The Fatimid Caliphate: A new Caliphate pt.1
The beginning of the 14th century had marked the beginning of a new surge of Islamic expansion, the bastions of Christianity had fallen one by one with a speed that gave much credence to bearded men standing in town squares howling about the end of the world and Armageddon. The relative stability within the Moslem world that followed the Peace at Jerusalem, as well as the competence with which the Iberian heresies were handled, gave stark contrast to the feudal upheaval of West Rome and outright Pagan worship that swept France.
In this there is also an interesting difference in how the conquests and occupations of Italy and France were handled. In France the pervasive Averronian philosophy of governance meant Christians were in fact more free to practice their religion than they had been under the pagan oppression of their old Flemish kings. Lands previously taken at whim by the crown were handed out to their old holders, and many harsh war taxes prematurely abolished. This hands-off approach bound both clergy, people and nobles in debt of gratitude to Cordoba, giving the Sultan a broad base of support and a reasonably legitimacy to the claim of having "liberated" the French from Pagan oppression. But to be fair it is not hard to look good when your predecessor had a thing for virgin sacrifice and burning holy places.
In Italy things did not go quite as smoothly. Not long after the fall of Firenze the Fatimid court concluded that unless it wished for Italy to be the same hotbed of feudalism and independent minded citystates that had led to the downfall of the Toulousian emperors it would be necessary to remove all levels of the old leadership. It would also be vital to redistribute the base of power that had allowed the Guilds of Genoa and Pisa to independently equip a fleet capable of facing of against Caliphate naval assets outside Siracusa. Lastly there was need to tie the Averronian lands to Alexandria, lest the new majority of Christian subjects were to at some point in the future also come into the majority of real deciding power in al-Andalus and move it in a direction opposed to Alexandria.
The first thing the old Calipha Zeyd did after sending the heads of the last Emperor and Pope to receive the traditional spiking outside the Lighthouse-Palace of Pharos was to croak. This left his most trusted captain, the young Sabah of the 1st branch Fatimids, Emir al-Muminin of the Holy Land, as the new Calipha. Rash in youth and blunt from a life in the Sayyedi Guard his first decree was to issue what became to be known as the Sabahi Edict;
"That no land, and no ship in these lands may be owned by any man who is not of the Fatimid line". A decree that went far and beyond that of his predecessor Afzal, the nobles and traders of Italy were unsurprisingly reluctant to give away their power and possessions. And so the peninsula was made subject to decades of scourging, resistance and lawlessness. But slowly and surely the Italians, who's young men had already been lost in the decades of war with the Saracens, were brought into line with fire and sword. The Fatimid bloodlines meanwhile jockeyed for favour from Alexandria to have their preferred candidates receive the spoils, blissfully unaware of coming reforms..