MU'IZZ, AL-

in full Al-mu'izz Li-din Allah, original name Abu Tamim Ma'ad born c. 930 died 975 the most powerful of the Fatimid caliphs, whose armies conquered Egypt and who made the newly founded al-Qahirah, or Cairo, his capital in 972973. He was about 22 years of age when he succeeded his father, al-Mansur, in 953 with the title of al-Mu'izz. His authority was acknowledged over the greater part of the region now comprising Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and he soon took the island of Sicily. In the years 958959 he sent his general Jawhar westward to reduce Fs and other places where the authority of the Fatimid caliph had been repudiated; after a successful expedition Jawhar advanced to the Atlantic. As early as 966 a fresh invasion of Egypt was prepared; but it was delayed, it is said, at the request of the caliph's mother, who wished to make a pilgrimage to Mecca first; and her honourable treatment by the local ruler, Kafur, when she passed through Egypt induced the caliph to postpone the invasion until after Kafur's death in 968. In any event, his general Jawhar succeeded where the generals of the founder of the Fatimid dynasty had failed, and he conquered Egypt in 969. A few years after the conquest al-Mu'izz resolved to transfer the centre of Fatimid power to Egypt, and he entered Cairo, the new capital founded by Jawhar just to the north of the old city of al-Fustat, in 972 or 973, leaving behind in North Africa as surrogate his lieutenant general Yusuf ibn Ziri. (The original North African dominion became a province called al-Maghrib, or the West.) Under al-Mu'izz and his son al-'Aziz (reigned 976996) the momentum of the conquest of Egypt was sufficient to carry the Fatimid armies into Syria, most of which remained in their hands until the second half of the 11th century.