Al-Adid

Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf ( ar, أبو محمد عبد الله بن يوسف; 1151–1171), better known by his regnal name al-ʿĀḍid li-Dīn Allāh ( ar, العاضد لدين الله, , Strengthener of God's Faith), was the fourteenth and last caliph of the Fatimid dynasty, and the 24th imam of Hafizi Isma'ilism, reigning from 1160 to 1171.

Coming to the throne as a child, he spent his reign as a puppet in the hands of various strongmen who occupied the vizierate, and was a mostly helpless bystander to the collapse of the Fatimid Caliphate. In the course of his reign, both the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Sunni Syrian ruler Nur al-Din availed themselves of the power struggles in Cairo and the enfeeblement of the Fatimid state to advance their own claims on the country. For a while, the vizier Shawar tried to play both sides off against one another, but in January 1169, Nur al-Din's general Shirkuh finally managed to overthrow Shawar and occupy Cairo. Although he died shortly after, he was followed by his nephew, Saladin, who not only consolidated his hold over Egypt, but proceeded to dismantle the Fatimid regime. Fatimid loyalists in the army were purged, and Isma'ilism was gradually abolished as the state religion in favour of Sunni Islam, culminating in the official proclamation of Abbasid suzerainty in September 1171. Al-Adid died a few days later. His family was placed under house arrest, and Isma'ilism persecuted by Saladin's new Ayyubid regime, so that within a century after the fall of the Fatimid regime it had almost disappeared in Egypt.

Origin

The future al-Adid was born on 9 May 1151, according to the commonly accepted date, provided by Ibn Khallikan. Other authors, however, give earlier years, in 1145 or 1149. He was the son of the Fatimid prince Yusuf, a younger son of the eleventh Fatimid caliph, al-Hafiz li-Din Allah (). Although Yusuf was one of the oldest surviving sons of al-Hafiz, at the latter's death, the powerful vizier Salim ibn Masal instead installed al-Hafiz's youngest son, Isma'il, as caliph with the regnal name al-Zafir bi-Amr Allah. Al-Zafir was assassinated in 1154 by then vizier, Abbas ibn Abi'l-Futuh. The vizier raised al-Zafir's five-year-old son Isa to the throne under the name al-Fa'iz bi-Nasr Allah, and had Yusuf and another older brother of al-Zafir's, Jibril, executed on the same day.

By this time, the Fatimid dynasty was in decline. The official doctrine of Isma'ilism had lost its appeal and was weakened by succession disputes and schisms, and the dynasty's legitimacy was increasingly challenged by a Sunni resurgence in Egypt. As the fate of al-Zafir shows, the Fatimid caliphs themselves had become virtual puppets in the hands of their powerful chief ministers: the viziers bore the royal title of sultan, and their names were included in the Friday prayers and on coins alongside the caliph's.

Reign

Al-Fa'iz was of sickly disposition, and died on 22 July 1160, aged only eleven. As al-Fa'iz had no offspring, the underage al-Adid was elevated to the throne by another all-powerful vizier, Tala'i ibn Ruzzik, on 23 July 1160. To further cement his hold over the caliph, Tala'i married him to one of his daughters. Throughout his reign, al-Adid would be little more than a figurehead monarch, effectively a puppet in the hands of courtiers and strongmen who disputed with one another over the spoils of the tottering Fatimid regime. As the French orientalist Gaston Wiet comments, "The Arab writers seem uncertain, and intermittently attribute to him stray impulses of revolt, which had little success ..in general the caliph looked on helplessly at a shattering series of tragic incidents of which he himself was finally to be the victim".

As a result, his personal traits are not well known. Ibn Khallikan reports that he was violently pro- Shi'a, while the only personal description of him is by the Crusader historian William of Tyre, on the occasion of an audience with Crusader leaders: his face was veiled, but his appearance was described as that of "a young man of an extremely generous disposition, whose first beard was just appearing; he was tall, of swarthy complexion and good frame".

Power struggles in Cairo

Tala'i, who was inclined towards Twelver Shi'ism, was assassinated on 11 September 1161, possibly with the knowledge of the young caliph, as the deed was said to have been instigated by one of al-Adid's aunts, Sitt al-Qusur. Nevertheless, his place was immediately taken by his son, Ruzzik ibn Tala'i, who likewise denied any power to the caliph. The new vizier had Sitt al-Qusur strangled, while al-Adid came under the auspices of another aunt, who had to swear that she had not been involved in the murder plot. Soon after, the new vizier suppressed the last revolt by a claimant of the Nizari line: arriving from the Maghreb, he had tried to rise Cyrenaica and Alexandria in revolt, but was captured and executed in August 1162.

Al-Adid—or rather, a palace clique acting through him—turned to Shawar, the governor of Upper Egypt, for support in deposing Ruzzik. With the backing of a Bedouin army, Shawar was indeed successful in capturing Cairo in late December 1162, and had his predecessor executed; he too assumed complete control of the government, excluding the caliph from public affairs. As the contemporary poet Umara ibn Abi al-Hasan al-Yamani commented, "with the end of the Banu Ruzzik ended the Egyptian dynasty".

