A rival caliphate
The Fatimids were a dynasty of Ismaili Shia rulers who claimed descent from Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, and her husband Ali. In 909 they established their rule in Ifriqiya, in what is now Tunisia, and their leader took the title of caliph, directly challenging the Abbasids in Baghdad and, later, the Umayyads in Cordoba. For the religious background, see the article on the Sunni Shia split.
For decades their eyes were on Egypt, a rich and strategic land. After several attempts, a Fatimid army led by the general Jawhar took Egypt in 969 with relatively little fighting. Egypt was then governed from the old Muslim city of Fustat, which had grown from the early military camp established after the conquest.
A new city beside the old
Jawhar laid out a new walled palace-city just north of Fustat. It was named al-Qahira, meaning “the Victorious” or “the Conqueror,” which gives us the name Cairo. The Fatimid caliph al-Mu’izz arrived in 973 and made it his capital.
Cairo was at first not a commercial city for ordinary people. It was a royal enclosure with palaces, the main mosque, barracks and offices, and access was restricted. Fustat remained the bustling business center. Over the following generations the two merged, and the area outside the walls filled with markets, houses and workshops. The later city grew from both settlements.
Al-Azhar, a mosque founded in the early 970s, was linked to the Fatimid cause and to teaching their version of Islamic law and doctrine. It later became a major center of learning, and its character changed over the centuries, since it was reshaped under rulers with different beliefs.
Rule and state
Fatimid government was headed by the caliph, who was also the religious leader of the Ismaili community, and was assisted by a vizier and a large bureaucracy. They ruled a population that was mostly not Ismaili. Many Egyptians were Sunni Muslims, and a significant share remained Coptic Christian, with a Jewish population as well. The Fatimids were generally pragmatic, and many Christians and Jews held posts in the administration. The records of Jewish merchants and families discovered in the Cairo Geniza have given historians a detailed look at this world.
There were exceptions. The caliph al-Hakim (r. 996-1021) is remembered for erratic decisions, including restrictions and destruction aimed at Christians and Jews, such as the demolition of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1009. Later he lifted some of these measures. He disappeared mysteriously, and a religious group, the Druze, later formed around belief in his divinity, though Druze identity developed over time and is distinct from Ismaili teaching.
Trade networks
Egypt’s position gave the Fatimids a commercial edge. The Red Sea route carried spices, pepper, textiles and other goods from India and East Africa to Egyptian ports, from where they moved by the Nile and overland to Alexandria and other Mediterranean harbors. Merchants from Italian cities such as Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice bought such goods and sold timber, metals and other commodities. Some of this trade supplied the larger spice trade into Europe.
Egypt also produced and exported flax and linen, sugar, glass and metalwork. The Fatimids minted a gold coin that was widely trusted, and Jewish and Muslim merchants used credit and partnerships for long-distance business. Their trading networks reached west across North Africa and Sicily, and east along the Indian Ocean. Fatimid rulers also kept up diplomatic contacts with the Byzantine Empire, and sometimes with distant courts.
Court life and display
Descriptions by travelers and chroniclers speak of lavish processions, palaces with treasuries, and gifts of gold and textiles. Some accounts, such as one by a Persian traveler who visited in the 1040s, are admiring, but they do not give a neutral measure, and numbers of palace staff or stored objects are not reliable. We should treat them as impressions of a court that wished to look splendid.
Decline and end
In the late eleventh century the dynasty faced famine, army rebellions and a long period of crisis. Power shifted to powerful viziers and generals, and the caliphs often became figureheads. In the twelfth century, the arrival of the Crusaders on the Levantine coast and the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, followed by the founding of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, altered the regional balance, and Fatimid armies were no longer a leading force against them. Later, rival Muslim powers from Syria competed to control Egypt and its wealth.
One of those commanders, Saladin, became vizier in 1169, and in 1171 he had the Abbasid caliph’s name read in the Friday sermon instead of the Fatimid caliph’s. The last Fatimid caliph died around that time, and Egypt returned to Sunni rule under the Ayyubid dynasty. Cairo, however, remained the center of power and eventually became the capital of the Mamluk sultanate.
Why Fatimid Cairo matters
The Fatimids made Egypt a political center in the Islamic world for the first time in generations, and they laid the groundwork for Cairo’s later fame as a great city. Their story also illustrates that religious identity did not fully determine how a state worked. A ruling minority could govern a diverse country through administration, trade and a measure of tolerance, but the arrangement was never fully secure.