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214-610: Founded in 970 or 972 by the Fatimid Caliphate as a centre of Islamic learning, its students studied the Qur'an and Islamic law , along with logic, grammar, rhetoric, and how to calculate the phases of the moon. Today it is the chief centre of Arabic literature and Islamic learning in the world. In 1961 additional non-religious subjects were added to its curriculum. Its library is considered second in importance in Egypt only to

428-890: A Buyid refugee who had fled an unsuccessful rebellion in Baghdad with his own contingent of Turkish soldiers, became the protector of Damascus. He allied with the Qarmatis and with Arab Bedouin tribes in Syria and invaded Palestine in the spring of 977. Jawhar, once again called into action, repelled their invasion and besieged Damascus. However he suffered a rout during the winter and was forced to hold out in Ascalon against Aftakin. When his Kutama soldiers mutinied in April 978, Caliph al-Aziz himself led an army to relieve him. Instead of returning to Damascus, Aftakin and his Turkish ghilman joined

642-683: A jurist of Palestinian origin, took and kept the office of vizier from 1050 to 1058. In the 1040s (possibly in 1041 or 1044), the Zirids declared their independence from the Fatimids and recognized the Sunni Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad, which led the Fatimids to launch the devastating Banū Hilal invasions of North Africa. Fatimid suzerainty over Sicily also faded as the Muslim polity there fragmented and external attacks increased. By 1060, when

856-466: A mithqal or 2.96 grams). Ibn Khaldun's writings regarding the division of labor are often compared to Adam Smith's writings on the topic. The individual being cannot by himself obtain all the necessities of life. All human beings must co-operate to that end in their civilization. But what is obtained by the cooperation of a group of human beings satisfies the need of a number many times greater than themselves. For instance, no one by himself can obtain

1070-555: A modernist position, advocating "Wasatiyya" (centrism), a reaction against the extreme textualism of many Wahhabi Salafi ideologues. Wasatiyya covers a range of thinkers, some of whom are liberal intellectuals with religious inclinations, preachers such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi and many members of the Muslim Brotherhood . Since the 2013 coup however, Al-Azhar has taken a position against the brotherhood. The nineteenth and current Grand Mufti of Egypt and Al Azhar scholar,

1284-565: A Kutama general, Salman, to take Damascus, the Turkish ghulām Bultakīn finally succeeded in occupying the city for the Fatimids in 983, demonstrating the value of this new force. Another ghulām , Bajkūr, who appointed governor of Damascus at this time. That same year he tried and failed to take Aleppo, but he was soon able to conquer Raqqa and Rahba in the Euphrates valley (present-day northeast Syria ). Cairo eventually judged him to be

1498-402: A Sufi order has long been standard for both professors and students in the al-Azhar mosque and university system. Although al-Azhar is not monolithic, its identity has been strongly associated with Sufism. The current Shaykh al-Azhar (rector of the school), Ahmed el-Tayeb , is a hereditary Sufi shaykh from Upper Egypt who has recently expressed his support for the formation of a world Sufi league;

1712-483: A Turkish commander, with a force that defeated them in 1029 at the Battle of Uqḥuwāna near Lake Tiberias. In 1030 the new Byzantine emperor Romanos III broke a truce to invade northern Syria and forced Aleppo to recognize his suzerainty. His death in 1034 changed the situation again and in 1036 peace was restored. In 1038 Aleppo was directly annexed by the Fatimids state for the first time. Al-Zahir died in 1036 and

1926-607: A biography with a more detailed description on the Prolegomena . More details on and partial translations of the Prolegomena emerged over the years until the complete Arabic edition was published in 1858. Since then, the work of Ibn Khaldun has been extensively studied in the Western world with special interest. Reynold A. Nicholson praised Ibn Khaldun as a uniquely brilliant Muslim sociologist, but discounted Khaldun's influence. Spanish Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset viewed

2140-427: A counter-offensive to secure coastal cities, such as Gaza and Ascalon, and later Tyre , Sidon , and Byblos further north in 1089. Badr made major reforms to the state, updating and simplifying the administration of Egypt. As he was of Armenian background, his term also saw a large influx of Armenian immigrants, both Christian and Muslim, into Egypt. The Armenian church , patronised by Badr, established itself in

2354-500: A final invasion of Kairouan. The remaining Aghlabid army, led by an Aghlabid prince named Ibrahim Ibn Abi al-Aghlab, met them near al-Aribus on 18 March. The battle lasted until the afternoon, when a contingent of Kutama horsemen managed to outflank the Aghlabid army and finally caused a rout. When news of the defeat reached Raqqada, Ziyadat Allah III packed his valuable treasures and fled towards Egypt. The population of Kairouan looted

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2568-512: A former finance official, at their head. Fatimid control in Syria was threatened during the 1020s. In Aleppo, Fatāk, who had declared his independence, was killed and replaced in 1022, but this opened the way for a coalition of Bedouin chiefs from the Banu Kilab, Jarrahids, and Banu Kalb led by Salih ibn Mirdas to take the city in 1024 or 1025 and to begin imposing their control on the rest of Syria. Al-Jarjarā'ī sent Anushtakin al-Dizbari ,

2782-669: A great uprising in Syria . The large-scale Abbasid reaction it precipitated and the attention it brought on him, forced Abdallah to abandon Salamiya for Palestine, Egypt, and finally for the Maghreb , where the dā'ī Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i had made great headway in converting the Kutama Berbers to the Isma'ili cause. Unable to join his dā'ī directly, Abdallah instead settled at Sijilmasa sometime between 904 and 905. Prior to

2996-516: A labor theory of value or theory. Ibn Khaldun also called for the creation of a science to explain society and went on to outline these ideas in his major work, the Muqaddimah , which states that “Civilization and its well-being, as well as business prosperity, depend on productivity and people’s efforts in all directions in their own interest and profit”. Ibn Khaldun diverged from norms that Muslim historians followed and rejected their focus on

3210-516: A little too popular as governor of Damascus and he was forced to move to Raqqa while Munir, a eunuch in the caliph's household (like Jawhar before him), took direct control in Damascus on behalf of the caliph. Further north, Aleppo remained out of reach and under Hamdanid control. The incorporation of the Turkish troops into the Fatimid army had long-term consequences. On the one hand, they were

3424-541: A madrasa in pre-modern times before its transformation into a university. An Islamic women's faculty was also added in the same year. Historically, Al-Azhar had a membership that represented diverse opinions within Islam. The theological schools of al- Ash'ari and al- Maturidi were both represented. It has a long tradition of teaching all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence ( Hanafi , Maliki , Shafi , and Hanbali ). The chief mufti of each school of thought acted as

3638-499: A meeting between Ibn Khaldun and Tamerlane. According to Ibn Arabshah, during this meeting, Ibn Khaldun and Tamerlane discussed the Maghrib in depth, as well as Tamerlane's genealogy and place in history. Ibn Khaldun began gaining more attention from 1806, when Silvestre de Sacy 's Chrestomathie Arabe included his biography together with a translation of parts of the Muqaddimah as the Prolegomena . In 1816, de Sacy again published

3852-687: A necessary addition to the military in order for the Fatimids to compete militarily with other powers in the region. The Fatimids began to recruit ghilmān much as the Abbasids had done before them. They were soon joined by recruited Daylamis (footmen from the Buyid homeland in Iran ). Black Africans from the Sudan (upper Nile valley) were also recruited afterward. In the short term the Kutama warriors remained

4066-400: A number of people many times their own. The combined labour produces more than the needs and necessities of the workers (Ibn Khaldun 1958, vol. II 271–272) In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division of labour are similar to what they are in this very trifling one [pin production]; though, in many of them, the labour can either be so much subdivided, nor reduced to so great

4280-513: A one-year truce with the caliph, which the Fatimids used to recruit and build new ships for their fleet. In 996 many of the ships were destroyed by a fire at al-Maqs, the port on the Nile near Fustat, further delaying the expedition. Finally, in August 996 al-Aziz died and the objective of Aleppo became secondary to other concerns. Before leaving for Egypt, al-Mu'izz had installed Buluggin ibn Ziri ,

4494-403: A professor ( ijazah ). The average length of study was 6 years. Despite the lack of bureaucracy, the training remained rigorous and prolonged. Students were loosely organized into riwaq (a sort of fraternity ) organized according to their nationality and branch of Islamic law they studied. Each riwaq was supervised by a professor. A rector, usually a senior professor, oversaw the finances. By

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4708-518: A regular "hill of books" was formed and the soldiers used to sole their shoes with the fine bindings. The number of books said to have disposed of varies from 120,000 to 2,000,000." Abd-el-latif delivered lectures on Islamic medicine at Al-Azhar, while according to legend the Jewish philosopher Maimonides delivered lectures on medicine and astronomy there during the time of Saladin though no historical proof has corroborated this. Saladin introduced

4922-475: A religious celebration in the same month, Tantawy had released comments alluding to "the arrogant and the pretenders who accuse others with the ugliest vice and unsubstantiated charges". In response, Egypt's press union issued a statement suggesting that Tantawy appeared to be involved in inciting and escalating a campaign against journalists and freedom of the press. Tantawy died in 2010 and was succeeded by Mohamed Ahmed el-Tayeb . In 2016 Ahmed el-Tayeb reissued

5136-570: A religious ideology. Ibn Khaldun's analysis looks at how this cohesion carries groups to power but contains within itself the seeds – psychological, sociological, economic, political – of the group's downfall, to be replaced by a new group, dynasty or empire bound by a stronger (or at least younger and more vigorous) cohesion. Some of Ibn Khaldun's views, particularly those concerning the Zanj people of sub-Saharan Africa, have been cited as racist , though they were not uncommon for their time. According to

5350-730: A remote ancestor, was born in Tunis in AD 1332 (732 AH ) into an upper-class Andalusian family of Arab descent; the family's ancestor was a Hadhrami who shared kinship with Wa'il ibn Hujr , a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad . His family, which held many high offices in Al-Andalus , had emigrated to Tunisia after the fall of Seville to the Reconquista in AD 1248. Although some of his family members had held political office in

5564-462: A scholar at Al-Azhar published Man Qatala Faraj Fawda . 10th–17th centuries 19th – early 20th centuries 1910s–1950s 1950–present Al-Azhar, the historic centre of higher Islamic learning in Cairo, has undergone significant change since the late 19th century, with new regulations and reforms resulting in an expanded role for the university. 1. From madrasa to university This great mosque,

