Fatimid army
The Fatimid army was the land force of the Fatimid Caliphate. Like the other armies of the medieval Islamic world, it was a multi-ethnic army, drawn from marginal and even foreign peoples, rather than the Arab mainstream of Fatimid society. The core of the Fatimid army emerged from the Berber Kutama tribe, who had accepted the Isma'ili propaganda of Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i and overthrown the Aghlabids of Ifriqiya between 902 and 909. Very quickly the Kutama were supplemented with other ethnic contingents, such as the and the , inherited from the Aghlabid military, but the Berbers remained the mainstay of Fatimid armies until the 970s, when the Fatimid conquest of Egypt and their subsequent expansion into Syria brought them into conflict with the Turkic cavalry of the eastern Islamic world. The Fatimids began to incorporate Turks and Daylamites in large numbers into their army, which led to—often bloody—rivalry with the Kutama. The Turks enjoyed an almost absolute ascendancy during the chaotic years 1062–1073, when the Fatimid regime almost collapsed during the Mustansirite Hardship. Their regime was ended by the Armenian Badr al-Jamali, who instituted a quasi-military dictatorship under the guise of an all-powerful vizierate, which effectively reduced the Fatimid caliphs to puppets. Under Badr and his successors, the Armenians rose to prominence in state and army, and during the final century of the Fatimid state it was them and the who provided the bulk of the Fatimid armies, until their power was broken by Saladin in the Battle of the Blacks in 1169.
The fighting record of the Fatimid army was mixed. It began as a quasi-revolutionary force during its early decades, when it was marked by indiscipline and tribal rivalries, which resulted in the failure of the first attempts to conquer Egypt. As the Fatimid regime consolidated itself, however, the army's quality improved, and during the conflicts of the 950s in North Africa and against the Byzantine Empire in Sicily, it performed well. The conquest of Egypt in 969, a watershed moment in the Fatimid Caliphate's history, was a political rather than a military triumph, and the subsequent advance into the Levant brought the Fatimid military to face with enemies—the Turks, the Qarmatians, and the Byzantines—that it struggled to defeat. During the crisis of the mid-11th century, the military became the real power brokers in the Fatimid state, culminating in the rise of Badr al-Jamali. During the Crusades, the Fatimid army again performed unsatisfactorily: while large and relatively strong on paper, it repeatedly failed to defeat the Crusaders, and by the end of the Fatimid regime it had become the object of derision among its Christian and Muslim enemies alike. When Saladin took power in Egypt and abolished the Fatimid dynasty, he almost completely disbanded the Fatimid army; very few Fatimid troops were taken over into the armies of Saladin's Ayyubid Sultanate.
Organization
The organization of the Fatimid army at any particular moment in time is difficult to determine, as at different times it recruited its troops from different ethnicities, fielded a different mix of troop types and with different status. Originally dominated by the Kutama Berbers who bore the dynasty to power, the Fatimid army from the beginning incorporated additional ethnicities inherited from the Aghlabid army, and throughout its history was what the military historian Yaacov Lev has described as a "multi-ethnic army with a very marked congruence of military specialization and ethnic origin"; this internal division into ethnic lines however also negatively affected its discipline and cohesion.Administration and pay
The expenses of maintaining a standing army were enormous: in the words of the historian Claude Cahen, in the medieval Islamic world "the chief preoccupation, whether of the soldiers or of the power they served, was the provision for their pay ". Cahen stresses that detailed information is "scattered and inaccurate", but during the 10th century an infantryman in Iraq could expect a yearly pay of between 500 and 1,000 silver, approximately two to three times as much as an artisan. Cavalrymen were paid twice the amount as infantrymen, and commanders multiple times that.Following the model common in the Islamic world, the army was administered by a special fiscal bureau, the 'department for the armies and recruitment'. The government was also responsible for providing the troops with additional weaponry—often bought at the open market in Cairo—as well as horses and pack animals; Caliph al-Aziz is said to have maintained a stable of 12,000 horses and 36,000 camels for the purpose. During the first years of Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, salaries were paid eight times a year, but by al-Mustansir Billah's time this had changed to monthly payments, which was the system retained until the end of the Fatimid state. Like the Abbasids before them, the Fatimids also awarded land grants to their troops for their upkeep. Under al-Hakim, such grants were made even to ordinary soldiers. Bedouin tribes also received, but usually these were chosen among the less productive lands, and had to be supplemented by a monetary stipend. While regular soldiers were allocated individual grants, Bedouin companies were allocated collective s.
