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This book has looked at women belonging to and living under medieval Islamic dynasties by comprehensively covering women under the Fatimid dynasty. To this dynasty were linked those women who, on account of the power they commanded, were to become among the most famous female personalities of the medieval Islamic world: Sitt al-Mulk, the Sulayhid queens of the Yemen and the mother of the imam-caliph al-Mustansir. Court women marked their status and influence by way of grand-scale architectural patronage for the use of propaganda. The Fatimids were forerunners in the practice of frequently appointing heirs as children born of concubines rather than those born of wives. Being culturally and doctrinally ‘foreigners’ themselves in the regions they ruled, the imam-caliphs encouraged diversity when, for instance, appointing Berbers and Turks, Christians and Jews as their viziers, secretaries and military commanders. Another focus of this book has been the interconnectedness between Fatimids, women and trade.

Early Christianity saw church and state as separate. Early Islam conceived a single 'umma under a single caliphate. It prescribed an all-embracing Shari'a. But after Constantine Christianity brought church and state together. In the Byzantine East, the emperor was assigned a divine mission. The Western church insisted on the clergy's independence. Some in the West tried to subordinate state to church, or vice versa; but the main trend was towards separation, and political thought became more secular. In Islam, the 'ulama became separate from the sultan but the relationship was not defined. Orthodox Jurists sought reintegration of religion and government. Separation between religion and politics in principle found little support. Christians, who had started as pacifists, adopted holy war and religious persecution; Muslims favoured limited toleration. There was thus both convergence and divergence between the two cultures: church and state.

A second tour takes the reader to Palestine and Egypt. Again the texts considered are of several types: lives of saints—George, the reclusive spiritual leader of a monastic community at Choziba, near Jericho, the worldly John, Chalcedonian patriarch of Alexandria, who arranged emergency aid for Palestine in 614, and Anastasius, a deserter from the Persian army who succeeded in achieving martyrdom at the very end of the Roman–Persian war; anacreontic poems written by Sophronius, future patriarch of Jerusalem, which touch on that war; a burst of anti‐Persian propaganda fired off after the siege and fall of Jerusalem in 614; and two invaluable historical texts, which describe Arab operations and negotiations in Egypt (641–3) and the ceremonies validating Mu‘awiya's assumption of the caliphal title (660). The data gathered from local Roman sources is tabulated at the end of the chapter.

‘To our mothers we owe half of our lineage’. This affectionate and respectful laude by the famous Fatimid court poet Ibn Hani' al-Andalusi (d. 362/973) echoes the virtues and importance of the most noble of all mothers, Fatima, whom the poet repeatedly hails as the mother of the Fatimid imams. Within the context of tenth-century Sunni-Shi'i doctrinal debates, the Shi'is argued for the superiority of Fatima over 'A'isha, to be interpreted as mirroring the pre-eminence of 'Ali over Abu Bakr. This chapter focuses on women and genealogy in the history of the Fatimid dynasty. It first looks at female figures in Isma'ili pre-Fatimid genealogical history and then discusses the role of women in the Fatimid dynasty, with emphasis on North Africa and Egypt. It also examines the marriage between caliphs' sons and viziers' daughters; the Zirids, the Nizaris and the Sulayhids; and women in the high-ranking families at the service of the Fatimid dynasty.

This chapter provides background information on the Mamluk sultanate and its legal system. It presents Cairo and its adjacent older city of Fustat, the two cities that form the sites of the events discussed in chapters 3-9, and provides maps. It overviews the kinds of people who inhabited the cities, including the Mamluk ruling elite and their soldiers, the merchants, the jurists and learned scholars more generally, and the remaining large category of the common people. The chapter then describes the sultanate’s agricultural economy. Then, turning to the topic of Islamic legal history, it introduces the concept of Islamic law and describes its development, including the penalties and punishments, and then discusses the two types of authority, the doctrinal, fiqh-based authority of the jurists and the policy, siyasa-based authority of the sultan. Finally, it presents the institutions through which the jurists and the sultan expressed their authority, including the courts and the sultan’s forum of wrongs.

