Abdallah ibn al-Mu'izz

Abdallah ibn al-Mu'izz (died 8 February 975) was the son and heir-apparent of the fourth Fatimid caliph, al-Mu'izz (r. 953–975), but died before him.

Abdallah was the second oldest of al-Mu'izz's sons, and was designated heir in 972, as part of the preparations for the move of the Fatimid court from Ifriqiya to recently conquered Egypt.^[1] The aim was probably to safeguard the succession, against what was expected to be a difficult and perilous journey.^[2] The designation had initially been communicated to a select few senior officials and kept secret even from Abdallah himself, but the elderly majordomo Jawdhar revealed the secret when he performed obeisance to Abdallah before the assembled court.^[1] The disillusioned eldest son, Tamim, was then involved in an unsuccessful conspiracy with the son of the Kalbid Emir of Sicily.^[3]

Initially this appointment was not widely publicized beyond the court, but Abdallah's name was proclaimed publicly alongside his father's after their arrival in Egypt in June 973.^[2] In April 974, during the Qarmatian invasion of Egypt, Abdallah was put in command of the Fatimid army and led it to a decisive victory, that forced the Qarmatians to withdraw back to their home in Bahrayn.^[4] In the aftermath of the victory, on 26 May, the victorious Abdallah made a triumphal entrance into Cairo, accompanied by the most prominent captives on the backs of camels, and several thousand severed heads of the Qarmatian fallen impaled on lances;^[5] his position as heir apparent was further underlined by riding under the caliphal parasol, the mizalla.^[2] Abdallah predeceased his father, dying after a brief illness on 8 February 975.^[2] Abdallah's younger brother, Nizar, was presented to the court as the designated heir a few days before al-Mu'izz died in December of the same year, and even ruled for several months after his father's death in the latter's name, before finally publicly announcing al-Mu'izz's death and his own ascension to the throne as Caliph al-Aziz (r. 975–996).^[6]

Abdallah was the last Fatimid prince or heir apparent to be given important military commands, especially as most subsequent Fatimid caliphs ascended the throne as children.^[7] Abdallah had at least one son, whose name is unknown, but who unsuccessfully conspired with Sitt al-Mulk to usurp the throne from the underage al-Hakim (r. 996–1021) in 996, and ended his life in prison.^[8] A daughter, named Amina and known by the sobriquet Ruqya (lit. 'charm'), later became the concubine of al-Hakim and mother of his successor, al-Zahir (r. 1021–1036).^[9]

• Halm, Heinz (1991). Das Reich des Mahdi: Der Aufstieg der Fatimiden [The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise of the Fatimids] (in German). Munich: C. H. Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-35497-7.
• Halm, Heinz (2003). Die Kalifen von Kairo: Die Fatimiden in Ägypten, 973–1074 [The Caliphs of Cairo: The Fatimids in Egypt, 973–1074] (in German). Munich: C. H. Beck. ISBN 3-406-48654-1.
• Halm, Heinz (2015). "Prinzen, Prinzessinnen, Konkubinen und Eunuchen am fatimidischen Hof" [Princes, Princesses, Concubines and Eunuchs at the Fatimid Court]. In Pomerantz, Maurice A.; Shahin, Aram A. (eds.). The Heritage of Arabo-Islamic Learning. Studies Presented to Wadad Kadi (in German). Leiden and Boston: Brill. pp. 91–110. ISBN 978-90-04-30590-8.