The economic problems that began in the late 10th century meant that the troops were sometimes left unpaid, leading to indiscipline and protests by the soldiers: the army rioted and ransacked Cairo in 1024, and in 1036, one of the exasperated soldiers threw a javelin that just missed killing al-Mustansir. The military's dissatisfaction over lack of pay was the main reason for the anarchy between 1062, which led to the virtual disintegration of both army and country, that lasted until the rise to power of Badr al-Jamali in 1073. Many soldiers resorted to farming their estates when plagues killed much of the peasantry in the mid-11th century. As in other areas of the Muslim world using the system, it led to deteriorating quality of land, and after Badr al-Jamali came to power, he engaged in reforms aiming to address the problem.
While previously the bulk of the army had been paid salaries directly from the, Badr al-Jamali's reforms generalized the use of for the upkeep of the soldiers. Most of the revenue from an still went to the state, but its recipient was still entitled to a fixed stipend from it. Unlike the contemporary Seljuk model, the did not hold administrative powers over his grant. Nevertheless, the reform bound the soldiers to the land, and inaugurated a system that survived into the Mamluk Sultanate.
Several commanders are known to have raised and maintained armed retinues from these estates, and to have used them as normal troops on campaign.
Structure and command
Little is known about the details of the organization of the Fatimid army. Following the model current in the Islamic world, the Fatimid army was originally divided into ethnic and tribal units, which also generally coincided with functional distinctions of light and heavy cavalry, infantry, etc. Other units were established as the result of recruitment by specific generals or monarchs, establishing a strong group identity and henceforth being [|known after their founders]. Each of the various corps of the Fatimid army was further subdivided into units with a base of ten. In the 12th century the Fatimids also established the, a special cadet corps, which was subdivided was according to age. Regular musters for the inspection of the troops are known, following the Abbasid model, either ad hoc before major battles or campaigns, or as a regular, annual occurrence under al-Aziz, although al-Hakim stopped the practice.The officer corps were divided into three grades, distinguished by dress, according to the size of their commands: the highest-ranked wore golden collars, the next held silver batons, and the lesser commanders had no distinctive insignia. The existence of sub-units of the ethnic contingents is known, but no details on the distinction between the various titles or their responsibilities survives. In the 11th century, each ethnic contingent apparently had an auditor, often a member of the caliphal secretariat, who was responsible for mediating between the unit and the caliph.
The most senior Fatimid commander was usually the commander-in-chief of the army in Syria, who bore the title of or . The latter title was borne by Badr al-Jamali when he came to power, and henceforth designated the quasi-dictatorial viziers who ruled the Fatimid state almost without interruption until its end.
Despite the high prestige of the Turkish cavalry, during the 11th century the bulk of the Fatimid field armies remained infantry, with the cavalry, positioned on the flanks.
Numbers
It is difficult to estimate the size of the Fatimid army. Medieval sources provide vastly exaggerated numbers, such as 100,000 or even 200,000 men during Jawhar's invasion of Egypt, a claim that 300,000 men were stationed in Egypt alone during a parade in 993, and 215,000 reported by Nasir Khusraw in 1047. Such numbers are dubious, as it is known that the cost of professional army was enormous; during the heyday of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th century, a standing army of 50,000 men required no less than 14 million gold dinars per year for their upkeep. In addition, in accounts of individual battles, even crucial ones, the figures mentioned are usually around the 10,000 mark.During the late Fatimid period, more conservative figures are given: the 14th-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi quotes an account by the head of the, Ibn Mammati, that during the vizierate of Tala'i ibn Ruzzik, the army comprised 40,000 cavalry and 30,000 Black African infantry. At another point, however, referring to the same account, al-Maqrizi writes of 40,000 cavalry, 36,000 infantry, and 10,000 marines on ten galleys. These figures too are considered implausible by modern scholars, even if they are interpreted to include auxiliary forces and volunteers; as the historian Yaacov Lev points out, particularly the high ratio of cavalry to infantry is implausible, as is the ratio of 1,000 marines to one galley. Much more plausible are the figures given elsewhere by al-Maqrizi, referring to the late 1160s, during Shirkuh's arrival in Egypt: 10,000 cavalry, 40,0000 Black African infantry, and 10,000 marines and troops.