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Abstract
Chapter 3 studies the organization of military presence in the Nile valley and its relation with the central administration in al-Fusṭāṭ. The chapter consists of two parts: one on al-Fusṭāṭ’s military and administrative involvement in affairs concerning the Egyptian-Nubian frontier around Aswan, the other on the relationship between al-Fusṭāṭ and Muslim garrisons in and around the Fayyūm, Ihnās and al-Ushmūn in northern Upper Egypt. The chapter argues that the central authorities’ involvement in the organization of the military in norther Upper Egypt increased around 40/660 and that this development must have been part of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān’s military reforms which, in Egypt, were partially made possible by an increased militarization on Egypt’s frontiers.
Abstract
Chapter 2 analyses the impact of the foundation of al-Fusṭāṭ on Alexandria’s commercial centrality. First, commercial activity in al-Fusṭāṭ in the first/seventh and second/eighth centuries is mapped. This part of the chapter shows that al-Fusṭāṭ’s commercial position significantly increases at the end of the first/seventh century. Then the chapter turns to Alexandria and shows on the basis of an analysis of papyri, archaeology and literary sources that neither the foundation of al-Fusṭāṭ nor the increase of its commercial position around 80/700 affected Alexandria’s commercial centrality.
Abstract
Chapter 1 studies the administrative relationship between al-Fusṭāṭ and Alexandria, at the time of the Muslim conquest Egypt’s most important city, from a chronological. The chapter starts with a study of the conquest of Alexandria and its relationship with the foundation of al-Fusṭāṭ. The chapter then studies a number of changes brought by the new Muslim rulers: the creation of a Muslim centre in Alexandria, the creation of a military loyalty network through the appointment of a Muslim garrison commander and the demilitarization of the office of Alexandria’s civil administrator, the visits of Egypt’s governor to Alexandria. It is argued that ties between al-Fusṭāṭ and Alexandria strengthened around A.H. 40/A.D. 600 and again around 80/700.
In The Rise of a Capital: Al-Fusṭāṭ and Its Hinterland, 18/639-132/750, Jelle Bruning maps al-Fusṭāṭ’s development from a garrison town founded by Muslim conquerors near modern Cairo (Egypt) in c. 640 C.E. into a bustling provincial capital a century later. Synthesising contemporary papyri, archaeology and narrative sources, this book argues that al-Fusṭāṭ’s position in Egypt changed with the different policies of the Rightly-Guided and Umayyad caliphs and their provincial representatives. Because these policies affected the town’s centrality in the administration as well as in commercial and legal networks throughout Egypt, from Alexandria in the north to Aswan in the south, The Rise of a Capital offers valuable new insights into Egypt’s society during the first century of Muslim rule.
In The Rise of a Capital: Al-Fusṭāṭ and Its Hinterland, 18/639-132/750, Jelle Bruning maps al-Fusṭāṭ’s development from a garrison town founded by Muslim conquerors near modern Cairo (Egypt) in c. 640 C.E. into a bustling provincial capital a century later. Synthesising contemporary papyri, archaeology and narrative sources, this book argues that al-Fusṭāṭ’s position in Egypt changed with the different policies of the Rightly-Guided and Umayyad caliphs and their provincial representatives. Because these policies affected the town’s centrality in the administration as well as in commercial and legal networks throughout Egypt, from Alexandria in the north to Aswan in the south, The Rise of a Capital offers valuable new insights into Egypt’s society during the first century of Muslim rule.
Abstract
Chapter 4 analyses al-Fusṭāṭ’s role in the judicial apparatus in the Nile valley. The chapter argues that this role developed along the same chronology detected in chapters 1–3. Before c. 40/660, judicial practices of native Egyptians and newly arrived Muslims are almost entirely separated. Judicial contact between Egyptians and Muslims is first visible in the 40s/660s. Further developments take place around 80/700. From approximately that year do the governor seated in al-Fusṭāṭ and his deputies outside the town appear as legal authorities for non-Muslim Egyptians. At about the same time do qāḍīs appear outside al-Fusṭāṭ. The central authorities’ increased involvement in the judicial system can in part be explained as the result of reforms initiated by the Marwanid caliphs, but an increased acceptance of the Muslims’ legal practices and authorities among the non-Muslim population also influenced al-Fusṭāṭ’s role in the judicial apparatus.
Abstract
This article discusses the commercial, socio-economic and legal dynamics of slave trading in Egypt on the basis of papyri from the AH third-fourth/ninth-tenth centuries CE. Particular focus is given to the activities of slavers, the networks of professional slave traders, the socio-economics of slave acquisition, and commercial dynamics at slave markets. Much of the discussion draws on the contents of five contemporary papyrus documents that are presented, translated and annotated in the appendix.