Talk:Fatimid

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Contents 1 Claim 2 Iemen was ismaili, but not fatimid 3 Relation between Fatimids and Crusaders. 4 al-Mahdi's caliphate began in 909 or 910 5 Map (re: reqmap template) 6 Fatimid dynasty did not originate from Ifriqiya 7 Expanding upon the fall?

[edit] Claim

This "He legitimized his claim by his descent from the Prophet by way of the Prophet's daughter Fatima Zahra and her husband Ali ibn Abu Talib" doesn't really make any sense, because he didn't change his descent to make his claim legitimate. How about "He justified his claim..." ? Jogback 04:33, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Iemen was ismaili, but not fatimid

Just taking a look at your article, I found a wide spred error about fatimids. You say:

The Fatimid or Fatimid Caliphate is the Ismaili Shiite dynasty that ruled North Africa from A.D. 909 to 1171. Under the Fatimids, Egypt became the center of an empire that included at its peak North Africa, Sicily, Palestine, Syria, the Red Sea coast of Africa, the Yemen, and the Hejaz.

Well, Iemen was never fatimid, just allied to them with the sulajhid dynasty. In Palestine and Syria, their possessions where just a few little cities, because of the anarchic status of the rest of the land. Source: History of Islam, 2 (750-1055), by M.A. Shaban. -- AnnubiX, from catalan wikipedia.

[edit] Relation between Fatimids and Crusaders.

One of the more controversial issues surrounding the Fatimid dynasty was its relation with the prominent issue of its time, namely the crusades. Subsequently, in my opinion, this decided the future of Shi'a school of thought in the middle-east for hundreds of years to come. Would someone who is knowledgable about this period of history add what he knows? I would be interested in reading it very much. HAE 19:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] al-Mahdi's caliphate began in 909 or 910

I've changed the date to 910 and I'm completely aware that this is only half of the story. He appeared 909 in Sijilmasa was called caliph by his followers there, had his followers prostrate themselves before him and coins had the inscription of his name in Raqqada. However, his official proclamation was in 910 when he entered the city himself. The scholars are divided, shall we include this bit of discussion in the entry? Bernd 09:15, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. 161.133.9.63 19:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map (re: reqmap template)

A map of Fatimid territories would be different pretty much every 50 years or so.... AnonMoos 13:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

But still, a "height of Fatimid control" or "Fatimid control under super cool leader #1" would be very useful. Most pre-modern-nation-state-things change a bunch and not clearly, but, the approximations still give us good context. gren グレン 14:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

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Is it possible to somehow make it clear that the fatimids had different theological beliefs to the ismails of today i.e the aga khan etc

[edit] Fatimid dynasty did not originate from Ifriqiya

According to this source: "The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise of the Fatimids" by HEINZ HALM, the Fatimid Dynasty originated out of the Yemen. It was known that the one who was called the Mahdi was supposed to be a descendant of the prophet, which meant he was born near Arabia and specifically the Yemen. After failing to establish a power presence in what we call now Yemen and Iraq, the Fatimids (Ismaelis at that time), led by Abdallah the elder, fled to the Maghrib. There they gathered their followers, and revealed their hidden Imam; the Mahdi. From that moment on they were known as Fatimids and broke with other Ismaeli groups. These groups didn't accept the Mahdi as their leader and ruler of Islam. According to them he had no legitimate claim to be a descendant of the prophet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.161.47.27 (talk) 14:42, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

They first achieved a "power presence" in the Maghrib, as the book says... AnonMoos 18:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expanding upon the fall?

Could somebody somehow expand on the fall of hte Fatimids? I don't feel the explanation is clear enough, I would expand it but I don't know the history myself very well. -- 01:46, 9 February 2008 71.191.141.180

I don't know that there's any one single overriding explanation. In some sense the basis of the Fatimids' rule was always a little tenuous, since they were a small Shi`ite elite ruling over a predominantly Sunni population. During the course of the 11th century A.D., the Zirids of the Maghrib declared independence, the Fatimids launched the Arab tribal invasions of the Maghrib in revenge (which left the agricultural economy of parts of northern Tunisia and northeastern Algeria in ruins for many centuries), there were some bad Fatimid rulers (most notably the "mad Caliph"), and the Turkish invasions and First Crusade resulted in expelling the Fatimids from the Levant area -- so that as a cumulative result, the Fatimids looked a whole lot less glorious in 1100 A.D than they had a century earlier. That was probably part of the reason why the Ismaili movement showed a tendency to split over leadership disputes around that time. AnonMoos (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2008 (UTC)