The Upper Egypt Uprising.. Why did the people of Upper Egypt revolt against the Fatimids a thousand years ago?

Egypt has known since ancient times the meaning of revolution in thought and action.

Throughout its long history, before and after Islam, Egypt has gone through countless groups of rulers who burdened the subjects with various grievances, economic, social and even religious grievances. In every grievance that burdens the Egyptians, the reaction was the uprising against those conditions, although the force in most of them tended to power scale.

The Egyptians revolted against the Persian rule initiated by King Cambyses six centuries BC, as well as against the Ptolemies and the Romans, and these Romans the Copts suffered from them suffering and torment due to religious and sectarian differences between the two groups, until “the Copts after Islam became safe from fear, and life returned to the doctrine of The Copts in the new atmosphere; the atmosphere of religious freedom,” says Alfred J. Butler in his book “The Arab Conquest of Egypt.”

But despite this, the Egyptians, under the rule of Islam, suffered from the grievances of rulers and governors, sometimes from taxes and burdensome fees, and sometimes from relentless attempts to change their beliefs and religions, as happened with the entry of the Shiite Ubaid Fatimids to Egypt in the middle of the fourth century AH. If Lower Egypt and Cairo had complied For this ruling after several serious attempts of armed resistance in the late Ikhshidid era, the Fatimid army was eventually able, led by Jawhar al-Siqilli and Qall al-Saqlibi, to invade and occupy Egypt.

But after the Fatimid army entered Egypt, Upper Egypt launched a massive revolution led by a man who was not satisfied with this occupation of the country and the relentless attempts to change the beliefs of the Egyptians in it, so how did this revolution happen?

Who is the leader of this revolution?

And how was Jawhar al-Siqilli able to end this revolution and arrest its dynamic leader and mastermind?

That is what we will stand with next.

Although the doctrine of Imam Abu Hanifa al-Nu’man is considered the oldest of the Sunni schools, the doctrine of Imam Malik bin Anas was the one who entered Egypt first and spread there, as the historian al-Maqrizi mentions that “the first person who came with Malik’s knowledge to Egypt was Abd al-Rahim bin Khalid bin Yazid bin Yahya, the sire of Jumah, and he was A jurist narrated from him by Al-Layth bin Saad, Ibn Wahb and Rashid bin Saad, and he died in Alexandria in the year 163 AH, then it was published in Egypt by Abd al-Rahman bin al-Qasim, and the Malik school of thought became more famous in Egypt than the doctrine of Abu Hanifa due to the availability of Malik’s owners in Egypt.”

And the Egyptians still followed the doctrine of Imam Malik until Imam al-Shafi’i came to them in the year 198 AH and showed his new doctrine, and the Egyptians found in it close to themselves and their environment, so a large number tended to it, and both the doctrine of Imam Malik and Imam Shafi’i became followers in Egypt, and on this the Sunnis became the ones The overwhelming majority in Egypt with the beginning of the fourth century AH. At that time, the Fatimids from Morocco began launching their military campaigns towards Egypt, and their preachers were able to spread the Ismaili Shiite sect among a small number of Egyptians who were the best helper for them to conquer Egypt. So, Jawhar al-Siqilli, the leader of the Caliph al-Muizz Lidin Allah al-Fatimi entered Egypt in 358 AH, and wrote Amana to the Egyptians committed to it By granting them religious and doctrinal freedom[2].

However, the historical fact confirms that the Fatimids turned back, and did not commit themselves to respecting the Sunni majority doctrine in Egypt. Attention was focused on converting the Egyptians to the Shiite doctrine, which follows and is under the orders of the Fatimids. The Fatimids followed several means, including;

Assigning high positions, especially the judiciary, to the Shiites, and taking large mosques as centers for the Fatimid Ismaili propaganda, and the call to prayer according to the Shiite formula “Hayy ala Khair al-Amal.” This is one of the important Sunni mosques, especially Amr Ibn Al-Aas Mosque and Ahmed Ibn Tulun Mosque, then they were established for that purpose. Al-Azhar Mosque, and then they were interested in appointing preachers to spread their doctrine throughout the country and its breadth [3].

The revival of these rites contrary to the doctrine of the majority aroused the resentment of the Egyptians, as it was often associated with the attacks of the Fatimid armies against the Egyptians in the month of Dhu al-Hijjah of the year 361 AH [4].

