Documents and the History of the Early Islamic World

Publication Year
2015

Type

Book
Abstract

Edited by Petra Sijpesteijn, Ph.D. 2004.

Historians have long lamented the lack of contemporary documentary sources for the Islamic middle ages and the inhibiting effect this has had on our understanding of this critically important period. Although the field is richly served by surviving evidence, much of it is hard to locate, difficult to access, and philologically intractable. Presenting a mixture of historical studies and new editions of Greek, Arabic and Coptic material from the seventh to the fifteenth century C.E. from Egypt and Palestine, Documents and the History of the Early Islamic World explores the untapped wealth of documentary sources available in collections around the world and shows how this exciting material can be used for historical analysis.

Contents

Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Notes on Editions and Dates
Hugh Kennedy, Introduction

ADMINISTRATION & GOVERNMENT
Anne Regourd, A Late Ayyubid Report of Death Found at Quṣayr al-Qadīm (Egypt)
Jairus Banaji, On the Identity of Shahrālānyōzān in the Greek and Middle Persian Papyri from Egypt
Alain Delattre, Le monastère de Baouît et l’administration arabe
Shaun O’Sullivan, Fiscal Evidence from the Nessana Papyri

COMMERCE & TRAVEL
Anna Selander, Travel in Coptic Documentary Texts
Frédéric Bauden, Le transport de marchandises et de personnes sur le Nil en 823 A.H./1420 È.C.

LANGUAGE & CULTURE
Mostafa El-Abbadi, P.Cair.Arab. III 167: A Discussion of the Akhmīm Declaration
Rachel Stroumsa, Greek and Arabic in Nessana
Sebastian Richter, The Master Spoke: “Take One of ‘the Sun’ and One Unit of Almulgam.” Hitherto Unnoticed Coptic Papyrological Evidence for Early Arabic Alchemy
Tascha Vorderstrasse, Terms for Vessels in Arabic and Coptic Documentary Texts and their Archaeological and Ethnographic Correlates
Mat Malczycki, A Quranic Text on Papyrus: P.Utah.Atiya.Ar. 342

NEW EDITIONS & COLLECTIONS
R.G. Khoury, Les papyrus arabes de Heidelberg disparus. Essai de reconstruction et d’analyse
Alia Hanafi, Two New Arabic Editions: A Land Survey from Ihnās and Ḥadīths Concerning Funerary Practice
Nicole Hansen, Sunshine Wine on the Nile

Index

Reviews

“This is a concise book worth both for its amount and variety of information, addressing a surprisingly wide range of scientific questions regarding the possibility of using material and textual evidence in the search of information on either the intellectual, or cultural, economic, and political history of Egypt and Palestine; furthermore, it offers a kick off for an in depth research to students of maritime history, to researchers of the social history of the Middle East, of the fiscal policy of the era in the region as well as to students of the history Quran researching for the nihil obstat and imprimatur of the suras, to archeologists assessing cultural artifacts, to sociolinguists working on multilingualism in the Mediterreanean and papyrologists trying to link to all these fields of reseach.”
Stavros Nikolaidis

Series Title
Islamic History and Civilization
Series Volume
111
Publisher
Brill
City
Leiden and Boston
ISBN
9789004284340
Category