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On Lunatics and Loving Sons: A textual study of the Mamlūk treatment of al-Ḥākim*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2008
Extract
The Mamlūk historical tradition's depiction of al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allah (386-411/996-1021), the fifth Caliph of the Fāṭimid dynasty of Egypt (296-556/909-1171), is a contradictory amalgamation of awe, confusion, and horror. Al-Ḥākim assumes effective political power by murdering Barjawān, his guardian and tutor, who was pivotal to securing the young Caliph's succession in the face of powerful military opposition. Then we are witness to al-Ḥākim's steady decline into a kind of psychosis or madness. He sits alone in the candlelight or darkness for years and orders the sūqs (markets) to remain open throughout the night. His policies range from the patently absurd (e.g. banning cobblers from making women's shoes to keep them indoors or the killing of all dogs) to the outright tyrannical (e.g. forcing Jews and Christian to wear ten pound weights around their necks). The sources express horror when recounting al-Ḥākim's sudden killing sprees, but even his greatest critics acknowledge his selfless generosity. Most compilers assert that he proclaimed his own divinity and authorised missionaries to spread this message, while others deny this allegation, pointing towards his persecution of the early Druze. In the end, we are shown al-Ḥākim riding into the hills surrounding Cairo in solitary contemplation only to vanish into thin air.
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2008
Footnotes
*
I am very indebted to Shaun Marmon for her insightful remarks on a late draft of this paper. This article also owes a great deal to Avraham Udovitch who helped in the initial stages of the research and Andras Hamori who allowed me to present the findings in a seminar at Princeton during the spring of 2003.
References
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5 Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, 5:292; Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, 9:316; al-Maqrīzī, Itti'āẓ, 2:117-20; Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm, 4:178.
6 Al-Ḥākim's active role in promoting his own divine status is explicit in Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz, 7:259, Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm, 4:183-5, Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, 5:295, al-Anṭākī, Tā'rīkh, 334-43, Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, 12:9, and al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat, 28:197-9. For the diametrically opposite interpretation of the textual sources, see Assaad, al-Ḥākim, 156-81.
7 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, 9:316; Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, 2:450-4; al-Maqrīzī, Itti'āẓ, 2:117-20.
8 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya 12:9; Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm, 4:184; al-Dawādārī, Kanz, 7:257.
9 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, 9:316; al-Maqrīzī, Itti'āẓ, 2:120; Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm, 4:178.
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11 Ibid., 337.
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13 Ibid, 3:77.
14 Graefe, ‘Al-Ḥākim’, Encyclopedia of Islam1, 3:224.
15 A subtle critique of this position is found in Wilfred Madelung's review of Sadik Assaad's The Reign of al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allah inJNES 37 (1978), 280.
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20 Paula, Sanders, Ritual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo (New York, 1994), 63Google Scholar.
21 As Madelung notes, however, Assaad's monograph does not hold up to close criticism. The reasons he offers for accepting or rejecting narratives can often be reduced to their verisimilitude. See Madelung, “The Reign of al-Hakim”, 280.
22 Muḥammad, b. Abī Qāsim al-Musabbiḥī, Akhbār Miṣr (Cairo, al-Mahad al-‘Ilm al-Faransi, 1984)Google Scholar. This work also survives in extracts preserved in Sibṭ al-Jawzī's Mir'āt al-zamān, selected volumes of which have been edited.
