The Villages of the Fayyum: A Thirteenth-Century Register of Rural, Islamic Egypt

Yossef Rapoport (Translator), Ido Shahar (Translator)

Research output: Book/ReportBookpeer-review

Abstract

Richly annotated and with a detailed introduction, this volume offers the first academic edition and translation of a first-hand account of the Egyptian countryside, offering a key insight into the rural economy of medieval Islam.0Medieval Islamic society was overwhelmingly a society of peasants, and the achievements of Islamic civilization depended, first and foremost, on agricultural production. Yet the history of the medieval Islamic countryside has been neglected or marginalized. Basic questions such as the social and religious identities of village communities, or the relationship of the peasant to the state, are either ignored or discussed from a normative point of view.0This volume addresses this lacuna in our understanding of medieval Islam by presenting a first-hand account of the Egyptian countryside. Dating from the middle of the thirteenth century, Abu ?Uthman al-Nabulusi?s Villages of the Fayyum is as close as we get to the tax registers of any rural province. Not unlike the Domesday Book of medieval England, al-Nabulusi?s work provides a wealth of detail for each village which far surpasses any other source for the rural economy of medieval Islam. It is a unique, comprehensive snap-shot of one rural society at one, significant, point in its history, and an insight into the way of life of the majority of the population in the medieval Islamic world. Richly annotated and with a detailed introduction, this volume offers the first academic edition of this work and the first translation into a European language
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationTurnhout
PublisherBrepols Publishers
Number of pages260
ISBN (Print)9782503542775
StatePublished - 2018

Publication series

NameThe Medieval Countryside
Volume18

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