2023, pp. 316–318.
  2. ^ Brett 2001, pp. 308–309.
  3. ^ Walker 1998, pp. 120, 130.
  4. ^ a b Halm 2003, p. 95.
  5. ^ a b Madelung 1996, p. 35.
  6. ^ Daftary 2007, pp. 116–117, 120–123.
  7. ^ Daftary 2007, pp. 110, 121.
  8. ^ Kennedy 2023, pp. 271–272.
  9. ^ Daftary 2007, pp. 147–151.
  10. ^ Daftary 2007, pp. 161–162.
  11. ^ Madelung 1996, pp. 22–45.
  12. ^ Daftary 2007, pp. 151–152.
  13. ^ Walker 1998, pp. 135–136.
  14. ^ Madelung 1996, p. 36.
  15. ^ Daftary 2007, p. 162.

Sources

  • Bianquis, Thierry (1972). "La prise de pouvoir par les Fatimides en Égypte (357‑363/968‑974)" [The Seizure of Power by the Fatimids in Egypt (357–363/968–974)]. Annales islamologiques (in French). XI: 49–108. ISSN 0570-1716.
  • Bianquis, Thierry (1998). "Autonomous Egypt from Ibn Ṭūlūn to Kāfūr, 868–969". In Petry, Carl F. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Egypt, Volume 1: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 86–119. ISBN 0-521-47137-0.
  • Brett, Michael (2001). The Rise of the Fatimids: The World of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the Fourth Century of the Hijra, Tenth Century CE. The Medieval Mediterranean. Vol. 30. Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill. ISBN 90-04-11741-5.
  • Daftary, Farhad (2007). The Ismāʿı̄lı̄s: Their History and Doctrines (Second ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-61636-2.
  • Gil, Moshe (1997) [1983]. A History of Palestine, 634–1099. Translated by Ethel Broido. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-59984-9.
  • Halm, Heinz (2003). Die Kalifen von Kairo: Die Fatimiden in Ägypten, 973–1074 [The Caliphs of Cairo: The Fatimids in Egypt, 973–1074] (in German). Munich: C. H. Beck. ISBN 3-406-48654-1.
  • Kennedy, Hugh (2023). The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century (Fourth ed.). Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-367-36690-2.
  • Madelung, Wilferd (1996). "The Fatimids and the Qarmaṭīs of Baḥrayn". In Daftary, Farhad (ed.). Mediaeval Isma'ili History and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 21–73. ISBN 0-521-45140-X.
  • Walker, Paul E. (1998). "The Ismāʿīlī Daʿwa and the Fāṭimid Caliphate". In Petry, Carl F. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Egypt, Volume 1: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 120–150. ISBN 0-521-47137-0.
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