was at that moment, in March 1098, that the Fatimids appeared on the
scene, not as an army bringing relief to the besieged Muslim garrison but
as a diplomatic mission proposing a deal to the Crusaders, involving a
partition of Syria at the expense of the Saljuqid foe}°
The Fatimids, it was announced, were prepared to enter into a pact of
neutrality. The reason was clear enough: they viewed the Sunni Seljuq Turks
as a greater enemy than the crusaders. In 1071 the Seljuq sultan Alp Arslan
had actually planned an invasion of Egypt, when he became distracted by
the advance of the Byzantine army. It was clear that the Fatimids were not
entirely opposed to a Frankish presence in the region, which they mis-
takenly believed was part of a limited Byzantine campaign. In that sense
they misunderstood the intentions of the Franks, and Fatimid-crusader
collaboration was quicldy followed by Fatimid disillusionment.^^ In the
words of a contemporary Muslim historian, they regretted this fact only
after it was no longer useful to regret it.
The land of the Nile seethed with political intrigue. On the one hand
there was the Fatmid Ismaili caliph, who was supreme ruler in principle;
on the other the vizier, who was supreme ruler in fact. In between there
raged a sea of shifting loyalties, political intrigue and deadly palace coups.
The most important consideration, indeed the only consideration, was
power - how to seize it and how to hold it, and power held no religious
beliefs; the vizierate went to whoever could seize it. All that mattered was
to protect your back against the machinations of the court, emasculate your
enemies and keep a wary eye on your allies. Historians have correcdy
labelled the last years of Fatimid rule as a period of bewildering political
intrigue, but sometimes a simple fact tells us all that we need to know about
a complex situation: of the 15 viziers who ruled Egypt between 1101 and
1171, only three, including Saladin, died a natural death.
Under Ismaili rule they may have been, but the Sunnis of Egypt were
not cut off from the wider Muslim concerns in Syria and elsewhere. An
important example here is Alexandria, where the imprint of Ismailism was
far less than that on the capital;^^ it was the Muslims of Alexandria who were
the first to feel the change in the air with the arrival not just of the refugees
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SALAD I N
from Palestine, who fled to Egypt after the fall of Ascalon in 1153, but
also the spirit of Sunni orthodoxy, which reinvigorated the community,
maldng it more conscious of itself, militant and willing to challenge its foes.
Goitein's research shows an increase in anti-semitic activities in Alexandria
during the late Fatimid period - perhaps a consequence of a more militant
Sunni orthodoxy/^ In addition, to the city-port flocked merchants, stu-
dents, tourists and soldiers of fortune.^'' Not surprisingly therefore it was in
Alexandria that the first madrasas in Egypt appeared/® The first madrasa in
Egypt was the work of Abu Baler al-Turtushi, who died in 1126 and whose
life offers a flavour of not only how far scholars travelled but how quickly
the ideas of the Sunni Revival spread. Born in Tortossa in Spain, he travelled
to Baghdad where he studied at the Nizamiyya, and where he met Nizam
ul-Mulk. From Baghdad al-Turtushi travelled to Damascus and then to
Alexandria where, inspired by what he saw in Baghdad, he estabUshed a
madrasa in 1098, and where he taught for the next 30 years. Before long he
established around him a following which was so popular that on one of his
walks he was accompanied by 360 students.^® It was not very long before al-
Turtushi made his presence felt and he began insisting that the Ismailis stop
meddling in Sunni affairs and issuing legal opinions which went against the'
official Fatimid Ismaili directives. Given his immense popularity among the
Sunnis of Alexandria, there was little the authorities could do; not even
'stop him cutting his nails'.'^ In Alexandria at least, the Sunnis were able, to
do as they pleased.^®
Slowly, inexorably, the Fatimid caliph was being pushed into a corner
by a people over whom he ruled but who at best were indifferent to his
ideology. In addition, from Alexandria but also elsewhere a new Sunnism
was emerging which questioned the very legitimacy of the Fatimid rule. To
survive, the caliph had to intrigue and act, and in doing so he grudgingly
sacrificed his doctrine and ideology for political expediency. The Fatimids,
in short, were headed toward total extinction.^' It is in this light that one
needs to comprehend the actions of the Fatimid imam al-Hafiz, who in
1135 acted in a manner which was as dramatic as it was shocldng to Muslim
sensibilities: he appointed Bahram, a Christian Armenian, as vizier. In doing
so he calculated that a Christian would not undermine further the Ismaili
nature of the country. This was a considered strategy, since under the
Fatimids there was little pressure on Christians to convert to Islam^" and it
appears that some Christians reverted to their original faith - a fact which is
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4: T H E BATTLE F O R EGYPT
perhaps demonstrated by the drop in the adoption of Muslim names
in Egypt during tiiis period.^^ It was a daring move by al-Hafiz, bold and
dramatic, but the caliph had badly read the mood of the people over whom
he was meant to rule. Although in the past there had been Armenian viziers,
they had converted to Islam, but Bahram had no such intention. With this
desperate appointment, al-Hafiz signalled that the heart had gone out of the
Fatimid i d e o l o g y s i n c e the Fatimids had always claimed for themselves an
Islamic heritage, one in which the Prophet and his family - the ahl al-bayt
- held a special position. Now the appointment of a Christian vizier was
received with disbelief by the Muslims and the news that Bahram had
close ties with the Armenian church - he was the nephew of the Armenian
catholicos Gregory II and the brother of the first Armenian catholicos of
Egypt - added to the Sunni unease. As vizier, Bahram made a point of
employing Armenians and Christians in the administration, which meant
the dismissal of Muslim officials.^^ Increasingly uneasy, the Muslims sus-
pected that Bahram was in contact with Christian states, and it does appear
that those suspicions were well founded. There is no doubt that the Sunnis
feared the Christians in Egypt far more than they feared the Ismailis, and
evidence shows that secret negotiations were entered into between Bahram
and Roger II, the Norman King of Sicily, who was hoping to reunite his
Idngdom with the principality of Antioch and who needed Bahram's sup-
port among the Armenians. This was not the only time that Bahram acted
in favour of the crusaders, for it was due to his intervention that Geoffrey of
Esch, a blight who was captured with around 300 of his men, was released.
