Abdallah ibn al-Mu'izz

{{Short description|Son the fourth Fatimid caliph, al-Mu'izz}}

Abdallah ibn al-Mu'izz (died 8 February 975) was the son and heir-apparent of the fourth Fatimid caliph, al-Mu'izz ({{reign|953|975}}), but died before him.

Abdallah was the second oldest of al-Mu'izz's sons, and was designated heir in 972, as part of the preparations for the move of the Fatimid court from Ifriqiya to recently conquered Egypt.{{sfn|Halm|1991|pp=369–370}} The aim was probably to safeguard the succession, against what was expected to be a difficult and perilous journey.{{sfn|Halm|2003|p=116}} The designation had initially been communicated to a select few senior officials and kept secret even from Abdallah himself, but the elderly majordomo Jawdhar revealed the secret when he performed obeisance to Abdallah before the assembled court.{{sfn|Halm|1991|pp=369–370}} The disillusioned eldest son, Tamim, was then involved in an unsuccessful conspiracy with the son of the Kalbid Emir of Sicily.{{sfn|Halm|1991|p=370}}

Initially this appointment was not widely publicized beyond the court, but Abdallah's name was proclaimed publicly alongside his father's after their arrival in Egypt in June 973.{{sfn|Halm|2003|p=116}} In April 974, during the Qarmatian invasion of Egypt, Abdallah was put in command of the Fatimid army and led it to a decisive victory, that forced the Qarmatians to withdraw back to their home in Bahrayn.{{sfn|Halm|2003|p=98}} In the aftermath of the victory, on 26 May, the victorious Abdallah made a triumphal entrance into Cairo, accompanied by the most prominent captives on the backs of camels, and several thousand severed heads of the Qarmatian fallen impaled on lances;{{sfn|Halm|2003|pp=98–99}} his position as heir apparent was further underlined by riding under the caliphal parasol, the {{Transliteration|ar|mizalla}}.{{sfn|Halm|2003|p=116}} Abdallah predeceased his father, dying after a brief illness on 8 February 975.{{sfn|Halm|2003|p=116}} Abdallah's younger brother, Nizar, was presented to the court as the designated heir a few days before al-Mu'izz died in December of the same year, and even ruled for several months after his father's death in the latter's name, before finally publicly announcing al-Mu'izz's death and his own ascension to the throne as Caliph al-Aziz ({{reign|975|996}}).{{sfn|Halm|2003|pp=116–117}}

Abdallah was the last Fatimid prince or heir apparent to be given important military commands, especially as most subsequent Fatimid caliphs ascended the throne as children.{{Sfn|Halm|2015|p=93}} Abdallah had at least one son, whose name is unknown, but who unsuccessfully conspired with Sitt al-Mulk to usurp the throne from the underage al-Hakim ({{reign|996|1021}}) in 996, and ended his life in prison.{{sfn|Halm|2003|p=168}} A daughter, named Amina and known by the sobriquet Ruqya ({{lit.|charm}}), later became the concubine of al-Hakim and mother of his successor, al-Zahir ({{reign|1021|1036}}).{{Sfn|Halm|2015|p=100}}

{{Fatimid family tree}}