Method in Madness: Recontextualizing the Destruction of Churches in the Fatimid Era

The reign of al-Hakim bi-ʾAmr Allah (r. 996-1021) is often dismissed as a psychotic blip in the history of multiconfessional relations in the medieval Islamic world. Al-Hakim infamously embarked on a large-scale destruction of churches in his realm, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jer...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pruitt, Jennifer (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2014
In: Muqarnas
Year: 2014, Volume: 30, Issue: 1, Pages: 119-139
Further subjects:B Cairo The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem The Church of Saint Mennas, Cairo The Church of Saint Mercurius, Cairo Coptic Architecture Covenant of ʿUmar dhimma Fatimid Al-Hakim bi-ʾAmr Allah The History of the Patriarchs Al-Kirmani (d. 1021) Sectarianism
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:The reign of al-Hakim bi-ʾAmr Allah (r. 996-1021) is often dismissed as a psychotic blip in the history of multiconfessional relations in the medieval Islamic world. Al-Hakim infamously embarked on a large-scale destruction of churches in his realm, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. This article draws on a variety of sources to argue that rather than being reductively attributable to a personal psychological imbalance, al-Hakim’s dramatically negative treatment of churches signaled a general shift from an esoteric form of Ismaili Shiʿism to one more appealing to the broader Islamic umma.
ISSN:2211-8993
Contains:In: Muqarnas
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/22118993-0301P0007