This followed a visit to Cairo of the Armenian patriarch of Jerusalem. It is
noteworthy that the Armenian patriarchy fled Egypt in 1171, the year that
Saladin assumed the vizierat
e.
As work by Kedar and Ephrat has shown, there were several incidences
during this period involving conversions of Muslims to Christianity.
In one example Ibn al-Athir tells of the qadi of the town of Buzaa (near
Aleppo) who converted to the religion of the Franks who were besieging
his town in 1137. Ibn al-Athir notes with dismay that 400 of the town's
notables followed their qadi's example. In another, Abu Shama records an
episode where the Christian inhabitants of Damascus, who had converted to
Islam, reverted back to their original faith when the Franks laid siege to the
city in 1136. The dates are interesting, for it was during this period that the
Muslims in Egypt felt most threatened by Bahram's policies. In their minds
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SALAD I N
the events in Syria and Egypt were not unrelated. What is clear was that
the backdrop of the crusaders, which brought expansionist Christian armies
into Syria and to the borders of Egypt, impacted greatly on Muslims and
increased their fears concerning the seemingly pervasive Christian influence
in Egypt, which led some to believe that 'the possible eventual Christian-
ization of the country, perhaps with foreign support would have been quite
natural'?®
Bahram's appointment to the vizierate was followed by an outburst of
anti-Christian feelings. A vehement Sunni, Ridwan, went as far as calling for
a jihad against the Christian influence in Egypt. The call was successful;
Ridwan was appointed vizier and Bahram retired to a monastery, where he
died a couple of years later in 1140.^*' Ridwan's vizierate undoubtedly
increased the political power and presence of the Sunnis in Egypt, and his
anti-Christian purge, which forbade Christians to work in important min-
istries, was a popular move that won him support. His next step, however,
clearly showed how he was in tune with the thinldng of the age - he chose
to build a madrasa. Whereas the madrasa built by al-Turtushi can be seen as
the initiative of an individual scholar direcdy influenced by Nizam ul-Mulk,
Ridwan was a vizier and his madrasa - the second one built in Egypt - was
as much a political act as it was a pious one. Not surprisingly Ridwan chose
to build his madrasa in Alexandria, even though it was a city in which he had
never lived. This was a logical choice; the city-port was staunchly Sunni and
he also wanted the leading Malild scholar Ibn Awf to become its professor.
For nearly 50 years Ibn Awf taught at the madrasa and to him flocked
hundreds of students, including Saladin. But there was also a more urgent
political reason for the madrasa, and that was that Ridwan was desperately
in need of Sunni jurists who could assume positions in his government in
order to free him, at least to some degree, from reliance on the rival com-
munities, above all the Christians, in order to govern the country.^^ This was
one of the cornerstones of Nizam ul-Mulk's policies when he established his
madrasas, and its importation into Egypt was a clear sign that the ideas
which had originated in the east were reaching the land of the Nile.
Saladin was not the first Sunni vizier of Fatimid Egypt - in fact he was
not even the first Kurdish one. A Shafii Sunni Kurd, Ibn Sallar, had been the
governor of Alexandria before he became vizier, and in 1151 he established
a madrasa for the leading Shafii scholar, al-Silafi. This was the first Shafii
madrasa in Egypt and signalled an official recognition for that madhab. If
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4; T H E BATTLE F O R EGYPT
Ibn Awf was the foremost Malild scholar in Egypt, then there was no ques-
tion that ai-Silafi was the most outstanding Shafii one - and perhaps the
greatest scholarly personality of the age in Egypt.^^ His fame and prestige
grew and spread to the extent that it seems that everyone visiting Alexandria
went to see him.^' By the time he died in 1180, al-Silafi had taught hadith
for close to 60 years and had acquired hundreds of students. Collectively
laiown as the 'disciples of al-Silafi', they carried his teachings across the
Islamic world. Thus Ibn Awf and al-Silafi were the two intellectual giants of
this period in Egypt, who taught, guided and nurtured hundreds of stu-
dents who would form the core of Saladin's adminstration in Egypt.
