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 UNDER FATIMIDS AND SELJUKS

Fatimid dynasty was the last of the medieval caliphates and the only major Shiite caliphate. Its name reflects the alleged descent of its founder and his successors from Ali and Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad. We have already noted its establishment in Tunisia in 909 and the conquest of Egypt and much of Syria from the Ikhshidids in 969. For the next few years Syria was rent with warfare, not only between the Hamdanids in the north and the Fatimids in the south, but also involving the Carmathians, the Turks and the Byzantines. Damascus was occupied by Car- mathians with Abbasid encouragement, and later by a Turkish general who used it as a base for a series of raids on the whole country. It was natural for the Turks and Carmathians to combine against their common foe.

In 977 the Fatimid caliph al-Aziz (975-996) took the field in person and inflicted a crushing defeat on the allied forces outside al-Ramlah. Al-Aziz extended his domain in Syria, especially along the coast, but failed to reduce Aleppo, mainly because of intervention by the Byzantines, who had just lost it to Sayf-al-Dawlah and were eager to take advantage of any opportunity to restore their authority in Syria. After this set-back al-Aziz devoted the rest of his reign, in so far as Syria was concerned, to consolidating his power in the south and central parts and imposing his suzerainty on the weakening Hamdanids in the north.

Under his rule there flourished in Fatimid Palestine one of the most original and capable of geographers, al-Maqdisi (946-about 1000). Born in Jerusalem (whence his name) under the Ikhshidids, he started at the age of twenty travels that took him through all Moslem lands except Spain, India Rh