23 Yaacov, Lev, “The Fāṭimid Princess Sitt al-Mulk”, JSS 32 (1987), 324Google Scholar. See also Assaad, al-Ḥākim, 16-17.
24 Lev, “Sitt al-Mulk”, 324. See also Assaad, al-Ḥākim, 18-19.
25 Lev, “Sitt al-Mulk”, 324. See also Assaad, al-Ḥākim, 16-20.
26 Canard, Encyclopedia of Islam 2, “Al-Anṭākī” 1:516 and Lev, “Sitt al-Mulk”, 324.
27 Sanders notes that the Mamlūk historical chronicles evidence little awareness of the multiple layers of historiography from the earlier period. Specifically, she emphasises that different phases in Fāṭimid history witnessed the dominance of particular historical perspectives. In many cases, these nuanced perspectives were not explicitly dealt with by the Mamlūk historians, producing broad contradictory narratives. This problem is confounded by modern scholars who quote Mamlūk compilers verbatim and then express confusion at the resulting inconsistent narratives and descriptions. See Paula Sanders, “Claiming the Past: Ghadīr Khumm and the rise of Ḥāfiẓī Historiography in Late Fāṭimid Egypt”, Studia Islamica 75 (1992), 81-104.
28 A notable exception is Donald Little's An Introduction to Mamlūk Historiography (Wiesbaden, 1970) which provides a close textual comparison of a range of Mamlūk historical texts in an attempt to derive information about the motives of individual historians/compilers. Little is concerned with the manner in which Mamlūk historians dealt with Mamlūk Sultans, focusing on events which were roughly contemporary with the compilation of individual chronicles. On the basis of this information, he draws conclusions about a compiler's method and his access to contemporary source material.
29 Lassner assumes a ‘reader’ capable of interpreting subtle references in a manner consistent with the propagandist's polemical intent. Jacob Lassner, Islamic Revolution and Historical Memory (New Haven, 1986).
30 Ibid., 14.
31 Ibid., 14.
32 Ibid., 15.
33 Ibid., 25.
34 Ibid., 25.
35 Ibid., 25.
36 Ibid., 32.
37 For examples, see Lassner (citation above) in addition to Albrecht Noth, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition, tran. Michael Bonner (Princeton, 1994); Stefan Leder, ‘The Literary Use of the Khabar’, in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, ed. Lawrence Conrad and Averil Cameron, (Princeton, 1992), 1:277-315; Stefan, Leder, ‘Authorship and Transmission in Unauthorized Literature’, Oriens 31 (1988), 66–80Google Scholar; Lawrence, Conrad, ‘Arabic Plague Chronologies and Treatises’, Studia Islamica 56 (1981), 51–93Google Scholar; Lawrence, Conrad, ‘The Conquest of Arwad’, in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, ed. Lawrence, Conrad and Averil, Cameron (Princeton, 1992), 1:317–401Google Scholar.
38 Little, Introduction, 97-9.
39 This study includes the following Egyptian and Syrian compilers from the Mamlūk period: Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630/1223), Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282), al-Nuwayrī (d. 733/1333), Ibn al-Dawādārī (d. 736/1335), Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373), al-Maqrīzī (d. 826/1423), and Ibn Taghrībirdī (d. 874/1470). These figures were chosen because of (a) their diverse educational and occupational backgrounds (e.g. Ibn Kathīr was a staunch Shāfi‘ī religious scholar while al-Maqrīzī held numerous bureaucratic positions), (b) their authorship of a wide range of historical writing (e.g. al-Nuwayrī primarily wrote literary works while Ibn al-Dawādārī compiled an annalistic historical chronicle), and (c) the fact that they lived during different periods of Mamlūk rule (648-923/1250–1517).
40 Barjawān will be discussed in greater detail below. For a basic summary of his life, see Bernard Lewis ‘Barjawān’, Encyclopedia of Islam2, 2:1041.
41 Ibid., 2:1041.
42 For the three narratives of the murder that follow in this section, see al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat, 28:174-5; Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz, 6:265; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, 11:280; al-Maqrīzī, ltt'āẓ, 2:25.
43 For a summary and breakdown of these narratives, see Table 1 in Appendix I.
44 al-Anṭākī, Tā’rīkh, 249.
45 Franz, Rosenthal, “al-Maqrīzī”, Encyclopedia of Islam 2, 6:193–4Google Scholar
46 The difference in name might also be a simple scribal or editorial mistake as the ‘z’ and the ‘r’ differ only in pointing.
