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From the medieval period until now, it has been customary to call the dynasty of Ismaili imams who ruled North-Africa beginning in 909, and then a larger empire that included Egypt, and at times much of Syria, the Hijaz, and Yaman, the Fatimids. But the history of this term is not yet clear.
Did, for example, the earliest caliphs of this line refer to themselves by that name ? Mirabel Fierro published an important study of this problem, and of the use in general of the terms fāṭimī (Fatimid) and al-fāṭimiyyūn (the Fatimids). Although she carefully surveyed many of the major sources, she found little evidence of these terms in works written by adherents of the dynasty. Further investigation by others has since turned up more information. These terms do, in fact, appear but more so, and more often, in the later phases of this rule. By the end of the dynasty it was fairly common to call it al-dawla al-fāṭimiyya (‘the Fatimid state’ or ‘the Fatimid dynasty’), and thus later authors grew quite accustomed to this term.
Nevertheless, it is strikingly rare in the earliest documents produced by those who held positions of authority in the government, including most particularly the imams in their public pronouncements and declarations. The khuṭba would have been a natural occasion for its use. Yet only one of those we now have contains the word in a form that suggests an appropriate meaning. In the khuṭba that calife al-Qāʾim dictated for his chief judge to read to the army in 945, while Mahdiyya remained under the siege of the Khārijite forces of Abū-Yazīd, his words addressed to the Kutāma appeal to them as the depository where God put the rights of the Fatimid line until it could be revealed once again : "You were the cache where God placed this Muḥammadan, Fāṭimid, mahdī-ist right [to the imamate] until He caused it to triumph and raised it high again". The Arabic reads for the key terms: al-ḥaqq al-muḥammadī al-fāṭimī al-mahdī. Therefore it is certainly technically correct to say that the Fatimids called themselves ‘Fatimid’ from a quite early date. It would not have been used in this fashion otherwise. The terms al-imām al-fāṭimī and al-fāṭimiyyīn also appear in early pro-Fatimid poetry. Significantly, however, it appears in this one instance joined by two other adjectives (al-muḥammadī and al-mahdī), either or both of which have the same claim to apply to the dynasty.
The latter term al-Mahdī (or its plural al-Mahdiyyūn), moreover, was, to judge from the surviving documents, the standard way these early Fatimids referred to themselves. The phrase khulafāʾ al-rāshidīn al-mahdiyyīn, was a part of the very first Fatimid khuṭba : Al-Qāʾim in 914 asked for God’s blessings on al-khulafāʾ alrāshidīn al-mahdiyyīn. In al-Manṣūr’s first khuṭba he uses the words ibn al-mahdiyyīn ("Son of the Mahdīs") for his grandfather. Later in the same sermon he cites al-hudāt al-mahdiyyīn ("the rightly guided guides"), and in a subsequent khuṭba he speaks of al-Mahdī as wārith faḍl al-aʾimma al-mahdiyyīn min ābāʾihi al-khulafāʾ al-rāshidīn ("the inheritor of the excellence of the mahdī-ist imams from his forefathers, the rightly guided caliphs"). In the same sermon he calls al-Mahdī "the distinguished offspring of the rightly guided imams" (Najīb al-aʾimma al-mahdiyyīn). The phrase al-aʾimma al-mahdiyyīn becomes standard in subsequent documents. And it appears regularly in many contexts throughout the Fatimid period.
Strictly from this context then the terms Mahdī (singular), Mahdīs (plural) or Mahdīd (adjective) might be more appropriate than "Fatimid". However, in its meaning simply as the "Rightly guided one(s)", it is fairly common and thus not uniquely Fatimid. Likewise, in its heightened sense wherein the mahdī is the person who will restore Islam and return it to its original form after a period—perhaps lengthy—of decay and degradation, it was applied reasonably often by several competing groups and dynasties. There were Umayyad mahdīs and Abbasid mahdīs, not to speak of those belonging to the Shiʿa even before the rise of the Fatimids. It can also mean the messiah who appears at the end of time. Any of these meanings—and possibly all of them together—may have played a part in the Fatimid choice of the term, but in their khuṭbas it seems to represent the equivalent of rāshidīn, those persons who have the benefit of God’s guidance in contrast to most others who do not. The implication is that humans should follow those, and only those, whom God provides with guidance. As a name of the dynasty, therefore, it hardly distinguishes the Fatimids from their opponents if both make the same claim about God’s favouring them. Evidently, then, the term "Fatimid" —which certainly applies as is attested by its use in this one early documents, added, in other khuṭbas, to the more frequent mentions of Fāṭima as the mother ancestor of the imams—eventually became the name for the dynasty, in part because it readily set them apart from the competing caliphates of the Umayyads and the Abbasids.
