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That's not a secret. How did you know? Come on. Custom posters, branded mugs, stylish flyers. Only one place prints all that. Vista print. Yeah, I got business cards, stickers, t-shirts, booklets, signage, even photo books from my last holiday. Print everything for your business with Vistaprint. If you you need it, we print it at Caliphate was entering its final decline.

Obviously, we can see this with the benefit of hindsight, but it must have been equally obvious at the time, too. Some four decades before, the Fatimids, followers of the fringe Isma-Ili Shia sect of Islam,

held Egypt, a large swath of the Maghreb in North Africa, Sicily, and Levant. But the intervening years

were unkind, and by the time our narrative picks up, the Fatimids were left with only Egypt and the

Hajjahs region, containing Mecca and Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam.

Meanwhile, their hated rivals, the Sunni Muslim Seljuk Turks, had amassed greater power

and expanded their land holdings, pushing right up to Fatimid territory.

Yet, the fates seemingly conspired to present them with an opportunity to rectify the problem.

Sometime in 1097, a diplomatic envoy from the Byzantine emperor Alexios Icomnenos arrived in Cairo,

addressed to the chief vizier and de facto ruler al-Aftol.

The Byzantines offered an alliance.

The two Christian factions would attack them from the north,

while the Fatimids would attack from the south,

catching the Seljuks in the middle and crushing their mutual enemy between them.

...