34 A Short History of the Middle East
the Black Stone. Meanwhile the grandson of Abdullah ibn May-
mun, in danger in Syria, escaped to Tunisia, where he won sup-
port, was proclaimed Imam in 909, and succeeded in overthrowing
the reigning dynasty. Claiming descent from Husain, the son of
Ali and the Prophet's daughter Fatima, he thus became the
founder of the Fatimid dynasty. This dynasty was the first to
throw off even the nominal authority of the Abbasids by pro-
claiming an independent caliphate, and extended its conquests
along the North African coast until in 969 it captured Cairo and
made the city its capital. Western Arabia, Palestine, and Syria
were also brought under Fatimid rule. Meanwhile the hapless Ab-
basid caliphs had in 945 passed under the domination of the
Buwayhids, rough mountaineers from North Persia, who were
moderate Shi'is. Thus the Shi'a had become politically the domi-
nant sect in the greater part of the Muslim world, though it never
converted the majority of Muslims. Egypt had taken the place of
Iraq as the centre of gravity, and the famous University of Al
Azhar1 was founded at Cairo in 972 for the propagation of
Isma'ili doctrine. The fatal Arab tendency to political separatism
and resriveness under authority had had free rein: for the next
thousand years down to our own day the Arabic-speaking world
was to remain divided, and for the most part under foreign
domination.
But when a civilization begins to break down, the deterioration
is not uniform over the whole range of its activities; and just as in a
diseased human body, the deterioration may actually be masked
for a time by an increased stimulation of certain functions.2 For the
Muslim civilization the first effect of its political disruption on its
rising science and scholarship was temporarily favourable.
Scholars required the patronage of a benevolent ruler in order to be
able to pursue their studies. Now, instead of scholarship being
confined to the caliph's court at Baghdad and dependent on the
will of one sovereign who might or might not be interested In
furthering such pursuits, it was fostered in the courts of a dozen
dynasties from Samarqand to Spain. Among the most notable of
these centres of learning were Baghdad, Cairo, Bukhara and
Samarqand; Shiraz, Isfahan, andNishapur; Aleppo and Damascus;
and Cordoba. Like their medieval European successors, students
1 Pronounced, Az-har.
8 cf. Lewis Mmnford, The Condition of Man, 153,