Week: 14. Fatmid Rule in Egypt and Developments in the fields of Arts and Science

INTRODUCTORY NOTE T HE followi ng pa ges present a brief o utl i ne of the history of the Fatimid Khalifs who were rul ing i n Egypt at the time of the First and Se co nd Cru sades . Too often the student of European lhisto ry gleans hi s kno wledge of the ori ental powers with which the West was brought into contact by the Crusades from western Christian writers , who do not fairly or t ruly describe those p owers , and do not s e t fo rth cl early the strong and weak points which are s o important i n i nterpret i ng the actual forces with whi ch t h e Crusaders were bro ught i nto contact . These pages are drawn from the Arabic and Persian historians so as to present a pi cture which , though i nacc urate i n s ome poi nts , nevertheles s sho ws the other side not p e rceived by the historians who wrote the narrative of th e Crusades from a west e rn standpoi nt . Directly , therefore , they supplement the wester n history , but are sti l l more important i n their i ndirec t beari ng as an effort has been made to show the rise and development of the Fatimid Khal ifate and sect as a rival to the orthodox Abbasid Khal ifate of Baghdad, whi ch is most essential to the right under standi ng o i the world i nto wh ich the Crusaders penetrated , whi lst at the same time it shows a curious and impo rtant phase of Musl im tendenci es which are not without a beari ng on the later histo ry of Islam. The present essay doe s no t claim to be an origi nal study i n a field lhith e rt o u nexplored , but simply aims at bri ngi ng together i n an acce ssible form material which wi l l be of service to the student of media-eval western history and to those who are inte rested i n the develop ment of Islam, and to do so with such comment s as wi l l enable it to be co ordi nated with contemporary Europea n history .

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