Sunni revitalization through Seljuq power contained the Fatimid challenge

Evidence

At this point, however, the resemblance ceases, for the vision was not fulfilled. The Abbasid triumph was complete, that of the Fatimids only partial. Except for the distant and isolated province of Spain, all Islam submitted to the Abbasids, and even in Spain the Umayyad survivors did not seriously challenge their Caliphate. The Fatimids won great victories, and at the time it must have seemed that they were about to engulf the whole world of Islam. But they did not. The Abbasids, defeated and weakened, themselves under the domination of a Shi ite though not Isma ili dynasty of mayors of the palace, nevertheless managed to hold on in their old capital, and served as a rallying point for all the forces of Sunni Islam. In the following century, those forces were immensely strengthened by the advent of the Seljuq Turks and the creation of a new and powerful military empire in the East, the great Sultanate. The reinforcement was religious as well as political. The Seljuq Sultans were devout Sunnis. True, they dominated the Caliphate, but unlike the Shi ite Buyids whom they replaced, they treated the Caliphs with honour and respect as the supreme religious au­ thority in Sunni Islam, and their advent greatly increased the prestige and in­ fluence of the Abbasid house. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 379

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Islam-West representation cluster: the Abbasid/Fatimid rivalry is an internal Islamic contest, yet it shaped how ‘orthodox’ Sunni Islam later presented itself to the West — relevant background for Said-adjacent work on authority and canon formation.