5778-580: A siege when local notables arranged to have the gates opened to them in May or June 907. This opened a hole in the wider defensive system of Ifriqiya and created panic in Raqqada. Ziyadat Allah III stepped up anti-Fatimid propaganda, recruited volunteers, and took measures to defend the weakly-fortified city of Kairouan. He spent the winter of 907–908 with his army in al-Aribus ( Roman -era Laribus, between present-day El Kef and Maktar ), expecting an attack from

5992-441: A simplicity of operation. The division of labour, however, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour (Smith 1976a, vol. I, 13–24) Both Ibn Khaldun and Smith shared the idea that the division of labor is fundamental to economic growth, however, the motivations and context for such division differed between them. For Ibn Khaldun, asabiyyah or social solidarity

6206-416: A specific thing for a long period makes him forget everything and become attached to what he focused on. Only, this focus makes him see the non-sensory world very quickly and in a very imperfect way, and these are pagan religions . Ibn Khaldun agrees with Sufism and believes that if a person maintains his good faith and is stripped of the desire to create a new religion and strives to separate himself from

6420-673: A strong response in Cairo. A major military campaign was prepared to impose Fatimid control over all of Syria. Along the way, Munir was arrested in Damascus and sent back to Cairo. Circumstances were favourable to the Fatimids as the Byzantine emperor Basil II was campaigning far away in the Balkans and the Hamdanid ruler Sa'd al-Dawla died in late 991. Manjūtakīn, the Turkish Fatimid commander, advanced methodically north along

6634-477: A supporter of then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak , also called for a punishment of eighty lashes to "those who spread rumors" in an indictment of speculation by journalists over Mubarak's ill health and possible death. This was not the first time that he had criticized the Egyptian press regarding its news coverage nor the first time he in return had been accused by the press of opposing freedom of speech. During

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6848-488: A third expedition to try and subdue the Kutama. They based themselves in Constantine and in the fall of 905, after receiving further reinforcements, set out to march against Abu Abdallah. However, they were surprised by Kutama forces on the first day of their march, which caused a panic and scattered their army. The Aghlabid general fled and the Kutama captured a large booty. Another Aghlabid military expedition organized

7062-708: A time of Berber dynasties domination is a valid reason to believe his claim of Arab descent. His family's high rank enabled Ibn Khaldun to study with prominent teachers in Maghreb . He received a classical Islamic education , studying the Quran , which he memorized by heart , Arabic linguistics ; the basis for understanding the Qur'an, hadith , sharia (law) and fiqh (jurisprudence). He received certification ( ijazah ) for all of those subjects. The mathematician and philosopher Al-Abili of Tlemcen introduced him to mathematics , logic and philosophy , and he studied especially

7276-526: A year, he had to resign his judgeship. Also in 1384, a ship carrying Khaldun's wife and children sank off of Alexandria . After his return from a pilgrimage to Mecca in May 1388, Ibn Khaldūn concentrated on teaching at various Cairo madrasas. At the Mamluk court he fell from favor because during revolts against Barquq, he had, apparently under duress, with other Cairo jurists, issued a fatwa against Barquq. Later relations with Barquq returned to normal, and he

7490-468: Is Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam . The university is opposed to overt liberal reform of Islam and issued a fatwa against the liberal Ibn Rushd-Goethe mosque in Berlin because it banned face-covering veils such as burqa and niqab on its premises while allowing women and men to pray together. The fatwa encompassed all present and future liberal mosques . Al-Azhar University's Council of Senior Scholars

7704-638: Is also what inspires human beings to form into a social structure to co-operate in division of labor and organization. According to Zaid Ahmand in Epistemology and the Human Dimension in Urban Studies , the fikr faculty is the supporting pillar for all philosophical aspects of Ibn Khaldun's theory related to human beings’ spiritual, intellectual, physical, social and political tendencies. Another important concept he emphasizes in his work

7918-531: Is hence known as the "Twelvers". Others followed other sons, or even refused to believe that al-Sadiq had died, and expected his return as the mahdī . Another branch believed that Ja'far was followed by a seventh imam, who had gone into occultation and would one day return; hence this party is known as the "Seveners". The exact identity of that seventh imam was disputed, but by the late ninth century had commonly been identified with Muhammad , son of Isma'il and grandson of al-Sadiq. From Muhammad's father, Isma'il,

8132-490: Is now northern Morocco occurred in 917 and 921 and were primarily aimed at the Principality of Nakur , which they subjugated on both occasions. Fez and Sijilmasa were also captured in 921. These two expeditions were led by Masala ibn Habus, who had been made governor of Tahert . Thereafter, the weakened Idrisids and various local Zenata and Sanhaja leaders acted as proxies whose formal allegiances oscillated between

8346-572: Is one of the relics of the Isma'ili Shi'a Fatimid dynasty, which claimed descent from Fatimah , daughter of Muhammad and wife of Ali , son-in-law, and cousin of Muhammad. Fatimah was called al-Zahra (the luminous), and the institution was named in her honor. It was founded as a mosque by the Fatimid commander Jawhar al-Siqilli at the orders of the Caliph and Imam Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah as he founded

8560-473: Is tasked with nominating the Grand Mufti of Egypt (subject to presidential approval), electing the next Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque , and is expected to be the final authority in determining if new legislation is compliant with Islamic law. Although the council's decisions are not binding (absent new legislation), it is expected that it would be difficult for the parliament to pass legislation deemed by

8774-562: Is the mastery of crafts, habits and skills. This takes place after a society is established and according to Ibn Khaldun the level of achievement of a society can be determined by just analyzing these three concepts. A society in its earliest stages is nomadic and primarily concerned with survival, while a society at a later stage is sedentary, with greater achievement in crafts. A society with a sedentary culture and stable politics would be expected to have greater achievements in crafts and technology. Ibn Khaldun also emphasized in his epistemology

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8988-481: Is the notion that when a society becomes a great civilization, its high point is followed by a period of decay. This means that the next cohesive group that conquers the diminished civilization is, by comparison, a group of barbarians . Once the barbarians solidify their control over the conquered society, however, they become attracted to its more refined aspects, such as literacy and arts, and either assimilate into or appropriate such cultural practices. Then, eventually,

9202-401: Is uncertain whether an agreement was reached but it seems that the parties expected to reach a conclusion in Cairo. Al-Afdal took then advantage of the crusader victory at Antioch to reconquer Jerusalem in August 1098, possibly to be in a better position in the negotiations with the crusaders. The next time both parties met was at Arqah in April 1099 where an impasse was reached in regard to

9416-729: The Awliya' Allah ('Friends of God'), and to initiate them into Isma'ili doctrine. In 902, while the Aghlabid emir Ibrahim II was away on campaign in Sicily , Abu Abdallah struck the first significant blow against Aghlabid authority in North Africa by attacking and capturing the city of Mila for the first time. This news triggered a serious response from the Aghlabids, who sent a punitive expedition of 12,000 men from Tunis in October of

9630-539: The Dar al-'Ilm ("House of Knowledge"), a library for the study of the sciences, which was in line with al-Aziz's previous policy of cultivating this knowledge. For the general population, he was noted for being more accessible and willing to receive petitions in person, as well as for riding out in person among the people in the streets of Fustat. On the other hand, he was also known for his capricious decrees aimed at curbing what he saw as public improprieties. He also unsettled

9844-598: The Egyptian National Library and Archives . In May 2005, Al-Azhar in partnership with a Dubai information technology enterprise, IT Education Project (ITEP) launched the H.H. Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum project to preserve Al-Azhar scripts and publish them online (the "Al-Azhar Online Project") to eventually publish online access to the library's entire rare manuscripts collection, comprising about seven million pages of material. Al-Azhar

10058-499: The Isma'ili Shia caliph Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah . The caliphate's establishment was accomplished by Kutama Berbers from Little Kabylia , who converted to the Fatimid cause early and made up its original military forces. The Shi'a opposed the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, whom they considered usurpers. Instead, they believed in the exclusive right of the descendants of Ali through Muhammad's daughter Fatima , to lead

10272-716: The Italo-Norman Roger I began his conquest of the island (completed in 1091), the Kalbid dynasty, along with any Fatimid authority, were already gone. There was more success in the east, however. In 1047 the Fatimid dā'ī Ali Muhammad al-Ṣulayḥi in Yemen built a fortress and recruited tribes with which he was able to capture San'a in 1048. In 1060 he began a campaign to conquer all of Yemen, capturing Aden and Zabid . In 1062 he marched on Mecca, where Shukr ibn Abi al-Futuh 's death in 1061 provided an excuse. Along

10486-730: The Levant (including Transjordan), the Red Sea coast of Africa, Tihamah , Hejaz , Yemen , with its most remote territorial reach being Multan (in modern-day Pakistan) . Egypt flourished, and the Fatimids developed an extensive trade network both in the Mediterranean and in the Indian Ocean. Their trade and diplomatic ties, extending all the way to China under the Song Dynasty ( r.  960–1279 ), eventually determined

10700-599: The Mustansirite Hardship . Viziers came and went in flurry, the bureaucracy broke down, and the caliph was unable or unwilling to assume responsibilities in their absence. Declining resources accelerated the problems among the different ethnic factions, and outright civil war began, primarily between the Turks under Nasir al-Dawla ibn Hamdan , a scion of the Hamdanids of Aleppo, and Black African troops, while

10914-538: The Nizaris or Assassins , though the truth of this is unconfirmed. Ibn Khaldun Ibn Khaldun ( / ˈ ɪ b ən h æ l ˈ d uː n / IH -bun hal- DOON ; Arabic : أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي , Abū Zayd ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī , Arabic: [ibn xalduːn] ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732–808 AH ) was an Arab sociologist , philosopher , and historian widely acknowledged to be one of

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11128-461: The Sulayhid dynasty which continued to rule Yemen as nominal vassals of the Fatimids after this. Events degenerated in Egypt and Syria, however. Starting in 1060, various local leaders began to break away or challenge Fatimid dominion in Syria. While the ethnic-based army was generally successful on the battlefield, it had begun to have negative effects on Fatimid internal politics. Traditionally

11342-566: The Zagwe dynasty ) as vassals to the Fatimid state. The Juyushi Mosque ( Arabic : الجامع الجيوشي , lit.   'the Mosque of the Armies';), was commissioned by Badr and completed in 1085 under the patronage of the caliph. The mosque, identified as a mashhad , was also a victory monument commemorating vizier Badr's restoration of order for al-Mustansir. Between 1087 and 1092,

