al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah

Abu Tamim Ma'add al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah was the fourth caliph of the Fatimid dynasty and, in Ismaili Shia belief, the fourteenth imam — a hereditary spiritual and political leader descended, the dynasty held, from the Prophet's daughter Fatima. (Ismaili refers to a branch of Shia Islam; the Sunni majority and other Shia groups did not accept the Fatimids' genealogical and imamate claims.) He was born around 932 CE at Mahdia, on the coast of Ifriqiya (modern Tunisia), and succeeded his father al-Mansur in 953. For most of his reign he ruled from al-Mansuriyya, the Fatimid palace-city beside Kairouan. The defining event of his reign came in 969, when his Sicilian-born general Jawhar conquered Egypt for the Fatimids with little resistance and, on al-Mu'izz's instructions, laid out a new capital, al-Qahira ("the Victorious") — Cairo — just north of the older town of Fustat. Jawhar also built the al-Azhar mosque (begun 970, first Friday prayer 972), later one of the foremost centres of Islamic learning. Once Egypt was secured, al-Mu'izz himself made the long journey east: he left al-Mansuriyya in August 972, reached Alexandria in May 973, and entered Cairo in June 973, making it the Fatimid seat. He died there in December 975 and was succeeded by his son al-Aziz. Sources credit his reign with consolidating Fatimid power and a degree of tolerance toward Egypt's Coptic Christians.