Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text. By IRENE A. BIERMAN. Berkeley: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1998.

Fatimid Art at the Victoria and Albert Museums. By ANNA CONTADINI. London: V & A PUBLICATIONS, 1998. Pp. 138, color plates and illustrations. [pound]60, $99 [U.S. distribution: Antique Collectors' Club Ltd., Wappingers Falls, N.Y.]

The Fatimids (r. 909-1171), [Isma.sup.[subset]]ili [Shi.sup.[subset]]ites who claimed descent from the Prophet's daughter Fatima and his son-in-law [[blank].sup.[subset]] Ali b. Abu Talib, rose to power in tenth-century Ifriqiya (now Tunisia) and soon fought with the Umayyads of Spain for control of much of northwest Africa. In 969 the Fatimid general Jawhar turned in the other direction and conquered Egypt, ostensibly the first stage in the Fatimids' conquest of the entire Muslim world and their recognition as its rightful rulers. Inspired by Jawhar's successes, the Fatimids abandoned north Africa and moved eastwards, establishing their capital at Cairo, on the banks of the Nile. Although they came to control parts of Syria and the Hijaz and even were briefly recognized in Baghdad itself, things didn't work out the way they had planned, and for most of the next two centuries Fatimid power was largely confined to Egypt. There they transformed Fustat, a somewhat sleepy regional capital, into Cairo, the bustli ng metropolis of the Mediterranean, and presided over a mixed and prosperous population of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Arabs, Berbers, Blacks, Turks, etc. Despite famines, political and religious crises, and the onslaught of the Crusaders, the Fatimids held on by the skin of their teeth for two centuries until Saladin restored Sunni rule to Egypt.

The Fatimids have exerted a powerful attraction on later generations of historians, perhaps because of the shivers they arouse as the only [Shi.sup.[subset]]ite dynasty to have ruled Egypt, which was normally a bastion of [Shafi.sup.[subset]]i Sunnism, or else because of the unparalleled splendor of their art and court. The great Mamluk historian al-Maqrizi chronicled the history of the dynasty and its fabulous monuments and treasures, basing his accounts on mostly now-lost chronicles written in the Fatimid and post-Fatimid eras. These tantalizing reports are complemented by a score of buildings, largely mosques and tombs, surviving in Cairo and a seductive assortment of artworks--including lustered ceramics, exquisite rock crystals and diaphanous linens interwoven with gold, mostly preserved in European church treasuries and museums.

Apart from the 1969 millenary celebration of the founding of Cairo, which provoked an exhibition and a symposium, there has not been an exhibition or book devoted to Fatimid art until recently, but a spate of publications shows that the Fatimids have finally gotten their chance. The two books under review are complemented by recent and important publications about [Isma.sup.[subset]]ili--particularly Fatimid--history and thought by such eminent scholars as Farhad Daftary, Heinz Halm, and Paul Walker. In 1998 the Institut du monde arabe held the first international exhibition on Fatimid art in Paris, which was commemorated in an important catalogue (Tresors fatimides du Caire, 1998). The proceedings of the accompanying symposium at the Sorbonne, edited by Marianne Barrucand, are in press.

The two books under review present very different approaches to the visual world of the Fatimids. Anna Contadini's Fatimid Art is by far the better book and would be a useful and important addition to any library dealing with Islamic art. It presents the collection of artworks from the Fatimid period in London's Victoria and Albert Museum and includes such varied media as carved rock crystal, woven textiles, ceramics, glass, carved ivory and wood, and metalwork. The first chapter is a solid introduction to Fatimid history and architecture. It is followed by chapters on the individual media, including discussion of their history and technique. The discussion of rock crystal is particularly interesting. To each chapter Contadini appends a catalogue of many, but not necessarily all, of the examples from the V&A collection attributed to the Fatimid period. This selection indicates at once the book's strength and its weakness, for the author is unsure whether her book is about Fatimid art--hence she discusses wor ks outside the V&A collection--or about the V&A collection--hence she discusses works in the collection that have nothing to do with the Fatimids, such as the Marwanid tiraz and a Yemeni iqat, both illustrated in color. Overall, this is a fair, useful, and reliable book.

Irene Bierman's book is quite different. It is at once more ambitious but ultimately less successful. Her thesis is that the Fatimid rulers of Egypt were the first to use writing on buildings and textiles ("the public text") to present their own distinct ideology to the diverse members of Cairene society. Fatimid doctrines, she argues, were presented in a distinct "Fatimid" form of Kufic script embellished with tendrils, leaves, and flowers. The book's blurb suggests that it will provide new insights into a complex period of Muslim history, as well as provide a pioneering model for studying public writing in other societies. This is hardly likely.

The author appears to have decided on a theory about public writing and adduced only the evidence needed to support it, while ignoring any conflicting evidence or information that might have led her to modify her extreme positions. For example, floriated Kufic was established in Egypt before the arrival of the Fatimids. It was not developed to make an ideological statement but was an aesthetic response to peculiarities of the Arabic script. There can be no question that the Fatimids used public texts to make public statements, but by limiting her scope to Egypt, Bierman is conveniently able to ignore the long tradition of public writing in the Muslim world before the Fatimids and in other regions, from Central Asia to Spain, let alone in the pre-Islamic Roman world. Although her reading on subjects ranging from contemporary signage to contextual literacy is omnivorous, and she thereby expands the horizons of dull scholarship, she oddly ignores the substantial literature on such crucial subjects as the contem porary--and perhaps related--revival of public writing in medieval Italy (Petrucci 1993) or larger questions of Islamic epigraphy (Blair 1992). Bierman is to be commended for writing a book with an idea; unfortunately, the idea is--in my opinion--quite wrong.

REFERENCES

Blair, S. S. 1992. The Monumental Inscriptions from Early Islamic Irana and Transoxania. Supplements to Muqarnas. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Petrucci, A. 1993. Public Lettering: Script, Power, and Culture. Tr. L. Lappin. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Tresors fatimides du Caire. 1998. Exhibition catalogue, 28 April-30 August 1998. Paris: Institut du monde arabe.

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