The Berber Zirids (governors of North Africa under the Fatimids) had in the 1040s declared their independence from the Fatimids and their recognition of the Sunni Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad, which had led the Fatimids to launch devastating Banū Hilal invasions.

The Fatimid hold on the Levant coast and parts of Syria has been challenged after about 1070 by Turkic invasions.

The Fatimids had gradually lost the Emirate of Sicily over thirty years to the Italo-Norman king Roger I, who is in total control of the entire island by 1091.

The reliance on the Iqta system also eats into Fatimid central authority, as more and more the military officers at the further ends of the empire become semi-independent and are often a source of problems.