エジプトにおけるファーティマ朝後半期のワズィール職

Abstract

This essay investigates the actual conditions of the vizirate during the latter half of the Fatimid dynasty and systematically comprehends its character in an attempt to consider its historical significance. When one traces the transition of the latter vizirate, the following points are confirmed : first, that all the viziers had come from the military class ; secondly, that in most cases they had had direct or indirect recourse to military force in establishing their accession ; and thirdly, that the entire climate of the political process during the latter period mostly evolved around the vizier. Speaking from an institutional perspective, the vizier controlled the highest authorities of the army, the administrative organization and the organization for religious affairs. The vizier was the actual controller of the state. Their supreme position is also verifiable from other aspects, including their exceptional remuneration, supervision of the mazalim, high status in ritual ceremonies, hereditary political position, and title of malik. The latter viziers who possessed such a great jurisdiction, occupying such a supreme position, threatened the supreme spiritual authority of the caliph. So the rule of the Fatimid dynasty based on the ideology of Isma'iliyya became nominal by degrees. At the same time, however, there was also a limit to their power ; namely, their having established their economic base in a deteriorating traditional system of tax collection. For this reason, the control of the Fatimids was not yet completely overturned and was able to continue to exist, despite the viziers having seized actual political power until Salah al-Din had put the military iqta' system into effect to the extent of establishing a new state organization.