Medieval Egypt Research Articles

Living with the Law: Gender and Community among the Jews of Medieval Egypt, written by Oded Zinger

Living with the Law: Gender and Community among the Jews of Medieval Egypt, written by Oded Zinger

Review of The Jews in Medieval Egypt


 
 
 The Jews in Medieval Egypt. Edited by Miriam Rrenkel. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2021. Pp. xiv + 300, illus. $119 (cloth); $35 (paper).
 
 

Living with the Law: Gender and Community Among the Jews of Medieval Egypt. By Oded Zinger

Living with the Law: Gender and Community Among the Jews of Medieval Egypt. <i>By Oded Zinger</i>

The descendants of the Mamluks in the Arab sociocultural environment: Ibn Qurqmas (d. 1477)

The awlād al-nās (the descendants of the Mamluks) were the only group outside the military class in the Circassian Sultanate that had access to the Mamluk world, otherwise closed to all who did not belong to it. In the spiritual culture, awlād al-nās constituted a link between the Mamluks and the local population. Nasir al-Din Muhammad Ibn Qurqmas (1400–1477), was a proliϐic Egyptian writer, poet, calligrapher and compiler of a Quranic commentary was a mamluk descender, one of awlād al-nās. The article comprises information from the “Zahr al-Rabīʿ ϔī Shawāhid al-Badīʿ” by Ibn Qurqmas and also some materials with regards to his biography as discovered in the writings by Abu al-Mahasin Yusuf Ibn Taghri Birdi (d. in 1469), ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sakhawi (d. in 1497) and Muhammad b. Ahmad Ibn Iyas al-Hanaϐi (d. in 1524). It aims to trace the avenues of incorporation of a Mamluk descendant into the local socio-cultural environment of medieval Egypt.

Introduction. History Writing, Mamlukisation and Social Memory in Late Medieval Egypt

Introduction. History Writing, Mamlukisation and Social Memory in Late Medieval Egypt

Revealing Monastic Life

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; This article provides a preliminary survey of a project, made possible by the American Research Center in Egypt, to record and study the graffiti and paintings from the monastic dwellings built into Vaults 9 and 12 of the ibis hypogeum in Abydos North, presumably in Late Antiquity. The monastic reuse of this type of monument is extremely rare in Egypt and for that reason alone of prime interest. What is more, the detailed information obtained from the graffiti and paintings offers fascinating glimpses into the “lived religion” of the monks who occupied the building over a considerable period of time, thus adding a significant corpus of new material for the study of monasticism in Late Antique and medieval Egypt.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

At the Crossroads of Competing Confessions and Politics: al-Turtūshī’s Experience in the Fātimid Alexandria

The tenth and eleventh centuries witnessed significant social and political transformations in the Islamic World. While the Buwayhid Dynasty began to control Iraq in 945, the Fātimid Dynasty started to dominate Egypt in 969. Besides, Christian Europeans set up crusades and managed to capture important Muslim cities in al-Andalus and the Middle East during the late eleventh century. These transformations had certain impacts on the Sunnī Muslim scholars. Through examination of an Andalusian scholar, Abū Bakr al-Turtūshī's life and works, I will analyze how al-Turtūshī as a Sunnī Muslim scholar encountered different confessional groups (Shi‘īs, Jews, Christians, and Sūfīs) and how he made an effort to shape the Shi'ī Fātimid politics in harmony with the Sunnī Islam. In addition, I will explore how he aimed to draw strict religious boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims in Fātimid Egypt. Furthermore, I will examine how he attempted to reconstruct the Sunnī identity and reform social life in Medieval Egypt.

