The manifesto was the result of the steady expansion of the Fatimid Caliphate since its establishment in the early 10th century, and the continued activity of the pro-Fatimid Isma'ili missionary movement (da'wa) across the Middle East. In 1010/11, the da'wa scored a significant success when the Shi'aUqaylids, who ruled Mosul, Mada'in, Kufa, and other towns close to the Abbasid capital of Baghdad, publicly recognized the suzerainty of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim by having the khutba read in his name. They were soon followed by the Banu Asad tribe, also resident in Iraq.[1]
This expansion of Fatimid influence to the very doorstep of Baghdad alarmed the Abbasid caliph al-Qadir, who launched a series of counter-moves. In the same year, he successfully forced the Uqaylid ruler Qirwash to return to recognizing Abbasid suzerainty by threatening to attack him otherwise.[2]
Manifesto
He then called an assembly of leading Sunni and Twelver Shi'a scholars, including several esteemed Alids. The assembly issued a manifesto denouncing the Fatimids' claims of descent from Ali and the Ahl al-Bayt (the family of Muhammad) as false, and thus challenge the foundation of the Fatimid dynasty's claims to leadership in the Islamic world.[2][3]
Based on the work of the earlier anti-Fatimid polemicists Ibn Rizam and Akhu Muhsin, the manifesto instead put forth an alternative genealogy of descent from a certain Daysan ibn Sa'id.[4] The document was ordered read in mosques throughout the Abbasid territories, and al-Qadir commissioned a number of theologians to compose further anti-Fatimid tracts.[2] The manifesto and its list of signatories were reproduced by multiple medieval sources,[5] and during the early 20th century, due to the lack of sources that were not made available until later decades, it was used as a principal source on the origins and early history of the Fatimids.[3]