11556-546: The Zenata Berbers, the uprising spread through Ifriqiya, taking Kairouan and blockading al-Qa'im at al-Mahdiyya, which was besieged in January–September 945. Al-Qa'im died during the siege, but this was kept secret by his son and successor, Isma'il, until he had defeated Abu Yazid; he then announced his father's death and proclaimed himself imam and caliph as al-Mansur . While al-Mansur was campaigning to suppress

11770-661: The dean , responsible for the teachers and students in that group. During the time of the Ottomans, the Hanafi dean came to hold a position as primus inter pares . It also had membership from the seven main Sufi orders . Al-Azhar has had an antagonistic relationship with Wahhabism . According to a 2011 report issued by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace , Al Azhar is strongly Sufi in character: Adherence to

11984-504: The end times . This figure was widely expected – not just among the Shi'a – to be a descendant of Ali. Among Shi'a, however, this belief became a core tenet of their faith, and was applied to several Shi'a leaders who were killed or died; their followers believed that they had gone into " occultation " ( ghayba ) and would return (or be resurrected) at the appointed time. These traditions manifested themselves in

12198-526: The palaces of the caliph and the official state mosque, Al-Azhar Mosque . In 988 the mosque also became an academic institution that was central in the dissemination of Isma'ili teachings. Until the last years of the Fatimid Caliphate, the economic centre of Egypt remained Fustat, where most of the general population lived and traded. Under the Fatimids, Egypt became the centre of an empire that included at its peak parts of North Africa, Sicily,

12412-414: The political quietism of their leadership and the recent disappearance of the twelfth imam. Missionaries ( dā'ī s) such as Hamdan Qarmat and Ibn Hawshab spread the network of agents to the area round Kufa in the late 870s, and from there to Yemen (882) and thence India (884), Bahrayn (899), Persia , and the Maghreb (893). In 899, Abdallah al-Akbar's great-grandson, Abdallah , became

12626-404: The 'brilliant one' ... is one of the principal mosques of present-day Cairo. This seat of learning ... regained all its activity—Sunnī from now on—during the reign of Sultan Baybars. ... Al-Azhar at the beginning of the 19th century could well have been called a religious university; what it was not was a complete university giving instruction in those modern disciplines essential to the awakening of

12840-524: The 12th century, following the overthrow of the Isma'ili Fatimid dynasty, Saladin (the founder of the Sunni Ayyubid dynasty ) converted Al-Azhar to a Shafi'ite Sunni center of learning. Therefore, "he had all the treasures of the palace, including the books, sold over a period of ten years. Many were burned, thrown into the Nile , or thrown into a great heap, which was covered with sand, so that

13054-588: The 950s, until the Fatimid general Jawhar , on behalf of Caliph Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah , led another major expedition to Morocco in 958 and spent two years subjugating most of northern Morocco. He was accompanied by Ziri ibn Manad , the leader of the Zirids . Jawhar took Sijilmasa in September or October 958 and then, with the help of Ziri, his forces took Fez in November 959. He was unable, however, to dislodge

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13268-413: The Abd al-Wadid Sultan of Tlemcen, on a mission to the Dawadida Arabs tribes of Biskra. After his return to the West, Ibn Khaldūn sought refuge with one of the Berber tribes in the west of Algeria , in the town of Qalat Ibn Salama . He lived there for over three years under their protection, taking advantage of his seclusion to write the Muqaddimah "Prolegomena", the introduction to his planned history of

13482-427: The Aghlabid province of Sicily , which the Aghlabids had gradually conquered from the Byzantine Empire starting in 827. The conquest was generally completed when the last Christian stronghold, Taormina , was conquered by Ibrahim II in 902. However, some Christian or Byzantine resistance continued in some spots in the northeast of Sicily until 967, and the Byzantines still held territories in southern Italy, where

13696-464: The Aghlabid state's apparatus and allowed its former officials to continue working for the new regime. He established a new, Isma'ili Shi'a regime on behalf of his absent, and for the moment unnamed, master. He then led his army west to Sijilmasa, whence he led Abdallah in triumph to Raqqada, which he entered on 15 January 910. There Abdallah publicly proclaimed himself as caliph with the regnal name of al-Mahdī , and presented his son and heir, with

13910-413: The Aghlabids had also campaigned. This ongoing confrontation with the traditional foe of the Islamic world provided the Fatimids with a prime opportunity for propaganda, in a setting where geography gave them the advantage. Sicily itself proved troublesome, and only after a rebellion under Ibn Qurhub was subdued, was Fatimid authority on the island consolidated. For a large part of the tenth century

14124-407: The Berbers shifted alliance between the two sides. The Turkish faction under Nasir al-Dawla seized partial control of Cairo but their leader was not given any official title. In 1067–1068 they plundered the state treasury and then looted any treasures they could find in the palaces. The Turks turned against Nasir al-Dawla in 1069, but he managed to rally Bedouin tribes to his side, took over most of

14338-426: The Egyptian government to toughen its rules and punishments against journalists. During a Friday sermon in the presence of Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and a number of ministers, Tantawy was alleged to have stated that journalism which contributes to the spread of false rumours rather than true news deserved to be boycotted, and that it was tantamount to sinning for readers to purchase such newspapers. Tantawy,

14552-436: The Egyptian parliament. The King Fuad I Edition of the Qur'an was first published on 10 July 1924 by a committee from Al-Azhar University Prominent committee members included Islamic scholar, Muhammad b. 'Ali al-Husayni al-Haddad. Noteworthy Western scholars/academics working in Egypt at the time include Bergsträsser and Jeffery . Methodological differences aside, speculation alludes to a spirit of cooperation. Bergsträsser

14766-433: The Fatimid army and became a useful instrument in the Syrian effort. After Ibn Killis became vizier in 979, the Fatimids changed tactics. Ibn Killis was able to subjugate most of Palestine and southern Syria (the former Ikhshidid territories) by paying off the Qarmatis with an annual tribute and making alliances with local tribes and dynasties, such as the Jarrahids and the Banu Kilab . Following another failed attempt by

14980-430: The Fatimid rise to power, a large part of the Maghreb including Ifriqiya was under the control of the Aghlabids , an Arab dynasty who ruled nominally on behalf the Abbasids but were de facto independent. In 893 the dā'ī Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i first settled among the Banu Saktan tribe (part of the larger Kutama tribe) in Ikjan , near the city of Mila (in northwestern Algeria today). However, due to hostility from

15194-406: The Fatimids also engaged in a rivalry with the Umayyads of Cordoba —who ruled Al-Andalus and were hostile to the Fatimids' pretensions—in an effort to establish domination over the western Maghreb. In 911, Tahert , which had been briefly captured by Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i in 909, had to be retaken by the Fatimid general Masala ibn Habus of the Miknasa tribe. The first Fatimid expeditions to what

15408-557: The Fatimids faced a new external threat: the First Crusade . Although initially both sides intended to reach an agreement and an alliance against the Seljuk Turks, these negotiations would eventually break down. First contact seems to have been established by the crusaders who sent in May or June 1097, on suggestion of Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos , an embassy to al-Afdal. In return the Fatimids dispatched an embassy to

15622-450: The Fatimids initially conquered Ifriqiya (roughly present-day Tunisia ). They extended their rule across the Mediterranean coast and ultimately made Egypt the center of the caliphate. At its height, the caliphate included—in addition to Egypt—varying areas of the Maghreb , Sicily , the Levant , and the Hejaz . Between 902 and 909, the foundation of the Fatimid state was realized under

15836-400: The Kutama element of the army had the strongest sway over political affairs, but as the Turkish element grew more powerful, it began to challenge this. In 1062, the tentative balance between the different ethnic groups within the Fatimid army collapsed and they quarreled constantly or fought each other in the streets. At the same time, Egypt suffered a 7-year period of drought and famine known as

16050-464: The Kutama rebels, but he ended the expedition prematurely due to troubles at home arising from disputes over his succession. On 27 July 903 he was assassinated and his son Ziyadat Allah III took power in Tunis. These internal Aghlabid troubles gave Abu Abdallah the opportunity to recapture Mila and then go on to capture Setif, another fortified city, by October or November 904. In 905 the Aghlabids sent

16264-589: The Levant in 1097. In 1171, Saladin abolished the dynasty's rule and founded the Ayyubid dynasty , which incorporated Egypt back into the nominal sphere of authority of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Fatimid dynasty claimed descent from Fatimah , the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad . The dynasty legitimized its claim through descent from Muhammad by way of his daughter and her husband Ali ,

16478-622: The Maghreb. At his request, Ibn Khaldūn even wrote a long report about it. As he recognized Timur's intentions, he did not hesitate, on his return to Egypt, to compose an equally-extensive report on the history of the Tatars , together with a character study of Timur, sending them to the Merinid rulers in Fez . Ibn Khaldūn spent the next five years in Cairo completing his autobiography and his history of

16692-467: The Muqaddimah, although some scholars have found his praise, and that of others, to be generally empty and lacking understanding of Ibn Khaldun's methods. Ibn Khaldun also faced primarily criticism from his contemporaries, particularly Ibn Hajar al-`Asqalani . These criticisms included accusations of inadequate historical knowledge, an inaccurate title, disorganization, and a style resembling that of

16906-490: The Muslim community. This manifested itself in a line of imams , descendants of Ali via al-Husayn , whom their followers considered as the true representatives of God on earth. At the same time, there was a widespread messianic tradition in Islam concerning the appearance of a mahdī ("the Rightly Guided One") or qāʾim ("He Who Arises"), who would restore true Islamic government and justice and usher in

17120-565: The Muslims in cooperation and on friendly terms, and are not enemies of the faith" ("in this case, their rights and responsibilities are the same as the Muslims so long as they do not become enemies of Islam"). Shi'a fiqh (according to a fatwa by Al-Azhar) is accepted as a fifth school of Islamic thought . In October 2007, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy , then the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, drew allegations of stifling freedom of speech when he asked

17334-485: The Nile Delta region, and blocked supplies and food from reaching the capital from this region. Things degenerated further for the general population, especially in the capital, which relied on the countryside for food. Historical sources of this period report extreme hunger and hardship in the city, even to the point of cannibalism . The depredations in the Nile Delta may have also been a turning point that accelerated

17548-427: The Nile Delta region, which gave Jawhar time to organize a defense of Fustat and Cairo. The Qarmati advance was halted just north of the city and eventually routed. A Kalbid relief force arriving by sea secured the expulsion of the Qarmatis from Egypt. Ramla , the capital of Palestine , was retaken by the Fatimids in May 972, but otherwise the progress in Syria had been lost. Once Egypt was sufficiently pacified and

