Fatimid caliphate

Shiite dynasty. The Fatimids conquered Egypt in 969, proclaimed a rival caliphate to the Abbasids, and from the new capital of Cairo they became the leading Mediterranean power until the 12th century. At their height in the mid-11th century the Fatimids controlled Palestine and Syria, but these were lost to the Seljuks. Fatimid power, weakened by Crusader invasion in the 1160s, was ended by Saladin in 1171, but Shiite groups throughout the Islamic world regarded only the Fatimid caliphate as legitimate.