Description: A concise history of the enormously powerful and influential Shi'i caliphate.
The Fatimids (909-1171) built an empire that included North Africa, Egypt, and parts of Sicily, Syria, Palestine, and Arabia. Theirs is the only Muslim dynasty known by a woman's name, Fatima, the Prophet Muhammad's daughter. The Fatimids promoted women to unprecedented positions of authority and visibility in Islamic history. From Cairo, which they founded in 969, this Shi'i dynasty fostered cultural and artistic excellence as well as cultural tolerance and prosperity across the empire. Drawing on a wealth of historical sources, the book tells both the historical and ongoing influence of the Fatimids on global culture.Brief description: Delia Cortese is a senior research fellow of Middlesex University, London. Her books include Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam.
Review Quotes:
"Drawing on a wide array of primary sources and secondary studies, Delia Cortese has produced here a comprehensive and fascinating account of the dynasty of the Ismaili Shi'i imams who ruled for 262 years as Fatimid caliphs over a flourishing empire. This book traces the evolution of this dynasty, from its origins in 909 to its demise in 1171. Permeated with extensive insights and new interpretations and written in a highly accessible style with numerous images, this book also covers a number of hitherto relatively unexplored territories, such as the treatment of women under the Fatimids, and pays ample attention to the contributions of the Fatimids to Islamic civilisation. The Fatimids: Portrait of a Dynasty will be of great value to specialists in Fatimid-Ismaili studies as well as students and readers interested in medieval Islamic history in general and this Shi'i dynasty in particular."
--Farhad Daftary, The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, and author of "The Ismaili Imams"