This chapter focuses on the alleged unearthing of the head of al-Husayn by the Fatimid vizier Badr al-Din al-Jamali in Ascalon, as recorded in a epigraph of 484/1091, inscribed on a wooden minbar. Positioning this episode in the career of al-Jamali, and in the geo-political circumstances of Egypt and Syria under the imam-caliph al-Mustansir, and in light of the attitude of Muslims towards Ahl al-Bayt, it concludes by suggesting that the shrine established for the relic was intended as an 'ecumenical' Islamic sacred space.

Following the conquest of Ascalon by the Crusaders in 1153, al-Husayn's head was transferred to Cairo and interred by the tombs of the Fatimid imam-caliphs. Its shrine became a major sacred venue for the celebration of Shi`i festivals and Fatimid official ceremonies. It is argued that the commemorative rites performed there - such as al-ʿAshura, ʿId Ghadir Khumm - were imbued with particular Shi`i-Isma`ili symbolism and meaning.

The death of one Fatimid caliph and the succession of the next would have been kept secret until the situation had been tested and any potentially disturbing factors were brought under control. It is worth noting with the execution of Barjawan, added to the fall of Ibn 'Ammar and the death of the qadi Muhammad, that all three of the men al-'Aziz had asked to assume aspects of the regency over his son were out of the picture. The information available in the historical record reports only sparse details: when and where he led prayers and delivered the sermon on the one or two Fridays in Ramadan and on the two annual 'id festivals, what were the occasional audiences he sat for, how he accompanied his father for various ceremonial duties, gifts from the sister, his riding in processions, approving decrees and appointments, and signing the documents and petitions of government.

Al-Hakim's era is obviously quite a contrast to that of his father; it was bloody and violent, most particularly for the stream of executions and other killings carried out by his orders. A list of names in and of itself reveals little about why the caliph did what he did. One answer, propagated and possibly embellished by enemies of the state, was that al-Hakim was himself unstable and prone to fits of pique, sudden outbursts of ill-temper and deadly anger. It is useful to examine closely individual cases, first some that involve the execution of men quite close to al-Hakim, then second several where the rebellion against him is clearest, and finally treatises by members of his da'wa that display the quite ardent defense of his God-given right to absolute rule that is typical of those who maintained their unqualified devotion to him through to the end.

This chapter discusses the huge and rapid military expansion of the Arab Umayyads and its impact on genders. It resulted in the creation of massive numbers of women taken as slaves- sabaya- which was permitted according to the classical reading of the Qur’an. Men on the other hand, refuse to apply the same right of women according to the Qur’an. The only woman to come forward to fight Umayyad invasion, was Queen Dihya of the Berbers in North Africa. The Umayyad failed to learn from such model, and Muslims who came afterwards did not attempt to follow such example of women rulers. The Umayyads tried to follow the Prophet’s model of political marriage to boost their rule, using women as a trophy. Caliph al-Walid II created his realm of desires gathering thousands of concubines around him, which some had limited political influence. On the other hands, one see the usage of eunuchs as guards to the harem section, following the Prophet’s model.

The Fatimids had followed the Abbasid tradition of using eunuchs in their caliphate, but they exceeded them in every way. The 10^th -11^th century could be named, the age of eunuchs. They became deputy to the caliph. Tutor to heir apparent, army commander, and de facto ruler of the realm. One do examine such impact on politics and Isma‘ili doctrine alike. Especially that we have the exceptional memoirs of chief eunuch Jawdhar during the North African stage. Although eunuchs were hired by their masters due to their non-existing political ambition, and absolute loyalty; one see them express their hunger for power, and dominate the state from beginning to end, which influenced Saladin to follow the same tradition when he succeeded the Fatimids in Egypt.

