Walker, Paul E.

Al-Afḍal b. Badr al-Jamālī , Abū l-Qāsim Shāhinshāh (458–515/1066–1121), was the military wazīr (amīr al-juyūsh) for three successive Fāṭimid caliphs, from 487/1094 until his assassination in 515/1121. Born at ʿAkkā (Acre) in 458/1066, he moved to Egypt in 466/1074 when his fath…

Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (or alternately al-Sijzī) was the major philosophical theologian of Ismāʿīlī Shīʿism in the mid-fourth/tenth century. Although he was put to death by the Ṣaffārid governor of Sijistān at an uncertain date (but not long after 361/971), his writings conti…

Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Shīʿī (d. 298/911) was the major architect of the initial revolt that established the Fāṭimid caliphate in North Africa. Although he was known in the Maghrib as al-Shīʿī, among other names applied to him there, one indicated that he had come from Ṣanʿāʾ. In fa…