Map – Fatimids (970 – 1079 CE)

TIME PERIOD: 970 – 1079 CE

“At the beginning of summer of 970, the Fatimid army under Ja’far ibn al-Fallah, turned towards Palestine… Theoretically, this was the outset of about a century of Fatimid rule in Palestine. In fact, the Fatimids were compelled to join battle with not a few of the enemies who stood in their way: the Arabs, led by the Banu Tayy’, who in turn were headed by the Banu’l-Jarrah family; the Qarmatis; a Turkish army under the command of Alptakin, who was based in Damascus; Arab tribes in Syria with the Banu Hamdan at their head; and in the background, the Byzantines were lurking, and about to continue their attempts to spearhead southward to Jerusalem. This war was waged in several stages and the enemies changed, but all in all, it was an almost unceasing war which destroyed Palestine.”

Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine 634-1099, p. 336, Cambridge University Press, 1992

“The year 1030 was the first year of peace in the country… Comparative calm and political and military stability existed in Palestine under Fatimid rule for only some forty years. The invasion of the Turkish tribes put an end to this near-stability at one blow.”

Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine 634-1099, p. 397, 420, Cambridge University Press, 1992

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