عبيد الله المهدي
Forefather of the Ubaydid caliphs of Egypt; his da'wa appeared in Yemen in 270 and held till 278, when he hajj'd and met a band of Kutama — they liked his state, he went with them to the Maghreb, the Mahdi's first affair.
Reign · Fatimid Caliphate · no. 9 in the chain · 909–934 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
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Capture of Tahert (909)
Draft card for the capture of Tahert in 909, during the rise of the Fatimid state; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Death of al-Mahdi Ubayd Allah, ruler of the Maghrib
Under al-Radi died the Maghreb's Mahdi after a reign of twenty-five years — grandfather of the Egyptian caliphs called Fatimids. Suyuti relays hostile reports: that he claimed Alid descent with al-Baqillani quoted as saying no genealogist knew it, and that he executed scholars; his son al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah succeeded him.
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Fall of Kairouan (909)
Draft card for Fall of Kairouan (909); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i's entry into Raqqada and the collapse of the Aghlabid state
In Rajab 296 Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i broke Ibrahim b. Abi'l-Aghlab's army, sent Ziyadat Allah fleeing to Egypt and entered Raqqada, quartering Kutama in its palaces and calling the aman — the Aghlabid state's end.
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The Ubaydid al-Mahdi's triumph in the Maghreb and its departure from Abbasid rule
Under al-Muqtadir the Mahdi's cause prevailed in the Maghreb: he was saluted as imam and caliph, built al-Mahdiyya, and the Aghlabid amir Ziyadat Allah fled to Egypt then Iraq — 'from this date the Maghreb left the Abbasids' command', after a hundred and sixty-odd years of their rule over all the Islamic realms. The Mahdi marched on Egypt with forty thousand Berbers; the Nile barred him, so he took Alexandria and the Fayyum, while his son al-Qa'im later seized most of Upper Egypt and the Fustat quarter.
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Al-Nasa'i leaves Egypt for Damascus, Dhu al-Qa'da 302/915
In the last year of his life al-Nasa'i left Egypt for Damascus in Dhu al-Qa'da 302/915, and al-Daraqutni says he set out on hajj; he left Egypt after having taught there, his learning and his narrator criticism celebrated.