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The diplomacy of empire: Fatimids and Zirids, 990–1062

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2015

Michael Brett
Michael Brett*
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London
*
mb7@soas.ac.uk
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Abstract

Over a period of some forty years, 380/990–421/1030, the Fatimids in Egypt exchanged embassies with their Zirid viceroys in Ifrīqiya after these had been recognized as a hereditary dynasty, and to a lesser extent with their Kalbid deputies in Sicily. Sijillāt or official letters of the Fatimid chancery, accompanied by sumptuous presents, invested the Zirids with their authority and favoured them with important announcements, while the Zirids replied in kind. The embassies were ostentatiously welcomed by the Zirids as proof of their legitimacy, while serving to maintain the connection with Cairo on which the Fatimids were similarly dependent for the sake of their imperial standing in the world. The importance of that connection to both dynasties was shown in the 440s/1050s, when it was broken by the Zirids and restored by a Fatimid intervention, celebrated in a fresh series of sijillāt. With their emphasis on the style as much as the substance of the messages, the exchanges are excellent illustrations of mediaeval diplomatic correspondence as described by John Wansbrough in Lingua Franca in the Mediterranean.

Keywords

DiplomacyEmpireFatimidsZiridsKalbidsEgyptIfrīqiyaSicilyInvestitureChancery practicePresent-givingWansbroughLingua Franca
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 149 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2015 

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References

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5 Cf. Brett, M., The Rise of the Fatimids: The World of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the Fourth Century of the Hijra, Tenth Century CE (Leiden, 2001), 353–8Google Scholar.

6 Cf. Brett, Ibn Khaldun, nos VIII and IX.

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17 Ittiʿāẓ, II, 126.

18 Bayān, 271–2.

19 Bayān, 271–2. Cf. the command in conclusion to the sijill of 445, 1053–4, sent to the Yemen, to publish it from the pulpits, in town and country: see above, n. 2.

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21 Ittiʿāẓ, II, 111.

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24 Ittiʿāẓ, II, 177–8.

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29 Bayān, 260–1; Ittiʿāẓ, II, 110–11.

30 Ittiʿāẓ, II, 177–8.

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36 Bayān, 248–9; Ittiʿāẓ, II, 16; cf. Brett, Rise of the Fatimids, 299–300, 327, 378.

37 Bayān, 259; Ittiʿāẓ, II, 99.

38 Cf. Brett, Rise of the Fatimids, 335 and n. 57; 363.

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42 Cf. Brett, Rise of the Fatimids, 296–8, 324–5.

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44 Cf. Brett, Ibn Khaldun and the Medieval Maghrib, nos VIII, IX and X.

45 Ittiʿāẓ, II, 261.

46 Cf., for example, Brett, M., “Al-Karāza al-Marqusīya. The Coptic Church in the Fatimid Empire”, in, Vermeulen, U., D'hulster, K. and Van Steenbergen, J. (eds), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras (Leuven, 2005), IVGoogle Scholar, 33–60, and “Badr al-Jamālī and the Fatimid renascence”, ibid., 61–78.

47 Cf. Brett, Ibn Khaldun and the Medieval Maghrib, no. XIII.

48 Cf. Johns, J., Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: the Royal Dīwān (Cambridge, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 10, “The Norman dīwān and Fātimid Egypt”.