17762-497: The Orontes valley. He took Homs and Hama in 992 and defeated a combined force from Hamdanid Aleppo and Byzantine-held Antioch. In 993 he took Shayzar and in 994 he began the siege of Aleppo. In May 995, however, Basil II unexpectedly arrived in the region after a forced march with his army through Anatolia, forcing Manjūtakīn to lift the siege and return to Damascus. Before another Fatimid expedition could be sent, Basil II negotiated

17976-663: The Sultan of Granada, the Nasrid Muhammad V , regain power from his temporary exile. In 1364, Muhammad entrusted him with a diplomatic mission to the king of Castile , Pedro the Cruel , to endorse a peace treaty. Ibn Khaldūn successfully carried out this mission and politely declined Pedro's offer to remain at his court and have his family's Spanish possessions returned to him. In Granada, Ibn Khaldūn quickly came into competition with Muhammad's vizier, Ibn al-Khatib , who viewed

18190-664: The Sunni anti-caliph, but the latter's death in 1013 led to their surrender. Despite his policies against Christians and his demolition of the church in Jerusalem, al-Hakim maintained a ten-year truce with the Byzantines that began in 1001. For most of his reign, Aleppo remained a buffer state that paid tribute to Constantinople. This lasted until 1017, when the Fatimid Armenian general Fatāk finally occupied Aleppo at

18404-537: The Tunisian Hafsid dynasty , his father and grandfather later withdrew from political life and joined a mystical order . His brother, Yahya Khaldun, was also a historian who wrote a book on the Abdalwadid dynasty and was assassinated by a rival for being the official historiographer of the court. In his autobiography, Khaldun traces his descent back to the time of Muhammad through an Arab tribe from

18618-588: The Umayyad garrisons in Sala , Sebta (present-day Ceuta) and Tangier , and this marked the only time that the Fatimid army was present at the Strait of Gibraltar . Jawhar and Ziri returned to al-Mansuriyya in 960. The subjugated parts of Morocco, including Fez and Sijilmasa, were left under the control of local vassals while most of the central Maghreb (Algeria), including Tahert, was given to Ziri ibn Manad to govern on

18832-557: The Umayyads or the Fatimids depending on the circumstances. As a result of the political instability in the western Maghreb, effective Fatimid control did not extend much beyond the former territory of the Aghlabids. Masala's successor, Musa ibn Abi'l-Afiya , captured Fez from the Idrisids again, but in 932 defected to the Umayyads, taking the western Maghreb with him. The Umayyads gained the upper hand again in northern Morocco during

19046-400: The abandoned palaces of Raqqada and resisted Ibn Abi al-Aghlab's calls to organise a last-ditch resistance. Upon hearing of the looting, Abu Abdallah sent an advance force of Kutama horsemen who secured Raqqada on 24 March. On 25 March 909 (Saturday, 1 Rajab 296), Abu Abdallah himself entered Raqqada and took up residence here. Upon assuming power in Raqqada, Abu Abdallah inherited much of

19260-651: The achievement of a society would be the language of a society, since for him the most important element of a society would not be land, but the language spoken. He was surprised that many non-Arabs were really successful in the Arabic society, had good jobs and were well received by the community. "These people were non-Arab by descent, but they grew up among the Arabs who possessed the habit of Arabic," Ibn Khaldun once recalled, "[b]ecause of this, they were able to master Arabic so well that they cannot be surpassed." He believed that

19474-658: The advance of the Sunni-aligned Seljuk Turks who had conquered much of the Middle East and had become the guardians of the Abbasid Caliphs as well as independent Turkmen groups. Atsiz ibn Uwaq , a Turkmen of the Nawaki tribe, conquered Jerusalem in 1073 and Damascus in 1076 before attempting to invade even Egypt itself. After defeating him at a battle close to Cairo, Badr was able to start

19688-482: The armies') who would dominate late Fatimid politics. In 1078 al-Mustansir formally abdicated responsibility for all state affairs to him. His de facto rule initiated a temporary and limited revival of the Fatimid state, although it was now faced with serious challenges. Badr reestablished Fatimid authority in the Hejaz (Mecca and Medina ) and the Sulayhids were able to hold on in Yemen. Syria, however, saw

19902-531: The army led to a civil war in the 1060s, which threatened the empire's survival. After a period of revival during the tenure of the vizier Badr al-Jamali , the Fatimid caliphate declined rapidly during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. In addition to internal difficulties, the caliphate was weakened by the encroachment of the Seljuk Turks into Syria in the 1070s and the arrival of the Crusaders in

20116-412: The beginning, people will look for different ways of increasing productivity of basic needs and expansion will occur. Later the society starts becoming more sedentary and focuses more on crafting, arts and the more refined characteristics. By the end of a society, it will weaken, allowing another small group of individuals to come into control. The conquering group is described as an unsatisfied group within

20330-464: The caliph's behalf. All this warfare in the Maghreb and Sicily necessitated the maintenance of a strong army, and a capable fleet as well. Nevertheless, by the time of al-Mahdi's death in 934, the Fatimid Caliphate "had become a great power in the Mediterranean". The reign of the second Fatimid imam-caliph, al-Qa'im, was dominated by the Kharijite rebellion of Abu Yazid . Starting in 943/4 among

20544-482: The caliphate often allowed a degree of religious tolerance towards non-Shia sects of Islam, as well as to Jews and Christians. However, its leaders made little headway in persuading the Egyptian population to adopt its religious beliefs. After the reigns of al-'Aziz and al-Hakim , the long reign of al-Mustansir entrenched a regime in which the caliph remained aloof from state affairs and viziers took on greater importance. Political and ethnic factionalism within

20758-617: The city for Cairo. It was begun (probably on Saturday) in Jumada al-Awwal in the year AH 359 (March/April 970 CE). Its building was completed on the 9th of Ramadan in AH 361 (24 June 972 CE). Both Caliph al-Aziz Billah and Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah added to its premises. It was further repaired, renovated, and extended by al-Mustansir Billah and al-Hafiz li-Din Allah . The Fatimid caliphs always encouraged scholars and jurists to have their study-circles and gatherings in this mosque and thus it

20972-606: The close relationship between Muhammad and Ibn Khaldūn with increasing mistrust. Ibn Khaldūn tried to shape the young Muhammad into his ideal of a wise ruler, an enterprise that Ibn al-Khatib thought foolish and a danger to peace in the country. As a result of al-Khatib's influence, Ibn Khaldūn was eventually sent back to North Africa. Al-Khatib himself was later accused by Muhammad of having unorthodox philosophical views and murdered despite an attempt by Ibn Khaldūn to intercede on behalf of his old rival. In his autobiography, Ibn Khaldūn tells little about his conflict with Ibn al-Khatib and

21186-510: The college system in Egypt, which was also adopted in Al-Azhar. Under this system, the college was a separate institution within the mosque compound, with its own classrooms, dormitories and a library. Under the Mamluks, Al-Azhar gained influence and rose in prestige. The Mamluks established salaries for instructors and stipends for the students and gave the institution an endowment. A college

21400-404: The conflicts of North Africa as a problem that stemmed from a lack of African thought, and praised Ibn Khaldun for making sense of the conflict by simplifying it to the relationship between the nomadic and sedentary modes of life. British historian Arnold J. Toynbee has called Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah "the greatest work of its kind." Ernest Gellner , once a professor of philosophy and logic at

21614-600: The control of the Ikhshidids , another regional dynasty whose formal allegiance was to the Abbasids. Al-Mu'izz had given Jawhar specific instructions to carry out after the conquest, and one of his first actions was to found a new capital named al-Qāhira ( Cairo ) in 969. The name al-Qāhirah ( Arabic : القاهرة ), meaning "the Vanquisher" or "the Conqueror", referenced the planet Mars , "The Subduer", rising in

21828-514: The council as against Islamic law. In January 2013, Al-Tayeb referred a relatively minor issue related to Islamic bonds to the council, for the first time asserting the council's jurisdiction. In 2013, the Council elected Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam to be the next Grand Mufti of Egypt. This marks the first time that the Grand Mufti would be elected by Islamic scholars since the position

22042-545: The country along with a clerical hierarchy. He commanded a large contingent of Armenian troops, many (if not all) of whom were also Christian. Badr also used his relations and influence with the Coptic Church for political advantage. In particular, he enlisted Cyril II ( Coptic Pope from 1078 to 1092 ) to secure the allegiance of the Christian kingdoms of Nubia (specifically Makuria ) and Ethiopia (specifically

22256-552: The country. Fatimid Caliphate The Fatimid Caliphate ( / ˈ f æ t ɪ m ɪ d / ; Arabic : ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْفَاطِمِيَّة , romanized :  al-Khilāfa al-Fāṭimiyya ), also known as the Fatimid Empire , was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids , an Isma'ili Shia dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia , it ranged from

22470-579: The countryside under his control, while the major cities remained under Aghlabid control. He established an Isma'ili theocratic state based in Tazrut, operating in a way similar to previous Isma'ili missionary networks in Mesopotamia but adapted to local Kutama tribal structures. He adopted the role of a traditional Islamic ruler at the head of this organization while remaining in frequent contact with Abdallah. He continued to preach to his followers, known as

22684-446: The credibility of the transmitter and focused instead on the validity of the stories and encouraged critical thinking. Ibn Khaldun also outlines early theories of division of labor, taxes, scarcity, and economic growth. He argued that poverty was a result of the destruction of morality and human values. He also looked at what factors contribute to wealth, such as consumption, government, and investment. Khaldun also argued that poverty

22898-550: The crusading forces which arrived in February 1098 during their siege of Antioch , witnessing and congratulating the crusaders on their victory against the Seljuk emirs Ridwan of Aleppo and Sökmen of Jerusalem as well as stressing their friendly attitude towards Christians. The Fatimid embassy stayed for a month with the crusading forces before returning via the harbour of Latakia with gifts as well as Frankish ambassadors. It

23112-407: The currency of an Islamic monetary system should have intrinsic value and therefore be made of gold and silver (such as the dirham ). He emphasized that the weight and purity of these coins should be strictly followed: the weight of one dinar should be one mithqal (the weight of 72 grains of barley , roughly 4.25 grams) and the weight of 7 dinar should be equal to weight of 10 dirhams (7/10 of

