Fatimid History and Ismaili Doctrine

Paul E. Walker is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago, USA.

• Contents: Introduction; Fatimid institutions of learning; Succession to rule in the Shiite caliphate; The Ismaili da'wa in the reign of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim; Another family of Fatimid chief Qadis: the al-Fariqis; A Byzantine victory over the Fatimids at Alexandretta (971); The 'crusade' of John Tzimisces in the light of new Arabic evidence; Al-Maqrizi and the Fatimids; Purloined symbols of the past: the theft of souvenirs and sacred relics in the rivalry between the Abbasids and Fatimids; 'In praise of al-Hakim': Greek elements in Ismaili writings on the Imamate; Abu Tammam and his Kitab al-Shajara: an new Ismaili treatise from 10th-century Khurasan; An Isma'ili version of the heresiography of the 72 erring sects; Eternal cosmos and the womb of history: time in early Ismaili thought; The doctrine of metempsychosis in Islam; Index.

’All in all this volume offers a valuable collection showing the ways in which such a versatile scholar has contextualized both Fatimid history and Ismaili doctrine ” through family history, source analysis, and the interpretation of philosophical and theological doctrines.’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies