This chapter will present a survey of Ismāʿīlī history during what is known as the classical Fāṭimid period, from the establishment of the Fāṭimid state in Ifrīqiya in 297/909 until the death of the eighth Fāṭimid caliph-imam al-Mustanṣir in 487/1094. This period is often referred to as the ‘golden age’ of Ismāʿīlism, when the Ismāʿīlīs achieved a prosperous state of their own and Ismāʿīlī literature and intellectual activities reached an apogee.

The foundation of the Fāṭimid caliphate in 297/909 marked the crowning success of the early Ismāʿīlīs. The religio-political daʿwa of the Ismāʿīliyya had finally led to the establishment of a state or dawla headed by the Ismāʿīlī imam. This represented not only a great success for the Ismāʿīlīs, but for the entire Shīʿa as well. Since the days of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, this was the first time that an ʿAlid imam from the ahl al-bayt had succeeded to the leadership of a major Muslim state. By acquiring political power, and then transforming the nascent Fāṭimid dawla into a vast empire, the Ismāʿīlī imam had at the same time presented his Shīʿī challenge to ʿAbbāsid hegemony and Sunnī interpretations of Islam. Henceforth, the Ismāʿīlī Fāṭimid caliph-imam could readily and openly act as the spiritual spokesman of Shīʿī Islam in general, much in the same way that the ʿAbbāsid caliph was the mouthpiece of Sunnī Islam.