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Conferences were held, discussions ensued, a Congress of the Caliphate was convened in the Egyptian capital, the City of the Fatimites, only to result in the widely advertised and public confession of its failure: “They have agreed to disagree!”
Of these the Fatimites were either rash or pusillanimous; but the descendants of Abbas cherished, with courage and discretion, the hopes of their rising fortunes.
The town and the coast of Mauritania were then ruled by the Fatimites, a dynasty independent of the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad. The Fatimites belonged to the tribes of Koramah, who dwelt in the mountains situated near the town of Fez in the extreme west of Africa. In the year 269 of the Hegira, they began to extend their sway in the western regions of Africa, pursuing their conquests farther east.
It was about the middle of the twelfth century that Nureddin and King Amalrich both turned a longing eye toward Egypt, where, in the decrepitude of the Fatimites, dissension and misrule prevailed. The Caliph, in alarm, sought aid first from one and then from the other; and each in turn entered Egypt ostensibly for its defence, but in reality for its possession.
Abu-Yezid was at last run to earth, and his body was skinned and stuffed with straw, and exposed in a cage with a couple of ludicrous apes as a warning to the disaffected. The Fatimites so far wear a brutal and barbarous character.
The Buweyhid prince of Irak, however, supplied Hasan with arms and money; Abu-Taghlib, the Hamdanide ruler of Rahba on the Euphrates, contributed men; and, supported by the Arab tribes of Okeyl, Tavy, and others, Hasan marched upon Damascus, where the Fatimites were routed, and their general, Giafar, killed.
"But one day he did not return from the mountains, and when his janizaries sought him they found him lying dead on the ground, pierced with daggers. "The Fatimites had ruled over Egypt for two hundred years.
In the visible separation of parties, the green was consecrated to the Fatimites; the Ommiades were distinguished by the white; and the black, as the most adverse, was naturally adopted by the Abbassides.
With the fourth caliph, however, El-Moizz, the conqueror of Egypt, 953-975, the Fatimites entered upon a new phase. El-Moizz was a man of politic temper, a born statesman, able to grasp the conditions of success and to take advantage of every point in his favor.
We see their partial success in the ravages of the Karmathians, who were the true parents of the Fatimites. The leaders and chief missionaries had really nothing in common with Mahometanism. Among themselves they were frankly atheists.
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