Entombing the Prophet in Cairo? The Three Shrines of al-Ḥākim Revisited

Abstract

This article reassesses the narrative that the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh (d. ca. 1021) intended to reinter the bodies of the Prophet Muḥammad and the caliphs Abū Bakr and ʿUmar in three shrines (mashāhid) outside the walls of Cairo. Prior critical assessments have treated this report with skepticism or dismissed it as nonsensical. This article draws on evidence from Maʿāṣim al-hudā, an understudied work of Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī, the contemporary Ismaʿili theologian and servant of al-Ḥākim, to substantiate the claim that the caliph embarked upon a well-attested but largely overlooked initiative to rehabilitate the status of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar to the Ismaʿili community, and that the likeliest construction date of al-Ḥākim’s three shrines—Ramadan 402h (April 1012)—coincides both with this initiative and an outbreak of war between the Fatimid state and the ʿAlids of the Hijaz. It concludes that, while al-Ḥākim’s intent to re-entomb the Prophet in Cairo cannot be conclusively proven, the theory is far more plausible than prior academic assessments have recognized.