23326-424: The death of Abū Inan in 1358, Vizier al-Hasān ibn-Umar granted him freedom and reinstated him to his rank and offices. Ibn Khaldūn then schemed against Abū Inan's successor, Abū Salem Ibrahim III, with Abū Salem's exiled uncle, Abū Salem. When Abū Salem came to power, he gave Ibn Khaldūn a ministerial position, the first position to correspond with Ibn Khaldūn's ambitions. The treatment that Ibn Khaldun received after

23540-446: The decline of a society, since it would constrain the development of more specialized labor (increase in scholars and development of different services). He believed that bureaucrats cannot understand the world of commerce and do not possess the same motivation as a businessman. In his work the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun emphasizes human beings' faculty to think ( fikr ) as what determines human behavior and ubiquitous patterns. This faculty

23754-536: The dichotomy of sedentary life versus nomadic life as well as the inevitable loss of power that occurs when warriors conquer a city. According to the Arab scholar Sati' al-Husri , the Muqaddimah may be read as a sociological work. The work is based around Ibn Khaldun's central concept of 'aṣabiyyah , translated as " group cohesiveness " or "solidarity". This social cohesion arises spontaneously in tribes and other small kinship groups; it can be intensified and enlarged by

23968-416: The duty of active da'wa . He has made declarations about Muslims interacting with non-Muslims who are not a threat to Muslims. There are non-Muslims living apart from Muslims and who are not enemies of Islam ("Muslims are allowed to undertake exchanges of interests with these non-Muslims so long as these ties do not tarnish the image of the faith"), and there are "the non-Muslims who live in the same country as

24182-537: The east. The Qarmatis of Bahrayn, responding to the appeal of the recently defeated leaders of Damascus, had organized a large coalition of Arab tribesmen to attack him. Ja'far chose to confront them in the desert in August 971, but his army was surrounded and defeated and Ja'far himself was killed. A month later the Qarmati imam Hasan al-A'ṣam led the army, with new reinforcements from Transjordan , into Egypt, seemingly without opposition. The Qarmatis spent time occupying

24396-583: The economic course of Egypt during the High Middle Ages . The Fatimid focus on agriculture further increased their riches and allowed the dynasty and the Egyptians to flourish. The use of cash crops and the propagation of the flax trade allowed Fatimids to import other items from various parts of the world. The Fatimids built upon some of the bureaucratic foundations laid by the Ikhshidids and

24610-779: The economists David Ricardo and Adam Smith , suggesting that their ideas found precedent (although not direct influence) in his. He has also been influential on certain modern Islamic thinkers (e.g. those of the traditionalist school ). Ibn Khaldun's life is relatively well-documented, as he wrote an autobiography ( التعريف بابن خلدون ورحلته غربا وشرقا , at-Taʻrīf bi-ibn Khaldūn wa-Riḥlatih Gharban wa-Sharqan ; Presenting Ibn Khaldun and his Journey West and East ) in which numerous documents regarding his life are quoted word-for-word. Abū Zayd 'Abdu r-Rahman bin Muhammad bin Khaldūn Al-Hadrami, generally known as "Ibn Khaldūn" after

24824-521: The faithful, spread the word ( daʿwa , "invitation, calling"), and prepare his return. The head of this secret network was the living proof of the imam's existence, or "seal" ( ḥujja ). It is this role that the ancestors of the Fatimids are first documented. The first known ḥujja was a certain Abdallah al-Akbar ("Abdallah the Elder"), a wealthy merchant from Khuzestan , who established himself at

25038-524: The fall of Abū Salem through Ibn-Amar ʻAbdullah, a friend of Ibn Khaldūn's, was not to his liking, as he received no significant official position. At the same time, Amar successfully prevented Ibn Khaldūn, whose political skills he knew well, from allying with the Abd al-Wadids in Tlemcen. Ibn Khaldūn, therefore, decided to move to Granada . He could be sure of a positive welcome there since at Fez, he had helped

25252-650: The fatwa on Shia Muslims , calling Shia the fifth school of Islam and seeing no problem with conversions from Sunni to Shia Islam. However, the NGOs report that violence and propaganda against the country's Shia minority continues. Shia Muslims are frequently denied services in addition to being called derogatory names. Anti-Shia sentiment is spread through education at all levels. Clerics educated at Al-Azhar University publicly promote sectarian beliefs by calling Shia Muslims infidels and encourage isolation and marginalization of Shia Muslims in Egypt . Scholars from Al-Azhar declared

25466-513: The first Shī'a Imām , hence the dynasty's name, fāṭimiyy ( Arabic : فَاطِمِيّ ), the Arabic relative adjective for "Fāṭima". Emphasizing its Alid descent, the dynasty named itself simply the 'Alid dynasty' ( al-dawla al-alawiyya ), but many hostile Sunni sources only refer to them as the Ubaydids ( Banu Ubayd ), after the diminutive form Ubayd Allah for the name of the first Fatimid caliph. The Fatimid dynasty came to power as

25680-577: The first and fourth books of the Kitab al-‘Ibar, in developing a work of mirrors for princes. Ibn Khaldun's work found some recognition with Ottoman intellectuals in the 17th century. The first references to Ibn Khaldun in Ottoman writings appeared in the middle of the 17th century, with historians such as Kâtip Çelebi naming him as a great influence, while another Turkish Ottoman historian, Mustafa Naima , attempted to use Ibn Khaldun's cyclical theory of

25894-517: The first time, such as business , economics , science , pharmacy , medicine , engineering and agriculture . Before that date, the Encyclopaedia of Islam classifies the Al-Azhar variously as madrasa, center of higher learning and, since the 19th century, religious university, but not as a university in the full sense, referring to the modern transition process as "from madrasa to university". Other academic sources also refer to al-Azhar as

26108-421: The former Grand Mufti of Egypt and senior al-Azhar scholar Ali Gomaa is also a highly respected Sufi master. However, in the early 20th century, enlightened Modernist thinkers such as Muhammad Abduh led a reform of the curriculum, reintroducing a desire for legal reform through ijtihad . Subsequently, disputes were had between modernist intellectuals and traditionalists within al-Azhar. Al-Azhar now maintains

26322-428: The former barbarians will be conquered by a new set of barbarians, who will repeat the process. Georgetown University Professor Ibrahim Oweiss , an economist and historian, argues that Ibn Khaldun was a major forerunner of modern economists and, in particular, originated the labor theory of value long before better known proponents such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo , although Khaldun did not refer to it as either

26536-403: The future with different societies. He tried to adapt to all possible societies’ cultural behavior and influence in education, economics and politics. Nonetheless, he didn't think that laws were chosen by just one leader or a small group of individual but mostly by the majority of the individuals of a society. To Ibn Khaldun, the state was a necessity of human society to restrain injustice within

26750-588: The greatest social scientists of the Middle Ages , and considered by many to be the father of historiography , sociology , economics , and demography studies. His best-known book, the Muqaddimah or Prolegomena ("Introduction"), which he wrote in six months as he states in his autobiography, influenced 17th-century and 19th-century Ottoman historians such as Kâtip Çelebi , Mustafa Naima and Ahmed Cevdet Pasha , who used its theories to analyze

26964-478: The growing threat. He fortified Raqqada in 907. In early 907 another Aghlabid army marched eastwards again against Abu Abdallah, accompanied by Berber reinforcements from the Aurès Mountains . They were again scattered by Kutama cavalry and retreated to Baghaya , the most fortified town on the old southern Roman road between Ifriqiya and the central Maghreb. The fortress, however, fell to the Kutama without

27178-568: The growth and decline of the Ottoman Empire . Ibn Khaldun interacted with Tamerlane , the founder of the Timurid Empire . He has been called one of the most prominent Muslim and Arab scholars and historians. Recently, Ibn Khaldun's works have been compared with those of influential European philosophers such as Niccolò Machiavelli , Giambattista Vico , David Hume , G. W. F. Hegel , Karl Marx , and Auguste Comte as well as

27392-471: The help of their fleet. After 1107, a new rising star rose through the ranks of the regime in the form of Muḥammad ʿAlī bin Fatik, better known as al-Maʾmūn al-Baṭā'iḥī . He managed to carry out various administrative reforms and infrastructural projects in the later years of al-Afdal's term, including the construction of an astronomical observatory in 1119. Al-Afdal's was assassinated in 1121, an act blamed on

27606-406: The important aspect that educational tradition plays to ensure the new generations of a civilization continuously improve in the sciences and develop culture. Ibn Khaldun argued that without the strong establishment of an educational tradition, it would be very difficult for the new generations to maintain the achievements of the earlier generations, let alone improve them. Another way to distinguish

27820-527: The intermediary between the caliph and the large bureaucratic state that he ruled. In 975 the Byzantine emperor John Tzimisces retook most of Palestine and Syria, leaving only Tripoli in Fatimid control. He aimed to eventually capture Jerusalem , but he died in 976 on his way back to Constantinople , thus staving off the Byzantine threat to the Fatimids. Meanwhile, the Turkish ghulām (plural: ghilmān , meaning soldiers recruited as slaves) Aftakin ,

28034-476: The invitation of a local commander who had expelled the Hamdanid ghulām ruler Mansur ibn Lu'lu' . After a year or two, however, Fatāk made himself effectively independent in Aleppo. Al-Hakim also alarmed his Isma'ili followers in several ways. In 1013 he announced the designation of two great-great-grandsons of al-Mahdi as two separate heirs: one, Abd al-Raḥīm ibn Ilyās, would inherit the title of caliphate as

28248-422: The last remnants of the revolt, a new palace city was being constructed for him south of Kairouan. Construction began around 946 and it was only fully completed under al-Mansur's son and successor, al-Mu'izz. It was named al-Mansuriyya (also known as Sabra al-Mansuriyya) and became the new seat of the caliphate. In 969 Jawhar launched a carefully-prepared and successful invasion of Egypt , which had been under

28462-402: The leaders of Isma'ilism , a revolutionary Shi'a movement "which was at the same time political and religious, philosophical and social," and which originally proclaimed nothing less than the arrival of an Islamic messiah . The origins of that movement and of the dynasty itself, are obscure prior to the late ninth century. The Fatimid rulers were Arab in origin, starting with its founder,

28676-512: The leadership of da'i (missionary) Abu Abdallah , whose conquest of Aghlabid Ifriqiya with the help of Kutama forces paved the way for the establishment of the Caliphate. After the conquest, Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah was retrieved from Sijilmasa and then accepted as the Imam of the movement, becoming the first Caliph and founder of the dynasty in 909. In 921, the city of al-Mahdiyya