The chapter traces through trade, khuṭbah and diasporic networks the importance of Hadhramaut and the Hadhramis of Southeast Asia to Ottoman Indian Ocean interests. By virtue of their religious, commercial and scholarly status the Hadhrami sayyids influenced the emergence of anti-colonial rhetoric in the Netherlands East Indies. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the Caliph's attempts to boost his prestige within Dār al-Islām, compensating for Ottoman political attrition on the European front, merely aggravated festering Dutch suspicions of a Hadhrami-inspired anti-colonial conspiracy. Consequent Dutch discriminatory treatment of Arabs backfired, however, allowing for the ready co-option of Hadhrami agency by the new Ottoman consulate for promoting the Caliphate. Though the Caliph's agenda made little headway, given the influence of the Netherlands in European politics, the ‘Arab problem’ foregrounded new concepts of citizenship and nationality pertinent to both Hadhrami–Ottoman relations and rising nationalism in the region.

This chapter examines the Ottoman role in politics in the Philippines with especial reference to the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, when much of the Philippine Archipelago came under Spanish control. Spanish documents analysed here suggest that colonial policy-makers were profoundly concerned about potential Ottoman influence over the Muslim sultanates of the Philippines—Sulu and Maguindanao. The Spanish archival and literary sources also contain records of attempts by the Philippine sultanates to contact the Ottoman Caliph in Istanbul, not merely to counter the Spanish threat but also to intervene in internal disputes. These efforts never seem to have met with success. Eventually, instead of gaining Ottoman protection, and despite adopting Caliphal titles, at the end of the nineteenth century the Philippine sultanates were forced to accept Spanish suzerainty.

This book is a history of the rituals of Islamic monarchy which legitimised the rule and authority of the Muslim monarchs. Like other monarchies, the caliph of the first Muslim empire was acclaimed by his followers and received oaths of allegiance from them. He appeared before them enthroned n both religious and royal settings, bearing the insignia of his office. This caliph was both a monarch and a king. However the Islamic political thought on the notion of kingship (mulk) was merely temporal power while the legitimate authority of the caliphate (khalifa) which was derived from God can obscure the important continuities between the caliphal authority and that of the ancient Near Eastern monarchy. The difference between monarchy from mere secular powers is the performance of symbolic acts of communication that establish recognition of the monarch's sacred status as a divinely favoured. In this book, the focus is on the rituals which signify the communicative performance of gestures and other symbolic exchanges. One of these rituals is the ceremony of inauguration or accession. This ceremony, which usually entails a sequence of ritual acts, is variously referred to as unction, enthronement, coronation, acclamation, or investiture. A form of the same rituals was very often used to establish the succession through the recognition of a ‘crown prince’, ‘co-emperor’ or ‘heir apparent’. This book seeks to establish what was distinctive about this inaugural ritual in early Islamic monarchy, and how it evolved during the formation, consolidation and decline of the first Muslim empire. This introductory chapter provides an overview of Iran, Rome and Arabia in late antiquity; royal accession in Rome; the origins of the Muslim empire; and the sources for the history of the Muslim empire.

Because of the secondary and very fragmentary literary evidence for Marwanid rituals of accession and succession, only a fraction of their symbolic resonances can now be glimpsed. However, when the texts are read alongside the material evidence for the architectural settings of rituals of accession and succession, and the evidence for the regalia and dress of the ruler, form and meaning of these rituals can be derived. This chapter focuses on the Marwanid rituals of accession and succession. It provides a general picture of the location of the ceremonial of Marwanid accession and succession, the sequence of events and participation in these events. The chapter also discusses the physical appearance and regalia of the caliph as seen in the surviving Umayyad images of him.

This chapter examines four particular ways in which faith has been expressed as a commitment to one's responsibilities vis-à-vis one's community and God. It discusses Hindu epic illustrations of dharma, or sacred duty; an allegorical extrapolation of Christian responsibility in C. S. Lewis's Narnia series as well as his discussion of the relationship between faith and works; Islamic understanding of human beings as God's caliphs (khalifa) and the responsibility for jihad; and Jewish articulations of human responsibility in a covenantal relationship with God. These examples concern a specific interface of religious ethics and the commitment to faith, by which one embraces a tremendous sense of responsibility for the very fate of the human world.