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

Description

Edited and Translated by Yossef Rapoport and Ido Shahar. Medieval 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. This 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. By opening up this key source to scholars, it will be an indispensable resource for historians of Egypt, of administration and rural life in the premodern world generally, and of the Middle East in particular. Acknowledgements vii Part I. Introduction Editors’ Preface 3 Chapter 1. Author and Work 7 Chapter 2. Decoding the 'Villages of the Fayyum' 13 On the Arabic Edition 23 Glossary of Measures, Weights, and Monetary Units 24 Map of the 'Villages of the Fayyum' 26 Part II. Edition and Translation of the 'Villages of the Fayyum' The First Chapter. A general description of the Fayyum 34 The Second Chapter. Account of the Fayyum’s climate ('mizāj') 36 The Third Chapter. A description of the Fayyum’s air and water 38 The Fourth Chapter. Explaining the continuous flow of its water even when it is not inundated [by the Nile], and without having any river drawn into it or a canal reaching it 41 The Fifth Chapter. Account of the [Fayyum’s] inhabitants and their division into Bedouin and non-tribal people 42 The Sixth Chapter. Account of the deterioration of its canal and the reason for that, and of those villages that have so fallen into ruin that their reconstruction can only be achieved by investing generous sums of money over a long period of time 44 The Seventh Chapter. List of the names of its villages, arranged by the letters of the alphabet for the convenience of anyone consulting it, so as to allow anyone who so wishes to quickly acquaint himself with them 48 The Eighth Chapter. Account of its congregational mosques ('jawāmiʿ'), neighbourhood mosques ('masājid'), monasteries, and churches 53 The Ninth Chapter. Account of its aggregate taxes in specie and in grains, and other taxes 57 The Tenth Chapter. A description of its villages and their fiscal revenues, village by village 62 Bibliography 247 Index of Common Fiscal and Agricultural Terms 253 Index of Villages and Hamlets Described in the 'Villages of the Fayyum' 255 General Index 257