Abdallah al-Mahdi

Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh/ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn (), 873 – 4 March 934, better known by his regnal name al-Mahdi Billah, was the founder of the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate, the only major Shi'a caliphate in Islamic history, and the eleventh Imam of the Isma'ili faith.

Early life

The future caliph al-Mahdi Billah was born as Sa'id, the son of Ahmad's elder son, al-Husayn, who died around 880. The official biography gives the date of birth as 31 July 874, although a different tradition gives a date exactly one year earlier. After his father's death, he was fostered by his uncle Abu'l-Shalaghlagh, who was without an heir of his own—his son and grandchild were reportedly captured and imprisoned by the Abbasids. Sa'id was thus designated as his successor, and given his uncle's daughter in marriage. Most of the information about Sa'id's early life comes from the memoirs of the eunuch chamberlain Ja'far, who was a few months older than Sa'id and came with him to the household at Salamiya. The two were reared by the same wet-nurse, and Ja'far became a close confidant of Sa'id until his death.

Sa'id's only child, Abd al-Rahman, the future al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah, was born in March or April 893. While ostensibly merely the stewards for the absent imam, Ja'far reports that Abu'l-Shalaghlagh—perhaps encouraged by the rapid progress of the ''daʿwa'', now establishing armed strongholds—secretly declared himself to senior members of the ''daʿwa'' not as the ''ḥujja'' for Muhammad ibn Isma'il, but the actual imam; and that he claimed for his nephew Sa'id the title of ''mahdī'' (the Messianic figure who, it is believed, will appear on Earth before the Day of Judgment, and rid the world of wrongdoing), and the latter's infant son the title of ''qāʾīm''. Various genealogies were later put forth by the Fatimids to justify this claim (see below). In the most common, Abdallah the Elder was proclaimed to be the son of Muhammad ibn Isma'il, but even in pro-Isma'ili sources, the succession and names of imams who supposedly preceded Ahmad is not the same; for example, Sa'id himself in a letter claimed descent not from Muhammad ibn Isma'il, but from the latter's older brother Abdallah. Anti-Isma'ili Sunni and Twelver sources of course reject any Fatimid descent from the Alids altogether and consider them impostors. The situation is further complicated by the use of the title ''qāʾīm'', normally a synonym for the ''mahdī'', for Sa'id's son. This has led to suggestions (first by Bernard Lewis) of two parallel lines of imams, one public (and of non-Alid descent), serving as trustees of the hidden, real one. In this interpretation, Sa'id was the last representative of the former line, and his "son" was the genuine imam.

Leadership of the ''daʿwa''

When Abu'l-Shalaghlagh died around 899, Sa'id became the new head of the movement. Soon after, the letters from Salamiya revealed changes in the official doctrine of the ''daʿwa''. This worried Hamdan Qarmat, who sent his brother-in-law to Salamiya to investigate the matter. It was there that Abdan learned that Sa'id claimed that the imam was not Muhammad ibn Isma'il, but Sa'id's father al-Husayn, and now Sa'id himself. This caused a major rift in the movement: Hamdan denounced the leadership in Salamiya, gathered the Iraqi ''dā'ī''s and ordered them to cease the missionary effort. Shortly after he disappeared from his headquarters.

It was Al-Shi'i's success which was the signal to Al Mahdi to set off from Salamyah disguised as a merchant. In 905 he started proselytising. However, he was captured by the Aghlabid ruler Yasah ibn Midrar due to his Ismaili beliefs and thrown into a dungeon in Sijilmasa. In early 909 Al-Shi'i sent a large expedition force to rescue Al Mahdi, conquering the Ibadi state of Tahert on its way there. After gaining his freedom, Al Mahdi became the leader of the growing state and assumed the position of imam and caliph. Al Mahdi then led the Kutama Berbers who captured the cities of Qairawan and Raqqada. By March 909, the Aghlabid Dynasty had been overthrown and replaced with the Fatimids. As a result, the last stronghold of Sunni Islam in North Africa was removed from the region.

Reign

Al Mahdi fled from the Middle East to preach his doctrine, and one of his companions spotted a place far from sunni rule in modern-day Algeria known as Kabylia. Al Mahdi went to Kabylia to teach his doctrine and had great success, after successfully converting the majority of the Kutamas (who were major in establishing the caliphate) to Isma'ilism Islam. He assembled an army to march onto Ifriqiya to drive the Aghlabids out of Ifriqiya. After the successful campaign in defeating the Aghlabids Al-Mahdi established himself at the former Aghlabid residence at Raqqada, Al-Qayrawan (in what is now Tunisia). After that his power grew. At the time of his death he had extended his reign over the Maghreb, but campaigns into Egypt (in 914–915 and 919–921) faltered against the resistance of the Abbasids, with heavy casualties.