It has been commonly assumed that the reasons madrasas were built in
Egypt was to combat Ismailism. And yet it appears that neither Ridwan nor
Ibn Sallar could not have been less interested in that goal. In reality either
man could have toppled the Eatimid caliphate, and there was a moment
when Ridwan thought seriously of doing so and sought legal advice on this
matter. Ibn Awf was one of those whose opinion was asked, but his response
was a non-committal one. Perhaps neither Ridwan nor Ibn Sallar felt it
mattered, for the tide had turned firmly in favour of the Sunnis. When
Ibn Ruzzik, a Twelver Shiite vizier, marched on Cairo to seize power, he
and his troops wore black and carried black banners; ostensibly this was out
of sorrow for the caliph who had been murdered, but only a fool would
have failed to notice the symbolism - black was the colour of the Abbasid
Sunnis. A Twelver Shiite vizier seizing power in a land ruled by an Ismaili
Shiite caliph, and having to dress in the colour of Sunnis to win popular
support - there could be no clearer signal that the era of the Eatimids had
drawn to a close. Pockets of Ismaili resentment of course remained, none
the Sunnis. But he could do little about it, for they were everywhere. Even
when one of his slave girls needed to be bled, the physician turned out to
be a Sunni.'"
It was the desperate gamble of the Eatimid vizier, Shawar, which finally
extinguished the last gasps of the sick man of the Nile. In December 1163
he travelled to Damascus to appeal for Nur al-Din's help against a rival. To
tempt him, Shawar offered Nur al-Din a third of the Egyptian revenue as
annual tribute. Eor a while Nur al-Din hesitated, for an Egyptian venture
was not one to be embarked on lightiy, and he could see no reason why he
should support Shawar's claim to the vizierate, but then he decided to
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despatch an army under Shirkuh, who had risen to become his commander-
in-chief. With Shirkuii travelled Saladin, now aged 27, as his adjutant. The
fact that Shirkuh chose Saladin over his sons shows how much faith he had
in him - although for the first quarter centuiy of Saladin's life we know
almost next to nothing about him, from the moment that he accompanied
Shirkuh's army into Egypt, his rise would be meteoric.
The story of Shawar's invitation may have been the cnsus belli of the
Syrian campaign but what is less known was the relationship between Nur
al-Din and the Sunnis of Egypt, for a cautious Nur al-Din would not have
simply relied on the vizier's promises. He did not know Egypt well and he
would certainly not have sent his army 'blind' without some knowledge
about what to expect, or at the very least the lay of the political land.
Shirkuh had boasted that there 'were no men' in Egypt, but Nur al-Din
knew that the dangers could not be underestimated, for over the years he
had developed useful contacts in Egypt who acted as his eyes and ears and
who passed on valuable information. Their role - shadowy and secretive by
its nature - has largely been overlooked by historians, but not only would
Sunni elements loyal to Nur al-Din 'prepare' the way for Shirkuh's invasion,
they would also be instrumental in securing Saladin's position in power. In
Zein Ibn Naja we have one of the most intriguing and enigmatic personal-
ities of the period. A Damascene by birth, he lived well into his nineties and
became one of Saladin's closest confidants. Intriguingly we know that as a
young man he travelled to Baghdad, where he became a disciple of Abd al-
Qadir al-Jilani and developed a reputation as a preacher (waiz). It is worth
relating the following events for though they are confusing, one suspects
that they are deliberately so. We are told that Ibn Naja asked al-Jilani's
permission to leave Baghdad for Egypt, and al-Jilani agreed to this and
informed him 'You will reach Damascus and you will find there an army
ready to invade Egypt. Say to them: you will not conquer it on this occa-
sion. Is it not better for you to turn back so that you conquer it on another
occasion?'^^ While in Damascus Ibn Naja came across Shirkuh, and
informed him of what al-Jilani had told him. He then headed for Egypt
where, we are told, he informed the Fatimid caliph of the approach of the
army, but assured him that the invasion would not succeed. When indeed
Shirkuh was forced to turn back, Ibn Naja relates that the Fatimid caliph
recalled his words and took him in his confidence and 'showed him his
secrets'.^^ As it stands, the story simply does not make sense. Are we being
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4: T H E BATTLE F O R EGYPT
asked to believe that a Hanbali disciple of al-Jilani, who was opposed to the
Fatimid Ismailis, could so easily gain the confidence of the Fatimid caliph?
And what can one make of al-Jilani's enigmatic message?
Intriguingly, while in Egypt Ibn Naja went to visit Uthman Ibn Marzuq
al-Qurshi, who was based around the Amr Ibn al-As mosque and was widely