Reconsidering the cause of migration: Kurds at sea in the Fatimid Caliphate

From the tenth to the twelfth centuries, the Fatimid navy ranked among the most formidable maritime forces in the Mediterranean. Although the surviving evidence is limited, several references preserved in Mamluk-era sources invite a reassessment of Kurdish migration to Egypt during the Fatimid period.

These texts suggest that Kurds, alongside Turks, once served in the Fatimid fleet. This complicates the conventional narrative, which tends to associate the beginning of Kurdish presence in Egypt with the political expansion of the Zengids and Ayyubids, often accompanied by assumptions about the commitments to Sunni orthodoxy. 

Like many military and administrative elites of the medieval Middle East, migrant Kurdish groups frequently pursued opportunity, patronage, and advancement across political and sectarian boundaries. Their allegiances were often shaped by practical considerations as far as one can tell from the historical evidence and not ideological commitments. In this regard, service under the Fatimids would not be an anomaly but rather part of a broader pattern of political and military mobility.

al-Umari writes:

Following were the Factions of Men (tawā'if al-rijāl): the Maşāmida; the Rayḥāniyya; the Juyūshiyya; the Furanjiyya, and the Wazīriyya. They moved consecutively and were numerous in number for they were more than 4000 men. Then [marched] the bearers of the standards (ashāb al-rāyāt) and [the standards with] the two lions. Then [they were followed by] the factions of soldiers (tawā'if al-'asākir): the Amiriyya; the Hafiziyya; the Elder Guards of the Barracks (al-hujariyya al-kibār); the Young Guards of the Barracks (al-hujariyya al-şighār); the Afdaliyya; the Juyūshiyya; the Turks who were under patronage (muştana ūn); the Daylam; the Kurds; the Ghuzz who were under patronage (muştana'a), and others. These [factions] comprised more than 3000 horsemen.