The historian Heinz Halm has described the early Fatimid regime as being little more than a "hegemony of the Kutama". The position of these semi-civilized tribesmen as the chosen warriors of the imam-caliph was greatly resented, not only by the other Berber tribes, but chiefly by the inhabitants of the cities, where the Arabic culture predominated. As Halm writes, the situation was similar to a scenario where, "in the early eighteenth-century North America, the Iroquois, converted to Catholicism by Jesuit missionaries, had overrun the Puritan provinces of New England, installed their chieftains as governors in Boston, Providence and Hartford, and proclaimed a European with dubious credentials as King of England". The first years of Fatimid rule in Ifriqiya, Sicily, and Tripolitania were marked by revolts by the local inhabitants against the arrogance and exactions of the Kutama.

Al-Mahdi founded the capital of his empire, al-Mahdiyyah, on the Tunisian coast sixteen miles south-east of Al-Qayrawan, which he named after himself. The city was located on a peninsula on an artificial platform "reclaimed from the sea", as mentioned by the Andalusian geographer Al-Bakri. The Great mosque of Mahdia was built in 916 on the southern side of the peninsula.
Al-Mahdi took up residence there in 920.

In 922 the Bulgarian emperor Simeon I sent envoys to al-Mahdi to propose a joint attack on the Byzantine capital Constantinople with the Bulgarians providing a large land army, and the Arabs a navy. It was proposed that all spoils would be divided equally, with the Bulgarians keeping Constantinople and the Fatimids gaining the Byzantine territories in Sicily and South Italy. As a result of the Byzantine–Bulgarian war of 913–927, by 922 the Bulgarians controlled almost the whole Balkan peninsula but Simeon I's main objective to capture Constantinople remained out of his reach because he lacked a navy. Although the Byzantines and the Fatimids had concluded a peace treaty in 914, since 918 the Fatimids had renewed their attacks on the Italian coast.

Al-Mahdi accepted the proposal and sent back his own emissaries to conclude the agreement. On the way home the ship was captured by the Byzantines near the Calabrian coast and the envoys of both countries were sent to Constantinople. When the Byzantine emperor Romanos I learned about the secret negotiations, the Bulgarians were imprisoned, while the Arab envoys were allowed to return to Al-Mahdiyyah with rich gifts for the caliph. The Byzantines then sent their own embassy to North Africa to outbid Simeon I and eventually the Fatimids agreed not to aid Bulgaria.

After his death, Al-Mahdi was succeeded by his son, Abu Al-Qasim Muhammad Al-Qaim, who continued his expansionist policy.

Genealogy of the Fatimids

According to ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdi Billah

In a letter sent to the Ismāʿīlī community in Yemen by Abd Allah al-Mahdi Billah, which was reproduced by Ja'far bin Mansūr al-Yemen, ʿAbd Allāh al-Aftah ibn Jaʿfar al-Sadiq was referred to as ''Sāhib al-Haqq'' or the legitimate successor of Imām Jaʿfar al-Sadiq. According to ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdi bi'l-Lāh, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ja'far had called himself Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar for the sake of taqiyya, and each of his successors had assumed the name Muhammad. ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdi Billah explains the genealogy of the Fatimid caliphs and he claims Fatimid ancestry by declaring himself to be ʿAli ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbadullāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar al-Sadiq. But the Imamah (Ismaili doctrine) had later been formulated in a different manner since ʿAbd Allāh's explanation of his ancestry was not accepted by his successors.

{, class="" style="float:; margin: 2ex 0 0.6em 0.5em; width: 8em; line-height:111%;"
!The genealogy of the Fatimid caliphs according to ʿUbayd Allāh al-Mahdi bi'l-Lāh
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According to Bernard Lewis, Hamdani, de Blois and the letter of ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdi Billah

According to Bernard Lewis there were two lines of Mustawda‘ – Qaddāḥid Trustee Imāms and Mustaqarr – Alid Imāms; Hamdani and de Blois constructed two parallel lines of descendants of Jāʿfar al-Sādiq. Maymūn al-Qaddāḥ was the chief da'i and the guardian of Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘il and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Maymūn al-Qaddāḥ who succeeded his father as the chief da'i in trust and bequeathed it to his own descendants and to ʿAbdullah al-Mahdi bi'l-Lāh. These were Mustawda‘ or Qaddāḥid Trustee Imāms. There was a second line of Hidden or Mustaqarr Alid Imāms starting with Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘il and ending with the second Fatimid caliph Al-Qa'im Bi-Amrillah.

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!According to Bernard Lewis there were two lines of Mustawda‘ - Qaddāḥid Trustee Imāms and Mustaqarr - Alid Imāms;
Hamdani and de Blois constructed two parallel lines of descandants of Jāʿfar al-Sādiq
, -
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See also

* Family tree of Muhammad#Family tree linking prophets to Imams
* List of Ismaili imams
* People claiming to be the Mahdi
* The Book of the Highest Initiation

References

Notes

Sources

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah
10th-century Fatimid caliphs
870s births
934 deaths
Ismaili imams
Syrian Ismailis
9th-century Ismailis
Self-declared mahdi