Читать книгу A Short History of the Fatimid Khalifate онлайн

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After Ahmad came his son Husayn, who died not long afterwards, leaving a son named Saʿid, who subsequently took the name of ʿUbayd Allah, and was the Mahdi who established the Fatimid State in North Africa, dying in A.H. 323 (= A.D. 934). That he was originally called Saʿid is generally admitted, but he appears variously as Saʿid son of Husayn son of Ahmad, and Saʿid son of Ahmad, and Saʿid son of Abu Shalaghlagh. The explanation given for these different names is that Ahmad had two sons, of whom the elder, Husayn, died whilst Saʿid was still young, and the son was adopted by his uncle Muhammad, the second son of Ahmad, who was also known as Abu Shalaghlagh.

There is a story that Saʿid or ʿUbayd Allah was the son of an obscure Jewish smith, whose widow was married to Husayn, son of Ahmad, and that he was adopted by his step-father. This is one of the three forms of what we may call the “Jewish legend,” the attempt to trace the Fatimid dynasty to a Jewish source. These three attempts are: (i.) that Maymun b. Daysan the oculist was a Jew; (ii.) that ʿUbayd Allah was really the son of a Jewish smith; and (iii.) that he was killed in prison at Sijilmassa, and afterwards personated by a Jewish slave. Probably the “Jewish legend” was associated with the fact that the renegade Jew, Ibn Killis, was the one who encouraged the Fatimids to invade Egypt and did most to organise their government there, and with the undoubted favouritism which the early Fatimids showed the Jews.