The Fatimids / Mosque and Palace
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‘The Fatimids adopted an innovative town plan that reflected the centrality of the Shi‘ite caliph.’
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After the Fatimid rise to power, the caliph al-Mahdi founded the capital, al-Mahdiyya, in 308 / 914, adopting an innovative town plan that reflected the centrality of the Shi‘ite caliph according to the Fatimid world view, a view that thenceforth affected the appearance of all Fatimid cities. The mosque, once at the very heart of urban living, gave way to the splendidly decorated, multi-storey palace of the caliph who was both political leader and spiritual figurehead of the Fatimid dynasty; it was he who now occupied the very heart of the city, his palace placed at the centre of the kasbah (citadel) and overlooking the main mosque near the city walls.
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Name | Dynasty | Details | Justification |
Great Mosque of Mahdiyya | Hegira 297 / AD 910Fatimo-Zirid (Beginning of the dynasty) | Mahdiyya, Tunisia | The first Fatimid mosque to be constructed, it became the prototype all over North Africa and Egypt. | Fragment from a mosaic floor | Hegira 303 / AD 916Fatimid | Museum of Islamic Art Raqqada, Kairouan, Tunisia | The mosaic in the Qa'im Palace at Mahdiyya is considered to be the only post-Umayyad example of its kind in the Islamic world. Byzantine slaves or prisoners of war held at the Fatimid court in Mahdiyya may have laid it out. | |