Al-Shidda al-Mustansiriyya Tariq Abdullah

Fatimid Egypt experienced calamities and disasters with various causes, including drought, low Nile water levels and floods, and conflicts between different military factions. These and other factors led to famines, deteriorating economic conditions, and accompanying devastating epidemics that lasted from 446 AH to 454 AH / 1054-1062 CE. This period of hardship claimed many lives, especially in the years (447 AH – 448 AH / 1055-1056 CE), when daily deaths were estimated at a thousand people or more.

The crises suffered by the Fatimid state, which included a drop in the Nile's water level during the reign of Caliph Al-Mustansir Billah, the fifth caliph of the Fatimid state in Egypt in 487 AH – 1094 CE, caused a famine known as the Great Famine, which historians, due to its severity, called "Al-Shidda Al-Mustansiriya" (The Mustansiri Hardship). It is considered one of the most prominent famines in Arab and Islamic history, and even in world history, due to the catastrophic consequences it had on human life at that time, to the extent that people ate cats, dogs, other animals, and even humans.

Were famines at that time limited to the Fatimid state, or did they affect other states before and after this period? This will be discussed in detail in the pages of this book.