Shawar was evicted from Cairo in August 1163 by the majordomo Dirgham, but managed to escape to his Bedouin supporters, before travelling to Damascus to seek the assistance of the local atabeg, Nur al-Din. This was a momentous development. For Nur al-Din, whom the historian Farhad Daftary describes as a "fervent Sunni favoured by the Abbasids", Shawar's arrival opened the possibility of intervening in Egypt, not only in order to unify the core territories of the Muslim world under his rule, but also in order to overthrow the Isma'ili Shi'ite Fatimid regime and return the country to Sunni allegiance.

Foreign interventions and the fall of Dirgham

In the meantime, Dirgham's regime in Egypt became ever more unpopular, and he quickly lost support among the military. At the same time, the turmoil in Egypt opened the path for intervention by the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: the Crusaders coveted Egypt not only for its riches, but also in order to prevent a takeover by Nur al-Din, which would expose their kingdom to attacks from two directions. Already in 1161, the Crusaders under Baldwin III () had invaded Egypt and forced Tala'i to pay them tribute. The new King of Jerusalem, Amalric () began to seriously consider conquering Egypt, and in September 1163, he invaded the country, but was forced to retreat after the Fatimids broke the dams that held back the Nile's high tide and flooded the plains of the Nile Delta.

The obvious vulnerability of Egypt to the Crusaders in turn encouraged Nur al-Din to agree to provide assistance to Shawar, who promised in return to send him a third of Egypt's revenue, and to become his vassal. Shawar was sent back to Egypt accompanied by a small expeditionary force, barely a thousand strong, under the Kurdish general Shirkuh, who was joined by his nephew, Saladin. This double foreign intervention was a momentous event in the history of the Fatimid regime and Egypt: the country, enfeebled by the constant civil wars, now became a prize in the wider struggle between Damascus and Jerusalem, leading to the downfall of the Fatimid dynasty.

Dirgham appealed to Amalric for help, but the King of Jerusalem was unable to intervene in time: in late April 1164, the Syrians surprised and defeated Dirgham's brother at Bilbays, opening the way to Cairo. On the news of the battle, a panic broke out in the capital of Egypt. Desperate for funds to pay his men, Dirgham confiscated the possessions of orphans, thereby provoking a public outcry against him. His troops began deserting him, including the officers of the corps. Left with only 500 horsemen, he appeared in the square before the caliphal palace demanding that al-Adid appear, but the caliph, who had already entered into talks with Shawar, turned him away and advised him to save his life. As his troops continued to defect, Dirgham fled the capital, but was killed by one of Shawar's men.

Shawar's second vizierate

Shawar was restored to the vizierate on 26 May 1164, but quickly fell out with Shirkuh, who attacked Cairo. Shawar now asked for Amalric's help in driving the Syrian army out of Egypt. Shirkuh and Saladin confronted the Crusaders at Bilbays for three months, until Nur al-Din's captured Harim in Syria, forcing Amalric to retreat north in November 1164. Left dangerously short of supplies, Shirkuh was obliged to follow suit, after receiving 50,000 dinars from Shawar.

Shawar's position was secured, for a time: having experienced Egypt, its wealth, and the feebleness of its regime, Shirkuh persuaded Nur al-Din to send him again south in January 1167. Learning of this, King Amalric gathered his forces and invaded Egypt himself, even before Shawar agreed to an alliance with the Crusaders against the Syrians. To seal the treaty, Hugh of Caesarea entered Cairo to receive the assent of al-Adid in person; Hugh's description of the caliphal audience is one of very few surviving descriptions of the Fatimid palaces. A Crusader garrison was installed on the walls of Cairo, and the Fatimids and Crusaders jointly confronted the Syrian troops. At the Battle of al-Babein on 18 March 1167, the Syrians were victorious, but shortly after, Saladin found himself besieged at Alexandria. This forced Shirkuh to come to terms, and in August 1167, both Syrian and Crusaders once again left Egypt, leaving a Crusader garrison in Cairo, as well as an official responsible for collecting an annual tribute of 100,000 dinars due to the King of Jerusalem.

This ''de facto'' submission to the Crusaders displeased many at the Fatimid court, including Shawar's own son, al-Kamil Shuja, who secretly contacted Nur al-Din for assistance. The Syrians were pre-empted, however, by Amalric, who in October 1185 set out with the intention to conquer Egypt; even before leaving, the Crusader leaders divided the country among themselves. As the Crusaders entered Egypt and massacred the inhabitants of Bilbays on 5 November 1168, al-Kamil Shuja persuaded al-Adid to call upon Nur al-Din for assistance. Shawar vehemently opposed this, warning the young caliph of the dire consequences for himself if the Syrians should prevail. Al-Adid nevertheless is reported to have sent a plea for aid in secret, although this may be an invention by later chroniclers eager to justify Saladin's rise to power. In the meantime, the Crusaders arrived before the gates of Cairo, and began a siege of the city. Shawar had to evacuate the unwalled sister city of Fustat, which suffered extensive damage by fires during this time—the sources attribute it to a deliberate destruction by Shawar, but this is likely much exaggerated. The siege lasted until 2 January 1169, when the Crusaders departed on the approach of the Syrian troops; and on 8 January, Shirkuh and his 6,000 men arrived before Cairo.