28890-533: The learning happened by students memorizing their teachers' lectures and notes. In fact, blind young boys were enrolled at Al-Azhar in the hopes that they could eventually earn a living as teachers. During the Ottoman period, Al-Azhar's prestige and influence grew to the point of becoming the preeminent institution for Islamic learning in the Sunni Muslim world. During this time, the Shaykh Al-Azhar

29104-475: The local Aghlabid authorities and other Kutuma tribes, he was forced to leave Ikjan and sought the protection of another Kutama tribe, the Banu Ghashman, in Tazrut (two miles southwest of Mila). From there, he began to build support for a new movement. Shortly after, the hostile Kutama tribes and the Arab lords of the nearby cities (Mila, Setif , and Bilizma ) allied together to march against him, but he

29318-461: The local Berber tribes. After the death of Abū ʻAbdallāh in 1366, Ibn Khaldūn changed sides once again and allied himself with the Sultan of Tlemcen , Abū l-Abbas. A few years later, he was taken prisoner by Abu Faris Abdul Aziz , who had defeated the sultan of Tlemcen and seized the throne. He then entered a monastic establishment and occupied himself with scholastic duties until 1370. In that year, he

29532-625: The long-term decline of the Coptic community in Egypt. By 1072, in a desperate attempt to save Egypt, al-Mustansir recalled general Badr al-Jamali , who was at the time the governor of Acre . Badr led his troops into Egypt, entered Cairo in January 1074, and successfully suppressed the different groups of the rebelling armies. As a result, Badr was made vizier, becoming one of the first military viziers ( Arabic : امير الجيوش , romanized :  amīr al-juyūsh , lit.   'commander of

29746-543: The mid 19th century, al-Azhar had surpassed Istanbul and was considered the capital of Sunni legal expertise; a main centre of power in the Islamic world; and a rival to Damascus, Mecca and Baghdad. When the Kingdom of Egypt was established in 1923, the signing of the new nation's constitution was delayed because of King Fuad I 's insistence that Al-Azhar and other religious institutions were to be subject to him and not

29960-417: The military officers at the further ends of the empire became semi-independent. Badr al-Jamali died in 1094 (along with Caliph al-Mustansir that same year) and his son Al-Afdal Shahanshah succeeded him in power as vizier. After al-Mustansir, the Caliphate passed on to al-Musta'li , and after his death in 1101 it passed to the 5-year-old al-Amir . Another of al-Mustansir's sons, Nizar , attempted to take

30174-454: The most important troops of the Caliph, but resentment and rivalry eventually grew between the different ethnic components of the army. Bajkūr, based in Raqqa, made another unsuccessful attempt against Aleppo in 991 which resulted in his capture and execution. That same year, Ibn Killis died and Munir was accused of conducting treasonous correspondence with Baghdad. These difficulties triggered

30388-493: The new capital was ready, Jawhar sent for al-Mu'izz in Ifriqiya. The caliph, his court, and his treasury, departed from al-Mansuriyya in fall 972, traveling by land but shadowed by the Fatimid navy sailing along the coast. After making triumphant stops in major cities along the way, the caliph arrived in Cairo on 10 June 973. Like other royal capitals before it, Cairo was constructed as an administrative and palatine city, housing

30602-407: The new fortified palace city, al-Mahdiyya , began in 916. The new city was officially inaugurated on 20 February 921, though construction continued after this. The new capital was removed from the Sunni stronghold of Kairouan, allowing for the establishment of a secure base for the Caliph and his Kutama forces without raising further tensions with the local population. The Fatimids also inherited

30816-421: The new head of the movement, and introduced a radical change in the doctrine: no longer was he and his forebears merely the stewards for Muhammad ibn Isma'il, but they were declared to be the rightful imams, and Abdallah himself was the awaited mahdī . Various genealogies were later put forth by the Fatimids to justify this claim by proving their descent from Isma'il ibn Ja'far, but even in pro-Isma'ili sources,

31030-419: The next year (906) failed when the soldiers mutinied. Around the same time or soon after, Abu Abdallah's forces besieged and captured the fortified cities of Tubna and Bilizma. The capture of Tubna was significant as it was the first major commercial center to come under Abu Abdallah's control. Meanwhile, Ziyadat Allah III moved his court from Tunis to Raqqada , the palace-city near Kairouan , in response to

31244-468: The north. However, Abu Abdallah's forces had been unable to capture the northerly city of Constantine and therefore they instead attacked along the southern road from Baghaya in early 908 and captured Maydara (present-day Haïdra). An indecisive battle subsequently occurred between the Aghalabid and Kutama armies near Dar Madyan (probably a site between Sbeitla and Kasserine ), with neither side gaining

31458-404: The old Abbasid imperial order. The office of the wazīr ( vizier ), which existed under the Ikhshidids, was soon revived under the Fatimids. The first to be appointed to this position was the Jewish convert Ya'qub ibn Killis , who was elevated to this office in 979 by al-Mu'izz's successor al-Aziz . The office of the vizier became progressively more important over the years, as the vizier became

31672-519: The palace. In 1021, while wandering the desert outside Cairo on one of his nightly excursions, he disappeared. He was purportedly murdered, but his body was never found. After al-Hakim's death his two designated heirs were killed, putting an end to his succession scheme, and his sister Sitt al-Mulk arranged to have his 15-year-old son Ali installed on the throne as al-Zahir . She served as his regent until her death in 1023, at which point an alliance of courtiers and officials ruled, with al-Jarjarā'ī ,

31886-555: The plurality of Egyptian society by imposing new restrictions on Christians and Jews, particularly on the way they dressed or behaved in public. He ordered or sanctioned the destruction of a number of churches and monasteries (mostly Coptic or Melkite ), which was unprecedented, and in 1009, for reasons that remain unclear, he ordered the demolition of the Church of the Holy Sephulchre in Jerusalem. Al-Hakim greatly expanded

32100-840: The power of Islam." While other Islamic regions had to cope with border wars and inner strife, Mamluk Egypt enjoyed prosperity and high culture. In 1384, the Egyptian Sultan, al-Malik udh-Dhahir Barquq , made Khaldun professor of the Qamhiyyah Madrasah and appointed him as the Grand qadi of the Maliki school of fiqh (one of four schools, the Maliki school was widespread primarily in Western Africa ). His efforts at reform encountered resistance, however, and within

32314-429: The priorities of Muslims are "to master all knowledge of the world and the hereafter, not least the technology of modern weapons to strengthen and defend the community and faith". He added that "mastery over modern weaponry is important to prepare for any eventuality or prejudices of the others, although Islam is a religion of peace". Sheikh Tantawy also reasserted that his is the best faith to follow and that Muslims have

32528-431: The prolific Arab literature writer, Al-Jahiz . Al-Asqalani also noted that Ibn Khaldun was not well-liked in Egypt because he opposed many respected traditions, including the traditional judicial dress, and suggested that this may have contributed to the reception of Ibn Khaldun's historical works. The notable exception to this consensus was Ibn al-Azraq , a jurist who lived shortly after Ibn Khaldun and quoted heavily from

32742-562: The quality of knowledge. For him the highest level of literary productions would be the manifestation of prose, poems and the artistic enrichment of a society. Ibn Khaldun believes that communication between the tangible and intangible world is the basis of every religion , and the credit for its occurrence is the human spirit, as it is the mediator between God and humans. It is immortal by nature and does not perish, and has characteristics that enable it to communicate with God. However, most souls have lost their hidden ability and are connected to

32956-399: The question of ownership over Jerusalem. Following this, the crusaders crossed into Fatimid territory and captured Jerusalem in July 1099 while al-Afdal was leading a relief army trying to reach the city. The two forces finally clashed in the Battle of Ascalon in which al-Afdal was defeated. Nevertheless, the initial negotiations were held against the Fatimids and Ibn al-Athir wrote that it

33170-428: The real power base of Fatimids in Ifriqiya was quite narrow, resting on the Kutama soldiery, later extended by the Sanhaja Berber tribes as well. The historian Heinz Halm describes the early Fatimid state as being, in essence, "a hegemony of the Kutama and Sanhaja Berbers over the eastern and central Maghrib". In 912, al-Mahdi began looking for the site of a new capital along the Mediterranean shore. Construction of

33384-418: The real target was Baghdad , the capital of the Fatimids' Abbasid rivals. The ambition to carry the revolution eastward had to be postponed after the failure of two successive invasions of Egypt, led by al-Qa'im, in 914–915 and 919–921 . In addition, the Fatimid regime was as yet unstable. The local population were mostly adherents of Maliki Sunnism and various Kharijite sects such as Ibadism , so that

33598-517: The reason why non-Arabs were accepted as part of Arab society was due to their mastery of the Arabic language. Advancements in literary works such as poems and prose were another way to distinguish the achievement of a civilization, but Ibn Khaldun believed that whenever the literary facet of a society reaches its highest levels it ceases to indicate societal achievements anymore, but is an embellishment of life. For logical sciences he established knowledge at its highest level as an increase of scholars and

33812-409: The reasons for his departure. Orientalist Muhsin Mahdi interprets that as showing that Ibn Khaldūn later realised that he had completely misjudged Muhammad V. Back in Ifriqiya , the Hafsid sultan of Béjaïa , Abū ʻAbdallāh, who had been his companion in prison, received him with great enthusiasm and made Ibn Khaldūn his prime minister. Ibn Khaldūn carried out a daring mission to collect taxes among

34026-425: The recruitment of Black Africans into the army, who subsequently became another powerful faction to balance against the Kutama, Turks, and Daylamis. In 1005, during his early reign, a dangerous uprising led by Abu Rakwa was successfully put down but had come within striking distance of Cairo. In 1012 the leaders of the Arab Tayyi tribe occupied Ramla and proclaimed the sharif of Mecca , al-Ḥasan ibn Ja'far , as

34240-436: The region temporarily, until a final decisive Umayyad intervention in 984–985 put an end to further efforts. In 978 the caliph also gave Tripolitania to Buluggin to govern, though Zirid authority there was later replaced by the local Banu Khazrun dynasty in 1001. In 988 Buluggin's son and successor al-Mansur moved the Zirid dynasty's base from Ashir (central Algeria) to the former Fatimid capital al-Mansuriyya, cementing

34454-523: The regnal name of al-Qa'im . Al-Mahdi quickly fell out with Abu Abdallah: not only was the dā'ī over-powerful, but he demanded proof that the new caliph was the true mahdī . The elimination of Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i and his brother led to an uprising among the Kutama, led by a child- mahdī , which was suppressed. At the same time, al-Mahdi repudiated the millenarian hopes of his followers and curtailed their antinomian tendencies. The new regime regarded its presence in Ifriqiya as only temporary:

34668-411: The remaining 14 vacancies are filled, new vacancies will be appointed by the existing Council itself. All four madhahib (schools) of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence are proportionally represented on the council ( Hanafi , Shafi'i , Hanbali , Maliki ) and voting is on a majority basis. In addition to El-Tayeb, other prominent members of the Council include the outgoing Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa . The council

34882-628: The rise and fall of empires to describe the Ottoman Empire. Increasing perceptions of the decline of the Ottoman Empire also caused similar ideas to appear independently of Ibn Khaldun in the 16th century, and may explain some of the influence of his works. In Europe, Ibn Khaldun was first brought to the attention of the Western world in 1697, when a biography of him appeared in Barthélemy d'Herbelot de Molainville 's Bibliothèque Orientale . However, some scholars believe that Ibn Khaldun's work may have first been introduced to Europe via Ibn Arabshah's biography of Tamerlane, translated to Latin, which covers

35096-741: The rise of a new society which would then follow the same trends in a continuous cycle. Also, he recommended the best political approaches to develop a society according to his knowledge of history. He heavily emphasized that a good society would be one in which a tradition of education is deeply rooted in its culture. Ibn Khaldun (1987) introduced the word asabiya (solidarity, group feeling, or group consciousness), to explain tribalism. The concept of asabiya has been translated as "social cohesion," "group solidarity," or "tribalism." This social cohesion arises spontaneously in tribes and other small kinship groups (Rashed,2017). Ibn Khaldun believed that too much bureaucracy, such as taxes and legislations, would lead to

35310-404: The role of political ruler, and the other, Abbās ibn Shu'ayb, would inherit the imamate or religious leadership. This was a serious departure from a central purpose of the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs, which was to combine these two functions in one person. In 1015 he also suddenly halted the Isma'ili doctrinal lectures of the majālis al-ḥikma ("sessions of wisdom") which had taken place regularly inside

35524-495: The same year. Abu Abdallah's forces were unable to resist this counterattack and after two defeats they evacuated Tazrut (which was largely unfortified) and fled to Ikjan, leaving Mila to be retaken. Ikjan became the new center of the Fatimid movement and the dā'ī reestablished his network of missionaries and spies. Ibrahim II died in October 902 while in southern Italy and was succeeded by Abdallah II . In early 903 Abdallah II set out on another expedition to destroy Ikjan and

35738-433: The scholar Abdelmajid Hannoum, Ibn Khaldun's description of the distinctions between Berbers and Arabs were misinterpreted by the translator William McGuckin de Slane , who wrongly inserted a "racial ideology that sets Arabs and Berbers apart and in opposition" into his translation of part of `Ibar translated under the title Histoire des Berbères. Perhaps the most frequently cited observation drawn from Ibn Khaldūn's work

35952-512: The sect, which gave rise to the Fatimids, receives its name of "Isma'ili". Due to the harsh Abbasid persecution of the Alids, the Ismaili Imams went into hiding and neither Isma'il's nor Muhammad's lives are well known, and after Muhammad's death during the reign of Harun al-Rashid ( r.  786–809 ), the history of the early Isma'ili movement becomes obscure. While the awaited mahdī Muhammad ibn Isma'il remained hidden, however, he would need to be represented by agents, who would gather

36166-528: The sensory world only. A small number of them still maintain their full ability to communicate with God. These are the ones God chose and they became prophets , so their souls leave the sensory world to receive from God. Their souls abandon the sensory world in order to receive from God what they should convey to humans. Religions arise only from this connection. He believes that religions that rely on institutions of prediction and reconnaissance are false, but they partly contain some truth. A person’s concentration on

36380-438: The sensory world, he will be able to approach the divine essence and the ideas of scholars will appear to him clearly. But if he strives in this detachment and mysticism out of a desire to excel over others, he will not communicate with God, but with demons . Also, the human spirit is able to see some things of the future through vision, but on the condition that this spirit be completely upright and very pious and pure, otherwise

36594-442: The share of the wheat he needs for food. But when six or ten persons, including a smith and a carpenter to make the tools, and others who are in charge of the oxen, the ploughing of, the harvesting of the ripe grain, and all other agricultural activities, undertake to obtain their food and work toward that purpose either separately or collectively and thus obtain through their labour a certain amount of food, that amount will be food for

36808-468: The short-lived regimes of the time. Ibn Khaldūn's autobiography is the story of an adventure, in which he spends time in prison, reaches the highest offices and falls again into exile. At the age of 20, he began his political career in the chancellery of the Tunisian ruler Ibn Tafrakin with the position of Kātib al-'Alāmah (seal-bearer), which consisted of writing in fine calligraphy the typical introductory notes of official documents. In 1352, Abū Ziad,

37022-406: The sky at the time when the construction of the city started. The city was located several miles northeast of Fusṭāt , the older regional capital founded by the Arab conquerors in the seventh century. Control of Egypt was secured with relative ease and soon afterward, in 970, Jawhar sent a force to invade Syria and remove the remaining Ikhshidids who had fled there from Egypt. This Fatimid force

37236-489: The small town of Salamiya on the western edge of the Syrian Desert . Salamiya became the centre of the Isma'ili daʿwa , with Abdallah al-Akbar being succeeded by his son and grandson as the secret "grand masters" of the movement. In the last third of the ninth century, the Isma'ili daʿwa spread widely, profiting from the collapse of Abbasid power in the Anarchy at Samarra and the subsequent Zanj Revolt , as well as from dissatisfaction among Twelver adherents with

37450-427: The society itself or a group of desert bandits that constantly attack other weaker or weakened societies. In the Muqaddimah, his most important work, he discusses an introduction of philosophy to history in a general manner, based on observable patterns within a theoretical framework of known historical events of his time. He described the beginnings, development, cultural trends and the fall of all societies, leading to

37664-432: The society, but the state means is force, thus itself an injustice. All societies must have a state governing them in order to establish a society. He attempted to standardize the history of societies by identifying ubiquitous phenomena present in all societies. To him, civilization was a phenomenon that will be present as long as humans exist. He characterized the fulfillment of basic needs as the beginning of civilization. At

37878-536: The son of Ziri bn Manad (who died in 971), as his viceroy in the Maghreb. This established a dynasty of viceroys, with the title of "amir", who ruled the region on behalf of the Fatimids. Their authority remained disputed in the western Maghreb, where the rivalry with the Umayyads and with local Zenata leaders continued. After Jawhar's successful western expedition, the Umayyads returned to northern Morocco in 973 to reassert their authority. Buluggin launched one last expedition in 979–980 that reestablished his authority in

38092-459: The south of the Arabian Peninsula , specifically the Hadhramaut , which came to the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century, at the beginning of the Islamic conquest: "And our ancestry is from Hadhramaut, from the Arabs of Arabian Peninsula, via Wa'il ibn Hujr also known as Hujr ibn 'Adi , from the best of the Arabs, well-known and respected." (p. 2429, Al-Waraq's edition). Ibn Khaldun's insistence and attachment to his claim of Arab ancestry at

38306-484: The status of the Zirids as more or less de facto independent rulers of Ifriqiya, while still officially maintaining their allegiance to the Fatimid caliphs. Caliph al-Aziz accepted this situation for pragmatic reasons to maintain his own formal status as universal ruler. Both dynasties exchanged gifts and the succession of new Zirid rulers to the throne was officially sanctioned by the caliph in Cairo. After al-Aziz's unexpected death, his young son al-Mansur, 11 years old,

38520-467: The succession and names of imams differ, while Sunni and Twelver sources of course reject any Fatimid descent from the Alids altogether and consider them impostors. Abdallah's claim caused a rift in the Isma'ili movement, as Hamdan Qarmat and other leaders denounced this change and held onto the original doctrine, becoming known as the " Qarmatians ", while other communities remained loyal to Salamiya. Shortly after, in 902–903, pro-Fatimid loyalists began

38734-424: The succession of the sixth imam, Ja'far al-Sadiq . Al-Sadiq had appointed his son Isma'il ibn Ja'far as his successor, but Isma'il died before his father, and when al-Sadiq himself died in 765, the succession was left open. Most of his followers followed al-Sadiq's son Musa al-Kazim down to a twelfth and final imam who supposedly went into occultation in 874 and would one day return as the mahdī . This branch

38948-407: The sultan of Constantine , marched on Tunis and defeated it. Ibn Khaldūn, in any case unhappy with his respected but politically meaningless position, followed his teacher Abili to Fez . There, the Marinid sultan, Abū Inan Fares I, appointed him as a writer of royal proclamations, but Ibn Khaldūn still schemed against his employer, which, in 1357, got the 25-year-old a 22-month prison sentence. Upon

39162-432: The throne after his father's death and organized a rebellion in 1095, but he was defeated and executed that same year. Al-Afdal arranged for his sister to marry al-Musta'li and later for his daughter to marry al-Amir, hoping in this way to merge his family with that of the caliphs. He also attempted to secure the succession of his son to the vizierate as well, but this ultimately failed. During al-Afdal's tenure (1094–1121)

39376-413: The time. Among other things, al-Hakim was known for executing his officials when unsatisfied with them, seemingly without warning, rather than dismissing them from their posts as had been traditional practice. Many of the executions were members of the financial administration, which may mean that this was al-Hakim's way of trying to impose discipline in an institution rife with corruption. He also opened

39590-411: The upper hand. During the winter of 908–909 Abu Abdallah campaigned in the region around Chott el-Jerid , capturing the towns of Tuzur (Tozeur) , Nafta , and Qafsa (Gafsa) and taking control of the region. The Aghlabids responded by besieging Baghaya soon afterward in the same winter, but they were quickly repelled. On 25 February 909, Abu Abdallah set out from Ikjan with an army of 200,000 men for

39804-400: The vision will come from the devils. From other sources we know of several other works, primarily composed during the time he spent in North Africa and Al-Andalus . His first book, Lubābu l-Muhassal , a commentary on the Islamic theology of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi , was written at the age of 19 under the supervision of his teacher Al-Abili in Tunis. A work on Sufism , Shifā'u l-Sā'il ,

40018-420: The vizier also replaced the mudbrick walls of Cairo with new stone walls and slightly expanded the city. Three of its monumental gates still survive today: Bab Zuweila , Bab al-Futuh , and Bab al-Nasr . As the military viziers effectively became heads of state, the Caliph himself was reduced to the role of a figurehead. The reliance on the Iqta system also ate into Fatimid central authority, as more and more

