Talk:Fatimid Caliphate

Capital cities in infobox

It seems like once again some editors have chosen to resort to edit-warring and obviously one form of sockpuppetry or another in order to force the inclusion of Ikjan in the infobox with no reliable sources cited, misleading (or simply lacking) context, and with the wrong dates. The page has been protected again as a result. There are already two talk page discussions about this above, but I'm deciding to start a third one for any editors who want to discuss this constructively.

Summary of existing information: The history of the incipient state and military campaign which overthrew the Aghlabids to replace them with the Fatimid Caliphate is already described in detail in the History section, with citations to one of the most reliable and frequently-cited scholarly books on the subject (Halm 1996, see pp. 101-147), among other scholarly sources. Per those sources, Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i (the da'i) arrived in Ikjan in 893 where he began recruiting, was forced to flee to Tazrut soon after (exact date not clear in cited sources but sounds like it was right away in 893; see Halm 1996 pp.55 and 103), where he created a state and remained until 902. He then moved to Ikjan in 902. His forces finally overthrew the Aghlabids in 909 and immediately installed themselves in Raqqada. They retrieved Abdallah al-Mahdi and installed him as the first caliph in 909-910 (officially enthroned on 27 August 909 while in Sijilmasa, arrived in Raqqada on 5 January 910; see Halm 1996 p. 142 and 147 or sources cited in article). The caliphate thus did not start until 909, and the first caliph was installed in Raqqada, not Ikjan. All of this is covered in the article already.

So with that in mind, if there is a consensus of editors to add anything before Raqqada in the infobox at all, it would only be accurate and informative if:

1. These "capitals" are explicitly distinguished from the actual caliphate's capitals, e.g. by some kind of note alongside them, since no Fatimid caliph ruled from them and the dates precede the start date of the caliphate itself (909) indicated in reliable sources and in the infobox.
2. Both Tazrut and Ikjan are included; including Ikjan alone makes no sense if you're going to include the pre-caliphate period at all.
3. The actual correct dates are used, based on the information already in the article and supported by reliable sources; i.e. Tazrut 893(?)-902, Ikjan 902-909.

Civil and constructive comments are welcome below. R Prazeres (talk) 23:55, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind adding the pre-caliphate capitals (in line with what we have in the Almohad article), but as you said, we have to include both as they each took on the role of "dar al hijra" during the dates that you mentioned. M.Bitton (talk) 00:34, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I oppose adding anything prior to 909. The Fatimid dawla was established in 909, it cannot have had a capital before then. The da'wa, and the attendant proto-state, organized by Abdallah al-Shi'i, certainly had its own capitals, but it is not the subject of this article. If we were to extend the scope to before 909, then we should also include Abdallah al-Shi'i as the first leader, then we should also rename the page, because there was no caliph before 909, which leads to a whole host of problems of definition and nomenclature, not to mention WP:OR. So let's stay with scholarly consensus and practice, and stick to the established dates 909-1171. Constantine ✍ 10:57, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments so far. Personally, I'm still on the fence about it. If there's a way to include them in the infobox in a clear way, then I see no problem. The da'wa proto-state is within the scope of this article insofar as it then created the Fatimid state itself, but it's clearly not the focus. So if the addition merely complicates or confuses the content of the infobox, then it's not worth it. There's nothing essential about having those details there when any interested readers can just read the article's relevant sections. The infobox is just a summary of the article's most important points, after all (per MOS:INFOBOX). Constantine also makes a good point above about the leaders; if we include pre-909 capitals, then logically we should include Abdallah al-Shi'i as well, which would require another annotation to clarify his role/status. R Prazeres (talk) 16:05, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I am for adding the two pre-caliphal capitals (both Tazrut and Ikjan) in the infobox which have a non-negligible place in the history of the Fatimids.

Regarding the leader section, we can always differentiate their titles as what is well done on the Almohads Caliphate page (dai/caliph). Regards Askelaadden (talk) 18:54, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I did not express myself correctly above: the dawa is in-scope, but is not the main topic. It is the main topic for an article on Abdallah al-Shi'i, but for an article on the 'Fatimid Caliphate', it is simply background material, which can be covered in greater or lesser depth, but is not necessary to cover exhaustively. Hence the capitals of the dawa are a non-issue; we could legitimately omit them from the article altogether, without impacting its coverage. They can be mentioned, but must not be mentioned, because the topic of the article is clearly defined as 'Fatimid Caliphate', and that has a date range of 909–1171. The pre-909 centres of the dawa are simply not part of that topic.

This principle applies even more so to infoboxes, which are by nature unsuited to nuance; whenever you need to explain something in an infobox (e.g. by adding parentheses, or footnotes), you likely have put in something that shouldn't be there. Nuance, details, background info, that's what the article body is for. The infobox should provide only a clear and crisp summary overview of the article topic.