After a few days of uneasy coexistence, Shawar was seized by Shirkuh's men on 18 January 1169, during a visit to the Syrian camp. After al-Adid gave his consent, he was killed on the same day. Two days later, Shirkuh was appointed vizier, with the title of (). Shirkuh's sudden rise alarmed the Crusaders, and displeased Nur al-Din, who mistrusted his subordinate's intentions; the Syrian ruler even wrote to al-Adid, asking him to send the Syrian troops—and their commander—home. Al-Adid did not reply, and was apparently satisfied with his new minister, as Shirkuh appeared to respect the Fatimid institutions, leaving the regime's officials in their place.

Saladin and the end of the Fatimid Caliphate

Shirkuh's unexpected death on 23 March 1169 thus left a power vacuum both in the Fatimid government as well as the Syrian expeditionary force. The Fatimid elites conferred in the caliphal palace. Some were proposing that Saladin be appointed to the vizierate, while others, led by the eunuch majordomo Mu'tamin al-Khilafa Jawhar, suggested that the Syrians should be given military fiefs in the Nile Delta, thus removing them from Cairo, and that no vizier should be appointed, with al-Adid resuming personal rule like his predecessors at the beginning of the dynasty. The Syrian commanders also vied among themselves for the leadership, until Saladin emerged as the favoured candidate. Then, on 26 March 1169, Saladin was received at the caliphal palace and appointed to the vizierate.

Saladin's rise provoked much opposition, and elements of the Fatimid army, under the Mu'tamin al-Khilafa Jawhar, did not hesitate to contact the Crusaders for help, in the hopes that a new Crusader invasion would draw Saladin away from Cairo, allowing them to seize control of the capital. When a letter to this effect fell into his hands, Saladin seized the opportunity to quickly and ruthlessly purge Cairo of his rivals, and Mu'tamin al-Khalifa was assassinated. Thereupon, on 21 August 1169, the Black African and Armenian troops rose in revolt. In street fighting that lasted for two days, Saladin defeated them and ousted them from the city. They were pursued and defeated by Saladin's brother Turan Shah, while their quarters in the suburb of al-Mansuriyya were burnt. Saladin now set about taking control of the administrative machinery and installing his own Syrian followers and his immediate family in critical positions. As part of this, he appointed Baha al-Din Qaraqush as commander of the palace guard, thus securing total control of the caliph.

Al-Adid seems to have accommodated himself with Saladin, at least enough to partially finance the expedition that repelled the joint Byzantine–Crusader attack on Damietta. Nevertheless, with his position secure, Saladin began to undermine the religious foundations of the Fatimid regime, both in ritual—the call to prayer was changed from the Shi'a formula back to the Sunni one, and the Friday prayer was changed to include all four Rashidun caliphs—as well as in the religious establishment, as Sunnis were appointed to all juridical posts, including that of the chief . In mid-1170, al-Adid was forbidden from attending the Friday and festival prayers in state.

This policy culminated on 10 September 1171, when the Shafi'i jurist Najm al-Din al-Khabushani publicly proclaimed the name of the Sunni Abbasid caliph, al-Mustadi, instead of al-Adid's, and read out a list of the Fatimids' crimes. This symbolic act, that effectively restored the country to Abbasid suzerainty after two centuries of Fatimid Isma'ili rule, was met by general indifference among the Egyptian populace. The Fatimid regime was at an end, and al-Adid's death only a few days later, on 13 September 1171, after a brief—and possibly not coincidental—illness, only sealed its demise.

Saladin attended the funeral for al-Adid in person, and organized a parade of his troops as a precaution against any lingering pro-Fatimid sentiment; publicly, it was stated simply that al-Adid had not appointed his oldest son, Daoud, as heir, and that thus the Fatimid caliphate was expired. After al-Adid's death, the still sizeable Isma'ili community was persecuted by Saladin's new Ayyubid regime. The members of the Fatimid family were placed under effective house arrest in the palace. Al-Adid's heir-apparent, Daoud al-Hamid li-'llah (), was recognized by the Hafizi Isma'ili faithful as the rightful imam, but he, like his own son and successor Sulayman Badr al-Din (), lived and died in captivity. A series of abortive conspiracies and uprisings under pro-Fatimid sympathizers or Fatimid pretenders erupted in the 1170s and continued sporadically, with much diminished impact, until the end of the century. By the end of the 13th century, Isma'ilism had been effectively purged from Egypt. The last three surviving members of the dynasty are attested in 1262, and included one of al-Adid's sons, Kamal al-Din Isma'il, and two grandsons, Abu'l-Qasim ibn Abi'l-Futuh ibn al-Adid and Abd al-Wahhab ibn Isma'il ibn al-Adid. Nothing further is known of them; presumably they died still imprisoned in the Citadel of Cairo.

References

Sources

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Adid
1151 births
1171 deaths
12th-century Fatimid caliphs
Egyptian Ismailis
Hafizi imams
Medieval child rulers
Muslims of the Crusades