e-Makalat Mezhep Araştırmaları Dergisi

Öz

The Ismāʿīlī Fāṭimids, who ruled in North Africa, Egypt and Syria between 909-1171, was the biggest political rivals of the Sunnī ʿAbbāsid caliphate. One of the main pillars of the power they established over the geography they dominate was undoubtedly their claim that they were members of the Ahl al-Bayt. Despite this, their thesis that their Imams were descendants of Hazrat Fatimah, which constituted the legitimacy of their imāmate, was not accepted by many historians of the period. The impact of lineage affiliation on shaping the mental world of society and legitimizing authority did not escape the attention of the opposing ʿAbbāsid regime, which claimed that there were fabrications and distortions in the Fāṭimids lineage. In this context, some controversies have arisen in the historical process as historians have also been influenced by their sectarian affiliations.
This article deals with al-Maqrīzī's views on these debates. al-Maqrīzī, one of the most important writers in medieval Islamic historiography, and author of many works in different branches of history, also wrote a voluminous work that sheds light on this debate. Al-Maqrīzī, who was able to look at events from different perspectives other than the conventional Sunnī conception of history, analysed the history of Fāṭimids in Sunnī all its aspects in his work called Ittiʿāz al-Ḥunafā. Al-Maqrīzī’s attempt to prove the authenticity of the progeny of the Fāṭimids, who were the “other” according to the dominant understanding of the period, in his work, in which he tried to reflect his understanding of objectivity, also caused him to be accused of Shiʿism. At this point, writing the history of the Fāṭimids in a different style during the Mamluk period, which was built on the existence of the ʿAbbāsid caliph, is a striking example to see different aspects of Mamluk historiography. This study was conducted in accordance with the research and publication ethics, focusing on the main works of al-Maqrīzī.