[Fin]
Did, for example, the earliest caliphs of this line refer to themselves by that name ? Mirabel Fierro published an important study of this problem, and of the use in general of the terms fāṭimī (Fatimid) and al-fāṭimiyyūn (the Fatimids). Although she carefully surveyed many of the major sources, she found little evidence of these terms in works written by adherents of the dynasty. Further investigation by others has since turned up more information. These terms do, in fact, appear but more so, and more often, in the later phases of this rule. By the end of the dynasty it was fairly common to call it al-dawla al-fāṭimiyya (‘the Fatimid state’ or ‘the Fatimid dynasty’), and thus later authors grew quite accustomed to this term.
Nevertheless, it is strikingly rare in the earliest documents produced by those who held positions of authority in the government, including most particularly the imams in their public pronouncements and declarations. The khuṭba would have been a natural occasion for its use. Yet only one of those we now have contains the word in a form that suggests an appropriate meaning. In the khuṭba that calife al-Qāʾim dictated for his chief judge to read to the army in 945, while Mahdiyya remained under the siege of the Khārijite forces of Abū-Yazīd, his words addressed to the Kutāma appeal to them as the depository where God put the rights of the Fatimid line until it could be revealed once again : "You were the cache where God placed this Muḥammadan, Fāṭimid, mahdī-ist right [to the imamate] until He caused it to triumph and raised it high again". The Arabic reads for the key terms: al-ḥaqq al-muḥammadī al-fāṭimī al-mahdī. Therefore it is certainly technically correct to say that the Fatimids called themselves ‘Fatimid’ from a quite early date. It would not have been used in this fashion otherwise. The terms al-imām al-fāṭimī and al-fāṭimiyyīn also appear in early pro-Fatimid poetry. Significantly, however, it appears in this one instance joined by two other adjectives (al-muḥammadī and al-mahdī), either or both of which have the same claim to apply to the dynasty.
The latter term al-Mahdī (or its plural al-Mahdiyyūn), moreover, was, to judge from the surviving documents, the standard way these early Fatimids referred to themselves. The phrase khulafāʾ al-rāshidīn al-mahdiyyīn, was a part of the very first Fatimid khuṭba : Al-Qāʾim in 914 asked for God’s blessings on al-khulafāʾ alrāshidīn al-mahdiyyīn. In al-Manṣūr’s first khuṭba he uses the words ibn al-mahdiyyīn ("Son of the Mahdīs") for his grandfather. Later in the same sermon he cites al-hudāt al-mahdiyyīn ("the rightly guided guides"), and in a subsequent khuṭba he speaks of al-Mahdī as wārith faḍl al-aʾimma al-mahdiyyīn min ābāʾihi al-khulafāʾ al-rāshidīn ("the inheritor of the excellence of the mahdī-ist imams from his forefathers, the rightly guided caliphs"). In the same sermon he calls al-Mahdī "the distinguished offspring of the rightly guided imams" (Najīb al-aʾimma al-mahdiyyīn). The phrase al-aʾimma al-mahdiyyīn becomes standard in subsequent documents. And it appears regularly in many contexts throughout the Fatimid period.
Strictly from this context then the terms Mahdī (singular), Mahdīs (plural) or Mahdīd (adjective) might be more appropriate than "Fatimid". However, in its meaning simply as the "Rightly guided one(s)", it is fairly common and thus not uniquely Fatimid. Likewise, in its heightened sense wherein the mahdī is the person who will restore Islam and return it to its original form after a period—perhaps lengthy—of decay and degradation, it was applied reasonably often by several competing groups and dynasties. There were Umayyad mahdīs and Abbasid mahdīs, not to speak of those belonging to the Shiʿa even before the rise of the Fatimids. It can also mean the messiah who appears at the end of time. Any of these meanings—and possibly all of them together—may have played a part in the Fatimid choice of the term, but in their khuṭbas it seems to represent the equivalent of rāshidīn, those persons who have the benefit of God’s guidance in contrast to most others who do not. The implication is that humans should follow those, and only those, whom God provides with guidance. As a name of the dynasty, therefore, it hardly distinguishes the Fatimids from their opponents if both make the same claim about God’s favouring them. Evidently, then, the term "Fatimid" —which certainly applies as is attested by its use in this one early documents, added, in other khuṭbas, to the more frequent mentions of Fāṭima as the mother ancestor of the imams—eventually became the name for the dynasty, in part because it readily set them apart from the competing caliphates of the Umayyads and the Abbasids.
[Fin]