Fatimid Caliphate - Military System

Military System

The Fatimids military was originally based largely on the Kutama Berber tribesmen it brought with them on their march to Egypt, and they remained an important part of the Fatimid military even after Tunisia itself began to break away.

After their successful establishment in Egypt, local forces were also incorporated into their army, though they remained a relatively minor part of the Fatimid (and in fact, succeeding dynasties as well) forces.

A fundamental change occurred when the Fatimid Caliph attempted to push into Syria in the later half of the 10th century, here they were faced with the now Turkish dominated forces of the Abbasid Caliph and began to realize the limits of their current military, thus during the reign of Abu Mansur Nizar al-Aziz Billah and Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah the Caliph began incorporating armies of Turks and later Black Africans (even later, other groups such as Armenians were also used).

The army units were generally separated along ethnic lines, thus the Berbers were usually the light cavalry / foot skirmishers, while the Turks would be the horse archers or heavy cavalry (known as Mamluks), and the black Africans, Syrians, and Arabs generally acted as the heavy infantry and foot archers. This ethnic based army system, along with the partial slave status of many of the imported ethnic fighters, would remain fundamentally unchanged in Egypt many centuries after the Fatimid caliph's fall.

Fatimids put all their military glory and power at the service of the Islamic world and its defense whenever it was menaced with dangers and threats. The Fatimids were able to meet these threats and repel these attacks with their military power __ both the land forces and naval, especially during the rule of Al-Muizz Lideenillah. During his reign, Byzantine Empire was ruled by Nicophorus who was very hard on Muslims. He conquered Tartus, Al-Masaisah, 'Ain Zarbah and other places, and, as Ibn-ul-Athir says, set upon re-conquering the whole Roman Empire. His desires were fulfilled by the fact that the Muslim rulers were fighting with one another and thus he ravaged the Islamic territories. His method was to attack small villages, plunder them and devastate them, and then capture them on account of their weakness. He got a complete control of the Iraq and Syrian borders. The Muslims were terrified and were quite convinced that the Byzantine would occupy whole of Syria, Egypt, Al-Jazira (Northern Iraq), Diyar Bakr etc. But the armies and the navy of the Fatimids firmly stood against Byzantines, shattered the hopes of their king and defeated them.