"Agriculture in Southern Bilad al-Sham in the Mamluk Period (13th-16th centuries AD)"; International Conference Environmental Approaches in Pre-Modern Middle East Studies, Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg, Bonn, 5-7 December 2016 (original) (raw)
The historical study of soil, water, climate, and other physical components of ecosystems is not a new topic. It suffices to refer here to numerous studies by members of the Annales School.1 During the late 1960s,2 historiography on natural history shifted from the longue durée3 to environmental history, which emerged as a distinctive branch within the field. This branch deals with the contact of human beings with their total habitat in the past4 and can be divided into four subjects:5 1) The role of nature in contemporary discourse, including the shaping of artificial terrains and the representation of it as a concept;6 2) the influence of climate on clothing and habitation;7 3) the management of natural resources, including water; and 4) natural hazards, the chronology of calamities, and the sociopolitical reactions to natural disasters. Applying Marxist terminology, we can differentiate between: 1) Base (i.e., geography and climate); 2) Structure (i.e., modes of production); and 3) Superstructure (i.e., culture and ideology).8 Contemporary Mamluk chronicles are rich with references to precipitation and natural disasters: droughts and floods9 and their effect on the society, economy, and government.10 Some of these reports by historians, contemporary to these events in Damascus and Cairo, are based on official records (maḥḍar),11 others are based on eyewitness accounts and private letters.
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Fien De Block Timekeeper-Teachers and their Discursive Instruments:AMaterial Approach to Al-Jā miʿ al-mufī dfī bayā nuṡū lal-taqwī mwa-l-mawā l ī d ..683 Yehoshua Frenkel The Contribution of European Travel Literature to the Study of the Environmental History of the Levant (13 th-15 th centuries