Fragment of the Month: February 2016. Reuniting a Tax-farmer’s Archive (original) (raw)

Women, Gender and Law: Marital Disputes According to Documents of the Cairo Geniza

This dissertation examines how Jews in medieval Egypt negotiated marital disputes while maneuvering between individual desires, legal prescriptions and societal expectations. The main sources for this investigation are the documents of the Cairo Geniza, a rich cache of manuscripts discovered in the Ben Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo. The study of medieval Jewish communities is often dominated by a top-down approach that focuses on the elites and adopts the perspective of the communal leadership as it

‘Reconstructing Archival Practices in Abbāsid Baghdad’, Journal of Abbāsid Studies, 1 (2014), 7-22

The Abbasid administration relied extensively on the use of written documents. The central administrative apparatus in Baghdad, with its numerous specialised bureaus, seems to have been one of the main producers of documents and it must have possessed some of the largest archives of its era. However, only few documents issued by and written for the central administration have survived in their original form. Through an analysis of references found in narrative sources, this article seeks to provide a reconstruction of the functioning of the archives of the central administration in Baghdad during the caliphate of al-Muqtadir (r. 295/908-320/932).

At the Limits of Communal Autonomy: Jewish Bids for Government Interference (2009)

Muslim and Jewish chroniclers alike depict the Mamluk state as having intervened in Jewish communal affairs, underlining either the state's zeal in the enforcement of dhimmī laws or its rapacious pursuit of dhimmī property. But documents from the Cairo Geniza and other unpublished manuscripts show this narrative to be not merely partial but demonstrably false. In fact more often than not it was Jews who called upon state officials and jurists to mediate communal conflicts—or more pointedly, to discipline other Jews.

From Archive to Archival Practices. Rethinking the Preservation of Mamlūk Administrative Documents

Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2016

This article proposes a new approach to the question why so few Arabic documents have survived in their original archival context. Taking the Mamluk period as a case study it argues that the category ‘archive’ itself needs to be reconfigured away from the idea of fixed archival spaces, or even a Mamluk State Archive, towards archival practices. These archival practices were spread across the Mamluk realms and involved numerous actors including the central bureaucracy in Cairo, individual secretaries and most importantly the small-scale administrations of officers. These archival practices emerge not from the normative and narrative texts, but primarily from a consideration of archival traces on surviving documents.

2013 Arabic Papyrology and Early Islamic Egypt

Journal of Juristic Papyrology 43 (2014) (forthcoming).

Arabic Papyrology is flourishing again and has come back to the family. This was only made possible due to a conjuncture of fortunate circumstances: the foundation of a scholarly association and subsequent regular conferences; the establishment of electronic research facilities; the institutionalisation of teaching and research by the appointment of distinct papyrologists on prestigious chairs of Arabic Studies; a revival of interest in documentary research inside the discipline and a certain ‘trendiness’ of editorial work among students especially from the Middle East. Further supporting factors were challenging reconsiderations in the discipline of what is a ‘document’ as well as the epistemological value of textual artefacts; the support and hospitality of the other papyrological disciplines and their growing awareness in cross-lingual matters; and, of course, the enthusiasm and tenacity of the many involved. The stage is set for decisions. What direction is Arabic Papyrology to take in the next years? The fact that Arabic papyri are material remains of a culture conceived by contemporary Middle Easterners as theirs is a lucky chance, but requires careful thought. Also has the cooperation with other language groups to be expanded especially in regard to the exchange of electronic and other data. And editions have to be produced, and used. My plenary talk will give an overview of recent research in Arabic Papyrology, will discuss the value of the Arabic material for research on Coptic and Arab Egypt, and will drop some hint at the benefit of our field for the discipline of Papyrology in general.

An Index of Nayrūz Occurences in Abbasid Literary Sources

This volume is the result of a two-years research project, focusing on an exhaustive indexing of all edited Arabic sources mentioning the Iranian festival of Nayrūz (Nawrūz) in the Abbasid age (750-1258 CE). The Index is meant as a first step towards filling a void in the study of the Abbasid age, providing a ground-breaking instrument for scholars interested in the study of chronology and socio-economical history of the classical Islamicate world. Further studies on this subjects are sorely needed, in light of the literary presence of this festival and its connection to fiscal matters, as a quick look to the present volume will make clear to the reader. Moreover, this is in agreement with all contemporary studies on the history of Iranian strands in Islamic pre-modern societies, which seldom fails to mention the need for a systematic study of literary evidence.