Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text & Fatimid Art at the Victoria and Albert Museums.

• Author: BLOOM, JONATHAN M.
• Position: Review

Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text. By IRENE A. BIERMAN. Berkeley: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1998. Pp. xvi + 124, illustrations and maps. $50 (cloth); $20 (paper).

Fatimid Art at the Victoria and Albert Museums. By ANNA CONTADINI. London: V & A PUBLICATIONS, 1998. Pp. 138, color plates and illustrations. [pound]60, $99 [U.S. distribution: Antique Collectors' Club Ltd., Wappingers Falls, N.Y.]

The Fatimids (r. 909-1171), [Isma.sup.[subset]]ili [Shi.sup.[subset]]ites who claimed descent from the Prophet's daughter Fatima and his son-in-law [[blank].sup.[subset]] Ali b. Abu Talib, rose to power in tenth-century Ifriqiya (now Tunisia) and soon fought with the Umayyads of Spain for control of much of northwest Africa. In 969 the Fatimid general Jawhar turned in the other direction and conquered Egypt, ostensibly the first stage in the Fatimids' conquest of the entire Muslim world and their recognition as its rightful rulers. Inspired by Jawhar's successes, the Fatimids abandoned north Africa and moved eastwards, establishing their capital at Cairo, on the banks of the Nile. Although they came to control parts of Syria and the Hijaz and even were briefly recognized in Baghdad itself, things didn't work out the way they had planned, and for most of the next two centuries Fatimid power was largely confined to Egypt. There they transformed Fustat, a somewhat sleepy regional capital, into Cairo, the bustli ng metropolis of the Mediterranean, and presided over a mixed and prosperous population of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Arabs, Berbers, Blacks, Turks, etc. Despite famines, political and religious crises, and the onslaught of the Crusaders, the Fatimids held on by the skin of their teeth for two centuries until Saladin restored Sunni rule to Egypt.

The Fatimids have exerted a powerful attraction on later generations of historians, perhaps because of the shivers they arouse as the only [Shi.sup.[subset]]ite dynasty to have ruled Egypt, which was normally a bastion of [Shafi.sup.[subset]]i Sunnism, or else because of the unparalleled splendor of their art and court. The great Mamluk historian al-Maqrizi chronicled the history of the dynasty and its fabulous monuments and treasures, basing his accounts on mostly now-lost chronicles written in the Fatimid and post-Fatimid eras. These tantalizing reports are complemented by a score of buildings, largely mosques and tombs, surviving in Cairo and a seductive assortment of artworks--including...