Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors: Faith, Power, and Violence in the Age of Crusade and Jihad by Catlos Brian A

Author:Catlos, Brian A. [Catlos, Brian A.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780374712051
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2014-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

THE MESSIAH’S DONKEY

Al-Amir left a seven-month-old son as his successor, but the boy disappeared soon after his father’s death. With no better options, the Isma’ili authorities in Cairo appointed as regent the eldest male member of the Fatimid clan: al-Amir’s cousin, ‘Abd al-Majid. In the meantime, al-Afdal’s son, who was known as Kutayfat, seized power with the backing of the Armenian officers. He imprisoned ‘Abd al-Majid and declared the dissolution of the Fatimid Caliphate, proclaiming that Isma’ilism was no longer the religion of government. He claimed to be the true authority: the hidden imam whom the majority of the Shi’a, or “Twelvers,” had been awaiting. But by the end of 1130 the Isma’ilis were back, thanks to al-Yanis (Hovannês in Armenian, or “John”), a former slave of al-Afdal who overthrew and murdered Kutayfat with the aid of a private army he had raised. ‘Abd al-Majid was freed and made imam under the name al-Hafiz, and al-Yanis became the new wazir and ruler of Egypt. Al-Hafiz’s claim to the title was rather thin, however, as the imamate was meant to be transmitted from father to son. He and his wazir produced a set of dubious rationales to justify his authority. Unconvincing as these may have been, for the regime and its followers all that mattered was that Fatimid authority had been restored.

Though he had been saved by al-Yanis, al-Hafiz saw that the caliphate was held hostage by its wazirs. Al-Yanis was always surrounded by bodyguards, so the caliph arranged to have the wazir’s personal ablution fountain filled with a poison that would kill him upon contact with his skin. On October 27, 1132, al-Yanis dropped dead after performing the ritual washing in preparation for prayer. Al-Hafiz then named his own son Sulayman as his heir and as his wazir. However, his other sons and their mothers resisted. One of these sons, Hasan, engineered a brief coup, until the Armenian-led army intervened and demanded that he be put to death. To keep his own hands clean, al-Hafiz had Hasan’s trusted Coptic physician poison him. Through these three years of intrigue and chaos, two truths became evident: the Armenian military needed to be reassured that it would retain its power and prestige, and a complex, populous kingdom like Egypt needed a wazir.

Al-Hafiz hit upon the idea of appointing as his wazir the Christian, Bahram Pahlavuni. Bahram was a native of Tell Bashir in the Crusader-ruled County of Edessa, and, as we have seen, a member of one of the most illustrious Armenian Christian lineages. One uncle, Vasak, had been the Byzantine governor of Antioch in the 1060s, and another was Grigor Martyrophile, the Armenian catholicos who had visited Egypt in the 1070s just as Armenian Syria was descending into civil war. The Armenian Church was itself in crisis in the 1080s, in response to which Grigor responded by devolving his authority on six bishops, each of whom would be given the title of catholicos and wield full authority over their regional congregations. One

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.