External world shifts left no room for a schismatic Muslim power
Evidence
The Fatimids were unfortunate in that their rule in Egypt coincided with great changes in other parts of the world—on the one side the revival of Christian power, which manifested itself in the Byzantine offensives, the reconquest of much of Spain and Sicily, and the coming of the Crusaders to the East; on the other the migration of the steppe peoples, which brought the Turks to Iraq and then to Syria, and created a new power and a new order in South West Asia. In the looming contest between Islam and Christendom, there was no room for a schismatic division on the Muslim side. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 418
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- The Fatimid schism was untenable amid Islam’s unified front against Christendom (similarity 0.91)
- Islam’s spread clashed continuously with the ancient river-valley civilizations it conquered (similarity 0.80)
- Sunni revitalization through Seljuq power contained the Fatimid challenge (similarity 0.79)
- Islam’s egalitarian message has been continuously contested by older river-valley social orders (similarity 0.79)
- Muslim-world upheavals are driven by social and economic factors, not by Islam (similarity 0.79)
- Middle East discontents are a clash of civilizations, not of states (similarity 0.79)
- New World bullion and colonial resources reversed the wealth gap between Europe and Islam. (similarity 0.79)
- Modern Western perspectives can enrich understanding of medieval Middle East (similarity 0.78)
- The Fatimid caliphate contested Abbasid legitimacy itself, not just their rule. (similarity 0.78)
- Islam’s military success forced Christians to reinterpret church history as corruption (similarity 0.78)
- Christian views of Islam shifted from chastisement to Antichrist as Muslim power grew. (similarity 0.78)