The temptation to add more things that have a 'non-negligible place in the history of the Fatimids' but are pre-909 is understandable, but misplaced. First, it opens a can of worms: What about Salamiya? What about the schism of 899 as a predecessor event? Or should it be the Qarmatian uprisings of the 900s? Or the arrival of Abdallah al-Shi'i in Ifriqiya? And on it goes... Second, and more importantly, it skirts into WP:OR: Tazrut and Ikjan were not 'capitals of the Fatimid Caliphate' or 'of the Fatimids'. They were centres of the dawa, which is a different entity to the subsequent state (as Abdallah al-Shi'i would discover to his cost). Constantine ✍ 21:25, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

PS I did a quick check: none of the articles on the Fatimids in EI2, EI3, or Iranica mention Tazrut or Ikjan, nor does Brett's The Fatimid Empire. I think we ought to follow them. Constantine ✍ 21:30, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Abdallah al-Shi'i is already mentioned in the article. In the Almohad article, we cite Tinmel as the first capital, starting in 1021 (before the establishment of the Caliphate, which didn't happen until the death of Ibn Tumart and the conquest of Marrakesh). M.Bitton (talk) 18:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the situation has parallels but is not quite comparable: the first Almohad Caliph came to power in 1130, when Tinmal was still the capital, whereas the conquest of Marrakesh in 1147 is when they finalized their control over the Maghreb, but by that time they were already in control of a lot more (they began to intervene in al-Andalus as early as 1146, for example). I think there's a better argument for altering the start date at Almohad Caliphate to address some of this imprecision (as you've seen, I made that arugment here). R Prazeres (talk) 19:33, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm still not sure about that, because as far as I know (I could be mistaken), Abd al-Mu'min didn't proclaim himself caliph until 1147. M.Bitton (talk) 19:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

To avoid repetition; see my reply at Talk:Almohad Caliphate (but feel free to continue here to discuss the Fatimid situation). R Prazeres (talk) 19:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Asian polities map

The hyperlink on the map goes to the generic map without the added names. Perhaps you know how to fix it? TYVM Gebrelu (talk) 02:50, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Flags

Let's please stop adding hypothetical flags to the infobox. We do not know what Fatimid flags looked like. Simply citing sources that mention in passing that the dynastic colour was green or white does not allow us to reconstruct an actual flag or banner, even if we leave aside the disagreement between the cited references and the mention of red and yellow in one of them. There's no reason to think the Fatimids flew plain green or plain white banners. That's WP:OR, and not very informative to readers anyways (see also the recent discussion at Talk:Umayyad Caliphate). I've moved the text of the flag caption (from this addition and an apparently forgotten text from before that) provisionally to the "Dynasty" section (it could go elsewhere if preferred), and removed the flag image from the infobox. R Prazeres (talk) 16:15, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello again @R Prazeres, I sourced this Fatimid Flaghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White flag 3 to 2.svg, the Fatimids according to arab sources were literally called "Those who wear white" (المبيضة) just like the Abbassids were called "Those who wear black" (المسودة). Nourerrahmane (talk) 23:28, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we should be adding any flags to the infobox here. Like the issue discussed at Talk:Umayyad Caliphate, all we have are reports of a colour, but no direct representations of a standard flag. This is true for most pre-modern states in the region too. Some references refer to the Fatimid colour as being green instead, which makes the issue all the more confused. Since it's not straightforward and it's not essential information that needs to be at the top of the article, it's best to keep it out of the infobox, but it can certainly be mentioned in the body of the article, if it isn't already. R Prazeres (talk) 00:24, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

It’s a bit confusing I agree, the Umayyads, Fatimids, almohads and merinids were reported having or using white flags. Nourerrahmane (talk) 12:38, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Rectangular national flags were anachronistic to the early Caliphates era, but dynasties definitely did have dynastic colors, and sometimes banners of that color (see Black Standard), though not necessarily rectangular. The Fatimids don't seem to have had a fully consistent and invariable color association (as the Abbasids did with black), which hinders attributing to them a flag of their dynastic color... AnonMoos (talk) 21:01, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Add German Wikipedia Page to the language link list (I don't know how):

The language list should link to this German Wikipedia article https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimiden for German. I am a once-every-ten-years editor, so I don't find it very obvious how to add this directly myself. If someone in the know could do this and remove this text afterwards, many thanks! 2001:1708:2302:DA01:3D8F:1C3F:CAA2:8B39 (talk) 09:50, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing that. This is done through Wikidata, which connects equivalent articles/topics across different Wiki projects (e.g. links Wikipedia articles with Wiki Commons categories, English Wikipedia with non-English Wikipedia equivalents, etc). It seems that in 2022 someone unlinked the German article de:Fatimiden from the data item for Fatimid Caliphate ([1]) and linked it instead to the data item for "Fatimids" ([2]_, which is what the English article Fatimid dynasty is linked to. The distinction between these two topics is superficial, so in my view, since there don't seem to be two German articles on the topic (as there are in English, French, and others) and since the main article for the overall topic is Fatimid Caliphate on the English Wikipedia and it's likely the same in other languages (judging by the much larger number of wikis linked there), I've undone this and linked the German article back to this one (i.e. the Fatimid Caliphate topic). You should be able to see German in the list of languages now. I don't monitor Wikidata though, so it's possible someone will change this again. R Prazeres (talk) 15:35, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Fatimid flag proposal

I made this flag based on the descriptions given in sources (found in commons). Does it look reliable enough ? Nourerrahmane (talk) 00:03, 23 September 2024 (UTC)