Abstract:
With the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate in 297 AH in Ifriqiya, the leaders of the Fatimid movement expanded their influence in Islamic lands by forming the 'Da'wa organization'. One of the focal points of interest for the Fatimid missionaries was the mountainous regions of Qafas in southern Kerman, the home of the Qafas tribes, which inclined towards Fatimid Ismailism. The aim of this research is to examine the impact of commercial competition between the Fatimids and the Abbasids on the early inclination of the Qafas tribes towards Fatimid Ismailism, using a historical-analytical method. The findings of the research show that the Fatimids, in commercial competition with the Abbasids and with the aim of weakening Abbasid power, attempted to shift the trade route from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, and to achieve this goal, they created disruptions in the network of trade routes in southern Iran. By inviting the Qafas tribes to Fatimid Ismailism, the Fatimids utilized them as suppliers for their policies, and by creating insecurity on the caravan routes from the southern coastal areas to the interior regions of Iran, they succeeded in changing the trade route from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.
Machine summary:
It seems that during this period, the Shiites of the aforementioned region, due to their belief in the superiority of Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS) and their devotion to him, were of the type of Shia Mufaddala (Tafdiliyya)5 and due to their inclination towards the Fatimid Caliphs in later centuries, it might be possible to suggest the probability that the early Ismaili missionaries, from the very first centuries of Islam, took advantage of the regional dissatisfactions and, based on a designed method, spread the Ismaili call among the illiterate and nomadic masses of Qafs with a Shiite inclination.
6 Missionaries traveled to Islamic lands and scattered the seeds of Ismaili thought in various regions; as the author of Ta'wil al-Da'aim, Abu Hanifa Muhammad ibn Nu'man, known as Qadi Nu'man, one of the greatest Ismaili jurists and historians of the Fatimid era (reign 297-567 AH), divided the areas outside the Fatimid territory into twelve islands for the purposes of the call7, which included the Iranian plateau and its surrounding areas within the scope of 1 Yaqut al-Hamawi, Mu'jam al-Udaba, Vol. 2, p.
If we consider the murder of Abu Yaqub Sijistani by Amir Khalaf ibn Ahmad Sijzi, the Saffarid emir, in the year 361 AH,2 around these same years, Ibn Hawqal, a Muslim geographer whom some researchers consider a follower of the Ismaili Fatimid caliphs 3 and others consider a political propagandist,4 provided a noteworthy report regarding the Qafs tribes of southern Kerman that has received little attention from Ismaili scholars.
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