About a year later, a Shiite celebration of Ghadir al-Ghadir took place on the 18th of Dhu al-Hijjah 362 AH, and a large-scale riot was provoked as a result, which forced the leader, Jawhar al-Siqilli, to prevent them from continuing to attack people's money, and on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein on Muharram 10, 363 AH, a group marched Of the Egyptian Shiites and Moroccans in their procession, weeping and mourning for Al-Hussein bin Ali - may God be pleased with them both - and they began to attack everyone who did not share their grief and sorrow, which led to the disruption of the movement of the markets and the outbreak of unrest and strife[5].

The people of Tennis Island (in Lake Manzala in northern Egypt) and al-Farma (now Port Said) revolted against the Fatimids, so they changed their call and wore black the emblem of the Abbasid state, and calm did not return to these regions at all between the years 360-361 AH, and the Fatimids kept sending armies after the other, until An army led by Abu Muhammad bin Ammar, numbering ten thousand soldiers, was able to carry out a series of violent military operations that eventually silenced the voice of the people of these areas[6].

Al-Siqilli was an outstanding military leader, and he devised to eliminate this revolution a precise plan to besiege the revolutionaries and end their power.

For these reasons, the Egyptian leaders of Upper Egypt and the sons of the Arab tribes in it were not satisfied with the Fatimid sovereignty over Egypt, and they began to meet and organize their ranks, and they pledged to expel the Fatimids from the country, and they appointed at the head of their revolution a man from the Arab tribe of Banu Kilab, his name is Abd al-Aziz ibn Ibrahim al-Kilabi. This revolution took place in the months of the year 361 AH / 971 AD, and, unfortunately, the historical sources did not provide us with details about his life, but what we do know is that Abd al-Aziz al-Kalabi was able to expel the Fatimid governor from Upper Egypt, and was able to expand the circle of his revolution, and re-clothed black, which is the emblem of the Abbasid state, and the declaration of subordination Egypt for Sunni sovereignty is represented in the Abbasids, and he is preparing to march on Fustat and Cairo, the capital of the Fatimids, to seize it and declare the Abbasid Sunni sovereignty over it again[7].

The news of these developments and the revolution of the men of Upper Egypt and its liberation from Fatimid domination reached the Fatimid military leader and founder of their state in Egypt, Jawhar al-Siqilli. A land group led by a man named "Azraq", and another a naval division across the Nile consisting of forty military boats led by "Bishara the Nubian", and the goal of the essence of this plan is to besiege the rebels from the side of the land and the Nile, and it appears from his assumption of the commander Bishara Al-Nubi, who seems to belong to the Nuba knowing This leader in the ways, methods and tactics of the internal wars in Upper Egypt at the time.

The battle took place between the Upper Egypt revolutionaries led by Abdul Aziz bin Ibrahim and the Fatimid forces led by Azraq and Bishara Al-Nubi, and due to the superiority of the Fatimid forces in number and several, the revolutionaries abandoned their leader and dispersed in the cities and villages of Upper Egypt. Finally, to Cairo, the famous historian Al-Maqrizi says in “The Hanafa’s Teaching of the News of the Fatimid Imams Al-Khalafa”: “Abdul Aziz bin Ibrahim al-Kilabi went out in Upper Egypt, and blackened (that is, wearing black the emblem of the Abbasids and the symbol of Sunni sovereignty at the time), and he called for Banu al-Abbas, so Jawhar sent him in The sea was forty boats bearing the tidings of the Nubians, and Azraq was carried out on land on Askar, so he was taken and put in a chained cage, and he and those with him were paraded with him” [8].

And by arresting the revolutionary Abdel Aziz Al-Kalabi, and placing him in a cage tied in his handcuffs and handcuffs, in order for all the people of Egypt and Cairo to watch him as an example to all those who want to revolt against the government in Cairo, the Fatimids were able to control the level that history mentioned their earnest attempt to break away from the yoke of the Fatimid occupation, but This level remained a thorn in the throat of the successive Fatimid caliphs, especially with the emergence of the power of the Bani Hilal tribes, which began to threaten the authority of the Fatimids, and they were eventually forced to displace them and deport them to Tunisia, and this is another story that we may stand with later!

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Sources

Al-Maqrizi: Al-Muawa’iz and Al-Iti`bar 2/334.

Muhammad Jamal al-Din Surur: History of the Fatimid State, p. 76.

Muhammad Jamal al-Din Sorour: The same former.

Al-Maqrizi: Ita’az Al-Hanafa 1/131.

Hassan Ibrahim: The Fatimids in Egypt, p. 187.

Amr Abdel Aziz: The People's Revolutions of Egypt, p. 72.

Mahmoud Khalaf: Egyptian Revolutions in the Fatimid Era, p. 64.

Al-Maqrizi: Ita’az Al-Hanafa 1/131.