47 Recent studies have highlighted instances where al-Ṭabarī consciously chooses to exclude specific narratives possibly for polemical reasons. See Franz, Rosenthal, ‘Introduction’, inThe History of al-Ṭabarī, (Albany, 1989)Google Scholar; Lawrence, Conrad, ‘Notes on al-Ṭabarī's History’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3 (1993), 1–31Google Scholar; Fred, Donner, ‘The Problem of Early Islamic Historiography in Syria’, in Bilād al-Sham fī al-‘Ahd al-Bizantī, ed. Muḥammad, ‘Adnān al-Bakhīt and Muḥammad ‘Aṣfūr (Jordan, 1986), 1Google Scholar.
48 The city originally built by the Arab conquerors of Egypt along the Nile. Today, it is the district of Cairo known as the ‘old city’. J. Jomier, ‘Fusṭāṭ’, Encyclopedia of Islam 2, 2:957.
49 For the four narratives of the looting that follow in this section, see Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, 9:315; al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat, 28:193; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, 12:9; Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm, 4:180-3.
50 We have, therefore, two identifiable accounts that are nearly contemporaneous with the episode in question: the version preserved in al-Anṭākī's Tā'rīkh, 345-48 and the version attributed to Hilāl al-Ṣābi' by Ibn Taghrībirdī (al-Nujūm, 4:180-83). The former is basically neutral in tenor towards al-Ḥākim, while the latter is highly critical. As will become evident below, the Mamlūk compilers consciously chose elements from each of these primary sources in the construction of their narratives.
51 For a detailed examination of the internal dynamics of the Fāṭimid army, see Yaacov, Lev, ‘Army, Regime, and Society in Fāṭimid Egypt’, IJMES 19 (1987), 337–65Google Scholar and Jere, Bacharach, ‘African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East’, IJMES 13 (1981), 471–95Google Scholar.
53 See fn. 23 above.
54 al-Anṭākī, Tā'rīkh, 346-8.
55 For references to the variant narratives of the disappearance/murder that follow in this section, see Ibn Athīr, al-Kāmil, 9:314-19; Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, 5:2997-8; al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat, 28:194-6; Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz, 6:299-301; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, 12:9-10; al-Maqrīzī, Itti'āẓ, 2:115-19; Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm, 4:185-92.
56 Sanders, Ritual, 52-4 and 63-6.
58 For al-Anṭākī's account, see Tā'rīkh, 359-63.
59 Recall that al-Nuwayrī made use of al-Anṭākī's chronicle in his version of the looting of Fusṭāṭ.
60 Although the declared intention of their work differed (al-Nuwayrī wrote literature, al-Maqrīzī was a historian), both men were well-educated products of the Mamlūk bureaucracy. The reasons for the divergence in their accounts lie beyond the scope of this study and require a close examination of their lives and overall work.
61 See fn. 37 above.
62 These norms are by no means specific to Mamlūk society. The seminal importance of loyalty (in all its forms) in the social and political life of the broader tenth and eleventh-century Eastern Islamic world is best articulated in Roy Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, 1980). As will be discussed below, the texts suggest that many of these norms persisted into the Mamlūk period.
63 Little, Introduction, 90.
64 El-Hibri's examination of the civil war between al-Amīn and al-Mā‘mūn further demonstrates the widespread ethical and moral opposition to the murder of a legitimate king/caliph. Tayeb El-Hibri, Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography (Cambridge, 1999).
65 This study is by no means the first attempt at the re-examination of historical sources from a literary perspective. Many modern scholars have already articulated alternate approaches to historical material which emphasise its literary characteristics. In addition to Lassner (see above) and El-Hibri (see fn. 64), Michael Cooperson has examined the writing and rewriting of biographical accounts of a number of important second/eighth and third/ninth-century historical figures. Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic Biography (Cambridge, 2000). A similar treatment of Ṣūfī hagiographies is forwarded by Jawid Mojaddedi in The Biographical Literature in Ṣūfism (Richmond, 2001).