SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT UNDER FATIMIDS The great revolution which sixty years before had swept over North Africa, and now spread to Egypt, arose out of the old controversy over the legitimacy of the Caliphate. With the fourth Caliph, however, al-Mo’izz, the conqueror of Egypt (953-975), the Fatimids entered upon a new phase. He was a man of political temper, a born statesman, able to grasp the conditions of success, and to take advantage of every point in his favour. He has also highly educated, and not only wrote, Arabic poetry and delighted in its literature, but studied Greek, mastered Berber and Sudani dialects and is even said to have taught himself Slavanic, in order to converts with his slaves from Eastern Europe. His eloquence was such as to move his audience to tears. To prudent statesmanship he added a large generosity, and his love of justice was among his noblest qualities. So far as outward acts could show, he was a strict Muslim of the Shia sect, and statements of his adversaries that he was really at heart an atheist seems to rest merely upon the belief that all the Fatimids Ismalian adopted the esoteric doctrines of the Ismailian missionaries.