Guides to the Eucharist in Medieval Egypt: Three Arabic Commentaries on the Coptic Liturgy. By Arsenius Mikhail

Guides to the Eucharist in Medieval Egypt: Three Arabic Commentaries on the Coptic Liturgy. By Arsenius Mikhail

The Silence of the Bride: A Fatimid marriage contract on silk

Abstract Marriage contracts and divorce deeds are of particular importance for historians, as they provide clues about both social practices and gender relations. In this article, we offer an edition of a noteworthy document from Dār al-āthār al-islāmiyya in Kuwait, which, beyond its remarkable aesthetic quality, offers a testimony to marriage and divorce practices in a bourgeois milieu of the Egyptian capital during the late Fatimid period. More than a micro-history, this document adds a new piece to the picture of matrimonial dynamics in medieval Egypt, which were often more subtle than previously understood. Patriarchal authority did not prevent a father from deploying all sorts of strategies to protect his daughter in marriage and guarantee her a certain amount of autonomy. In accordance with some jurists’ recommendations, which were based on a Prophetic hadith, the father did not marry off his daughter without first obtaining her tacit permission. Finally, the document preserves the memory of a marital crisis in the seventh year of marriage, during which the husband repudiated his wife before rapidly taking her back.

Rural Administration, Tax-Farming, and the mutadarriks in Egypt from the Late 14th to the Early 16th Centuries

Abstract This paper focuses on the category of Egyptian provincial officials called mutadarrik who emerged in the late 14th century, to understand the relationship between the government and rural areas, and the state of rural society in late medieval Egypt. After the mid-14th century, the iqṭāʿ land system underwent a major transformation. Amidst repeated plagues, declining agricultural production, rampant political instability, and the rise of Arab tribes in the provinces, the financial and local administrations of the Mamluk Sultanate underwent a substantial process of restructuring. This paper shows that the emergence of the mutadarrik was closely related to these changes in the administration as well as in rural society.

The Administration of Justice in Medieval Egypt: From the Seventh to the Twelfth Century By Yaacov Lev

Journal Article The Administration of Justice in Medieval Egypt: From the Seventh to the Twelfth Century By Yaacov Lev Get access The Administration of Justice in Medieval Egypt: From the Seventh to the Twelfth CenturyBy Yaacov Lev (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture), viii + 301 pp. Price PB £19.99. EAN 978–1474459242. Timothy J Fitzgerald Timothy J Fitzgerald James Madison University E-mail: fitzgetj@jmu.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Islamic Studies, etad020, https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etad020 Published: 05 May 2023

New Readings in Arabic Historiography from Late Medieval Egypt and Syria: Proceedings of the Themed Day of the Fifth Conference of the School of Mamlūk Studies, ed. Jo van Steenbergen and Maya Termonia

New Readings in Arabic Historiography from Late Medieval Egypt and Syria: Proceedings of the Themed Day of the Fifth Conference of the School of Mamlūk Studies, ed. Jo van Steenbergen and Maya Termonia

New Readings in Arabic Historiography from Late Medieval Egypt and Syria. Proceedings of the Themed Day of the Fifth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies. Edited by Jo Van Steenbergen and Maya Termonia

The Ayyubid and Mamluk periods witnessed a sharp rise in the production of historical texts, reaching a peak in the first half of the fifteenth century, as well as a transformation in style and contents. Historiography became closer to literature, with the use of anecdotes and mirabilia, colloquialisms and dialogues. In addition, the authors of historical works often placed themselves at the centre of their works, with self-referencing becoming more common. The resulting chronicles and biographical dictionaries, from Ibn al-Dawādārī to al-Maqrīzī, from al-Jazarī to Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, have fundamentally shaped how we view the history of Egypt and Syria in the Islamic era. This volume represents a comprehensive, coherent and sophisticated analysis of this ‘ “explosion” of historical writing’ in the late medieval period. All thirteen chapters approach the historiographical texts not as mines of information, but as authored texts that demand scrutiny for their own sake, representing...

Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary CultureKrakowskiEveComing of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary CulturePrinceton University PressPrinceton NJ, 2018, 360, $27.95ISBN 978-0-69119-163-8

Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary CultureKrakowskiEveComing of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary CulturePrinceton University PressPrinceton NJ, 2018, 360, $27.95ISBN 978-0-69119-163-8

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

Organic Remains in Early Christian Egyptian Metal Vessels: Investigation with Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry

Organic remains preserved on eight copper alloy artifacts of the Byzantine Collection of the Benaki Museum with an Egyptian provenance were investigated, implementing a multi-analytical approach combining microscopy-FTIR and GC/MS. The transmission spectra of powder samples provided important information on the vessels regarding inorganic and organic components. In the latter case, subsequent extractions with a range of solvents allowed discrimination of components with different polarities and provided data on the suitability of the solvents for the acquisition of more informative spectra. GC/MS was implemented for the detailed characterization of the compounds present in the samples because of the complex nature of the residues preserved. A wide range of fatty acid oxidation products was identified, including a series of α, ω-dicarboxylic acids typical of such remains. In addition, vicinal dihydroxy-docosanoic and dihydroxy-eicosanoic acid, oxidation products of erucic and gondoic acid, respectively, were detected. Both are found in abundance in oils from plants belonging to the Brassicaceae family and imply their multiple uses in medieval Egypt.

‘Goat Beautiful of Voice’: A Piyyut of Abraham ibn Ezra from Medinet el-Fayyūm, Egypt

Abstract This zuta provides an edition of a new copy of a known piyyut by Abraham ibn Ezra, ‘Goat beautiful of voice’ (יַעְלָה יְפַת קוֹל), with translation, full collation, and commentary. This copy, now in the collection of the University of Michigan (P.Mich. inv. 531), offers some valuable new readings as well as evidence for the readership of Ibn Ezra in a provincial setting in medieval Egypt, as its provenance can be traced to the city of Medinet el-Fayyūm; the text can be added to evidence for a Jewish presence there, of which an overview is also given.

The ‘oldest dated document of the Cairo Genizah’ (Halper 331): The Seleucid era and sectarian Jewish calendars

AbstractHalper 331 is the fragment of a codex that has been styled the ‘oldest dated document of the Cairo Genizah’. It preserves the opening of a Jewish legal document dated to the year 1182 (Seleucid era), which appears to have been copied into this codex, probably as a formulary, not long after this date, in the late 9th century. In this article, the text of this fragment, in Aramaic and Hebrew, is edited, and its identification as the beginning of a marriage contract (ketubbah) is evaluated. Its Egyptian provenance is questioned, partly because the earliest evidence for the introduction of the Seleucid era by Jews in Egypt dates from the mid-10th century. The article surveys the history of Jewish dating methods in early medieval Egypt and the Near East, in an attempt to clarify this question. The specific date of the document deviates from the rabbinic calendar, but agrees with that of the contemporary Jewish Near Eastern sectarian groups of Abū ʿImrān al-Tiflīsī and Ismāʿīl al-ʿUkbarī; this document could thus uniquely attest one of these sectarian Jewish calendars.

Monks, Monasteries, and Muslim Scribes: Three Parchment House Sales from the 4th/10th-Century Fayyūm

Abstract This article presents editions of three Arabic parchment deeds of sale from the 4th/10th-century Fayyūm Oasis belonging to two monks, Babā Banīla and Babā Buṭrus, of the Dayr al-Qalamūn monastery. The transactions recorded in our documents are mundane in and of themselves. But put together they offer bits of insight into Christian society in rural medieval Egypt, the notarial practice of provincial Muslim scribes, the relationship between monastic and Islamic legal institutions, and the important but little-attested Dayr al-Qalamūn.

The Use of Social Isolation (inqiṭāʿ) by Jewish Women in Medieval Egypt

Abstract Petitions from the Cairo Geniza often emphasize that the petitioner is lonely or “cut off” (munqaṭiʿ) from social support. Such claims are gendered, as they are more common in women’s petitions than in men’s, and women occasionally use explicitly gendered expressions to highlight their social isolation. Claiming to lack social support had a special valency in medieval Islamicate societies due to the primacy of reciprocal social relationships in these societies. Since women’s access to cultural and social capital was more limited than men’s, women lacking effective and supportive male kin were particularly vulnerable and were recognized as deserving justice. Studying claims of social isolation thus sheds light on the social predicament of Jewish women in medieval Egypt. Finally, recognizing the currency of social isolation in women’s petition helps identify an opposite trend of social belonging in men’s petitions.