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In the years before Abd ar-Rahman III took the throne in Córdoba, the state of al-Andalus was a sorry one indeed. Central authority was at somewhat of a nadir, and large portions of the country answered to local kings and brigands, mostly ignoring the authority of the emir. At the same time, the Fatimid dynasty in Ifriqiya was on the rise, by the time of Abd ar-Rahman III's rule already posing a significant threat - but one that capable caliph succeeded in opposing.

If the trend of devolution of central authority in al-Andalus had continued, leading perhaps to an earlier incidence of something like the Taifa periods, could the young Fatimid dynasty have succeeded in subsuming the peninsula to its will, as seemed to be the habit of later North African empires like the Almoravids and Almohads? If it had, could control have been maintained for more than a generation or so? What would the implications have been of the introduction of their particular brand of Shi'a Islam to Andalusi society?
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