Complex sentence: The Abbasids severed relations with the Shia, provoking the latter into creating their own caliphate, the Fatimid Caliphate, formed in North Africa in 909, and in sixty years they gained control of Sicily, Syria, and western Arabia.
Split into simpler sentences: The Abbasids severed relations with the Shia, provoking the latter into creating their own caliphate. The Fatimid Caliphate formed in North Africa in 909, and in sixty years they gained control of Sicily, Syria, and western Arabia.