How far did the reach of the medieval state go in a productive province on the margins of the Egyptian desert? This talk explores how rural Christians and Muslims navigated the demands made and the material opportunities offered by the Fatimid Caliphate, the Islamic court system, and the Coptic Church in medieval Egypt’s Fayyum Oasis.

Lev Weitz is associate professor of history at the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. A historian of the Islamic Middle East, his scholarly interests lie in the encounters among Muslims, Christians, and Jews that have shaped the region’s history from the coming of Islam to the present. He is the author of Between Christ and Caliph: Law, Marriage, and Christian Community in Early Islam (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).