40232-510: The way he forced the Zaydi Imam in Sa'da into submission. Upon arriving in Mecca, he installed Abu Hashim Muhammad ibn Ja'far as the new sharif and custodian of the holy sites under the suzerainty of the Fatimids. He returned to San'a where he established his family as rulers on behalf of the Fatimid caliphs. His brother founded the city of Ta'izz , while the city of Aden became an important hub of trade between Egypt and India , which brought Egypt further wealth. His rise to power established

40446-413: The western Mediterranean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids trace their ancestry to the Islamic prophet Muhammad 's daughter Fatima and her husband Ali , the first Shia imam. The Fatimids were acknowledged as the rightful imams by different Isma'ili communities as well as by denominations in many other Muslim lands and adjacent regions. Originating during the Abbasid Caliphate ,

40660-441: The works of Averroes , Avicenna , Razi and Tusi . At the age of 17, Ibn Khaldūn lost both his parents to the Black Death , an intercontinental epidemic of the plague that hit Tunis in 1348–1349. Following family tradition, he strove for a political career. In the face of a tumultuous political situation in North Africa, that required a high degree of skill in developing and dropping alliances prudently to avoid falling with

40874-425: The world and acting as teacher and judge. Meanwhile, he was alleged to have joined an underground party, Rijal Hawa Rijal , whose reform -oriented ideals attracted the attention of local political authorities. The elderly Ibn Khaldun was placed under arrest. He died on 17 March 1406, one month after his sixth selection for the office of the Maliki qadi (Judge). Concerning the discipline of sociology , he described

41088-431: The world. In Ibn Salama, however, he lacked the necessary texts to complete the work. Therefore, in 1378, he returned to his native Tunis, which had meanwhile been conquered by Abū l-Abbas, who took Ibn Khaldūn back into his service. There, he devoted himself almost exclusively to his studies and completed his history of the world. His relationship with Abū l-Abbas remained strained, as the latter questioned his loyalty. That

41302-514: The writings to Farag Foda to be blasphemous. Muhammad al-Ghazali, a member of Al-Azhar, declared Foda to be guilty of apostasy . According to Geneive Abdo , Muhammad al-Ghazali also added that anyone killing an apostate would not be punished, while according to Nathan Brown , Muhammad al-Ghazali stopped just short of condoning Foroda's assassination. Foda was assassinated in June 1992, by an Egyptian terrorist group al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya , who claimed justification from Al-Azhar's fatwas. In response,

41516-432: The year 1000, Barjawan was assassinated by al-Hakim, who now took direct and autocratic control of the state. His reign, which lasted until his mysterious disappearance in 1021, is the most controversial in Fatimid history. Traditional narratives have described him as either eccentric or outright insane, but more recent studies have tried to provide more measured explanations based on the political and social circumstances of

41730-406: The young and inexperienced Faraj, concerned about a revolt in Egypt, left his army to its own devices in Syria and hurried home. Ibn Khaldūn remained at the besieged city for seven weeks, being lowered over the city wall by ropes to negotiate with Timur, in a historic series of meetings that he reported extensively in his autobiography. Timur questioned him in detail about conditions in the lands of

41944-430: Was able to gain a consensus for the candidacy across the Islamic world. Candidates proposed for the caliphate included King Fuad. The pioneering Pakistani journalist Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah became the first woman to address the university in 1955. In 1961, Al-Azhar was re-established as a university under the government of Egypt's second President Gamal Abdel Nasser when a wide range of secular faculties were added for

42158-414: Was able to move quickly and muster enough support from friendly Kutama to defeat them one by one before they were able to unite. This first victory brought Abu Abdallah and his Kutama troops valuable loot and attracted more support to the dā'ī 's cause. Over the next two years Abu Abdallah was able to win over most of the Kutama tribes in the region through either persuasion or coercion. This left much of

42372-404: Was brought into sharp contrast after Ibn Khaldūn presented him with a copy of the completed history that omitted the usual panegyric to the ruler. Under pretence of going on the Hajj to Mecca , something for which a Muslim ruler could not simply refuse permission, Ibn Khaldūn was able to leave Tunis and to sail to Alexandria . Ibn Khaldun said of Egypt , "He who has not seen it does not know

42586-400: Was built for the institution in 1340, outside of the mosque. In the late 1400s, the buildings were renovated and new dormitories were built for the students. During this time Cairo had 70 other institutions of Islamic learning, however, Al-Azhar attracted many scholars due to its prestige. The famed Ibn Khaldun taught at Al-Azhar starting in 1383. During this time texts were few and much of

42800-418: Was certainly impressed with the work. In March 1924, Abdülmecid II had been deposed as Caliph , supreme religious and political leader of all Muslims across the world. The Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar repudiated the abolition and was part of a call from Al-Azhar for an Islamic Conference . The unsuccessful "caliphate conference" was held under the presidency of the Grand Chancellor of Azhar in 1926 but no one

43014-473: Was composed around 1373 in Fes, Morocco . Whilst at the court of Muhammed V, Sultan of Granada , Ibn Khaldūn composed a work on logic , ʻallaqa li-s-Sulṭān . Ibn Khaldun's historical method had very few precedents or followers in his time. While Ibn Khaldun is known to have been a successful lecturer on jurisprudence within religious sciences, only very few of his students were aware of, and influenced by, his Muqaddimah. One such student, Al-Maqrizi , praised

43228-478: Was created in 1895. Prior to this, the Egyptian head of state made the appointment. Al-Azhar's muftis have a history of being consulted on political issues. Muhammad Ali Pasha appointed Al-Azhar muftis to the Consultative Council in 1829 and this would be repeated by Abbas I and later Isma'il Pasha . At the same time, there were many cases where the Egyptian ruler would disregard the opinion of Al-Azhar scholars. Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy noted that among

43442-412: Was established as the capital. In 948, they shifted their capital to al-Mansuriyya , near Kairouan . In 969, during the reign of al-Mu'izz , they conquered Egypt , and in 973, the caliphate was moved to the newly founded Fatimid capital of Cairo . Egypt became the political, cultural, and religious centre of the empire and it developed a new and "indigenous Arabic culture". After its initial conquests,

43656-406: Was established, an office given to the leading scholar at the institution; prior to this the head of the institution was not necessarily a scholar. In 1748, the Ottoman pasha tried to get Al-Azhar to teach astronomy and mathematics, to little avail. During the time there wasn't a system of academic degrees, instead the shaykh (professor) determined if the student was sufficiently trained to enter

43870-438: Was founded in 1911 but was replaced in 1961 by the Center for Islamic Research. In July 2012, after the law restricting Al-Azhar University's autonomy was modified by the incoming president Mohamed Morsi , the council was reformed. The Council consists of 40 members and as of February 2013 had 14 vacancies all appointed by the current imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed El-Tayeb , who was appointed by the prior president, Hosni Mubarak . Once

44084-459: Was installed on the throne as al-Hakim . Hasan ibn Ammar, the leader of the Kalbid clan in Egypt, a military veteran, and one of the last remaining members of al-Mu'izz's old guard, initially became regent, but he was soon forced to flee by Barjawan, the eunuch and tutor of the young al-Hakim, who took power in his stead. Barjawan stabilized the internal affairs of the empire but refrained from pursuing al-Aziz's policy of expansion towards Aleppo. In

44298-399: Was led by a Kutama general named Ja'far ibn Falāḥ . This invasion was successful at first and many cities, including Damascus, were occupied that same year. Ja'far's next step was to attack the Byzantines, who had captured Antioch and subjugated Aleppo in 969 (around the same time as Jawhar was arriving in Egypt), but he was forced to call off the advance in order to face a new threat from

44512-452: Was not necessarily a result of poor financial decision-making but of external consequences and therefore the government should be involved in alleviating poverty. Researchers from Malaysia's Insaniah University College and Indonesia's Tazkia University College of Islamic Economics created a dynamics model based upon Ibn Khaldun's writings to measure poverty in the Muslim nations of South Asia and Southeast Asia. Ibn Khaldun also believed that

44726-441: Was once again named the Maliki qadi . Altogether, he was called six times to that high office, which, for various reasons, he never held long. In 1401, under Barquq's successor, his son Faraj , Ibn Khaldūn took part in a military campaign against the Mongol conqueror, Timur , who besieged Damascus in 1400. Ibn Khaldūn cast doubt upon the viability of the venture and really wanted to stay in Egypt. His doubts were vindicated, as

44940-457: Was said that the Fatimids had invited the crusaders to invade Syria. This defeat established the Kingdom of Jerusalem as a new regional rival and although many crusaders returned to Europe, having fulfilled their vows, the remaining forces, often aided by the Italian maritime republics , overran much of the coastal Levant, with Tripoli , Beirut , and Sidon falling to them between 1109 and 1110. The Fatimids retained Tyre, Ascalon, and Gaza with

45154-410: Was sent for to Tlemcen by the new sultan. After the death of ʻAbdu l-Azīz, he resided at Fez, enjoying the patronage and confidence of the regent. Ibn Khaldūn's political skills and, above all, his good relationship with the wild Berber tribes were in high demand among the North African rulers, but he had begun to tire of politics and constantly switching allegiances. In 1375, he was sent by Abū Hammu ,

45368-429: Was succeeded by his son, al-Mustansir , who had the longest reign in Fatimid history, serving as caliph from 1036 to 1094. However, he remained largely uninvolved in politics and left the government in the hands of others. He was seven years old at his accession and thus al-Jarjarā'ī continued to serve as vizier and his guardian. When al-Jarjarā'ī died in 1045 a series of court figures ran the government until al-Yāzūrī ,

45582-600: Was the underlying motive and context behind the division of labor; for Smith it was self-interest and the market economy. Ibn Khaldun's epistemology attempted to reconcile mysticism with theology by dividing science into two different categories, the religious science that regards the sciences of the Qur'an and the non-religious science. He further classified the non-religious sciences into intellectual sciences such as logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, etc. and auxiliary sciences such as language, literature, poetry, etc. He also suggested that possibly more divisions will appear in

45796-429: Was turned into a madrasa which has the claim to be considered as the oldest such institution still functioning. The mosque provided teaching on a variety of subjects from a variety of scholars. According to Syed Farid Alatas, these subjects included Islamic law and jurisprudence , Arabic grammar , Islamic astronomy , Islamic philosophy , and logic . Under the Fatimids, Al-Azhar also notably promoted Shia Islam . In

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