al-Ma'mun al-Bata'ihi

Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Fatak, better known as al-Ma'mun al-Bata'ihi (Arabic: المأمون البطائحي), was a senior official of the Fatimid Caliphate in the early 12th century, during the reign of al-Amir.

He celebrated lavish festivals, where al-Amir had the opportunity to play a central role, and commissioned several buildings, of which the most important and only surviving one is the Aqmar Mosque in Cairo.

[3] A biography (Sirat al-Ma'mun) written by one of his sons, Musa, survives only in fragments quoted in other works, which do not cover the family's origin,[4][5] but which ensure that al-Bata'ihi's political career is unusually well documented.

[6][7] Medieval sources affirm that al-Bata'ihi's father, Abu Shuja Fatak, enjoyed high honours from al-Afdal: he received the title of Nur al-Dawla (lit.

[14] To assist him in government, al-Afdal initially relied on one of his ghulams (military slaves), Mukhtar Taj al-Ma'ali, and his brothers, but in 1107 their increasingly high-handed and rapacious behaviour brought about their downfall and imprisonment.

This was a problem particularly affecting the army, since its pay was in the form of land grants (iqta'at), to the proceeds of which the soldiers held rights in exchange for acting as tax farmers for the government.

Al-Bata'ihi's son, writing about it a few decades later, maintains that it was a resounding success that was concluded to general satisfaction, and increased state income by 50,000 gold dinars.

[19] Following complaints by the local tax-farmer, Ibn al-Munajja,[b] that the province of Sharqiyya was suffering from lack of water, which reduced its tax yields, a new canal was constructed in 1113–1115, after al-Afdal and al-Bata'ihi inspected the area in person.

The enterprise proved very costly, which resulted in al-Afdal ordering the imprisonment of Ibn al-Munajja, but the canal's opening was celebrated with much pomp, with Caliph al-Amir taking part in the ceremonies in person.

[3] Construction was interrupted by al-Afdal's death in 1121, and when al-Bata'ihi, upon being appointed to the vizierate, ordered it resumed, the apparatus was laboriously moved to the Bab al-Nasr gate.

[29] After supervising the transfer of al-Afdal's enormous treasures to the caliphal palace,[30] al-Bata'ihi was formally proclaimed vizier on 13 February 1122, and given the honorific al-Ma'mun ('the trusted one'), by which he is known.

[31] He received the titles of al-Sayyid al-Ajall ('most illustrious lord'), Taj al-Khilafah ('Crown of the Caliphate'), Izz al-Islam ('Glory of Islam'), Fakhr al-Anam ('Glory of Mankind'), and Nizam al-Din ('Order of the Faith').

[25] Al-Bata'ihi formally assumed the same plenipotentiary powers that al-Afdal had possessed, and even a unique honour that had been denied to his two predecessors: state officials appointed by him took the nisba al-Ma'muni, instead of al-Amiri after the reigning caliph.

[36] As the historian Michael Brett writes, "The relationship itself was one of alliance, in which the minister was entrusted as before with the responsibilities of government, in return for bringing the monarch out from his seclusion into the public eye".

[36] Under al-Bata'ihi, the number and splendor of public festivals and ceremonial occasions, much curtailed by al-Afdal, increased again, with the frequent and active participation of the caliph and the court.

[6][39] According to the historian Michael Brett, the resumption of the festivals and their lavish celebration served a double purpose: an ideological one, signalling a return to the Fatimid dynasty's Alid legacy in an attempt to "renew its image as the champion of Islam", and a political one, as many of the festivals now were celebrated in Fustat as well as Cairo, serving to integrate the more populous metropolis with the Fatimid palace-city, which in recent decades had been colonized by people from Fustat.

The Nizaris, adherents of the succession of al-Amir's uncle, Nizar, as caliph and imam in place of al-Musta'li, were implacably hostile to the regime in Cairo, and had established a widespread network of agents.

[25][50] Reports received in Cairo claimed that the chief Nizari leader, Hasan-i Sabbah, celebrated al-Afdal's murder and awaited the same fate for al-Amir and al-Bata'ihi.

The measures bore fruit: Nizari agents were arrested and crucified, and several couriers bearing money sent by Hassan-i Sabbah to fund his network in Egypt were intercepted.

With Tyre now again cut off and in danger of falling to the Crusaders, the Fatimids had to accept renewed Turkish control; left unsupported, the city capitulated to the Kingdom of Jerusalem in July 1124.

[28][58] Under al-Bata'ihi, the Fatimids became more actively involved in Yemen, where the Sulayhid queen Arwa (r. 1067–1138) ruled the last major remaining pro-Fatimid, Musta'li Isma'ili community outside Egypt.

The affair ended after the downfall of al-Bata'ihi, with the deposition of Ibn Najib al-Dawla and his forcible return to Cairo, where he was publicly humiliated and then thrown in prison.

[64] This was especially so with the observatory begun by al-Afdal: rumours circulated that al-Bata'ihi wanted to use it to predict the future or perform magics, and his ambition to name it after himself was considered proof that he aspired to rulership.