A compelling look at the Fatimid caliphate's robust culture of documentation The lost archive of the Fatimid caliphate (909-1171) survived in an unexpected place: the storage room, or geniza, of a synagogue in Cairo, recycled as scrap paper and deposited there by medieval Jews. Marina Rustow tells the story of this extraordinary find, inviting us to reconsider the longstanding but mistaken consensus that before 1500 the dynasties of the Islamic Middle East produced few documents, and preserved even fewer. Beginning with ...
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A compelling look at the Fatimid caliphate's robust culture of documentation The lost archive of the Fatimid caliphate (909-1171) survived in an unexpected place: the storage room, or geniza, of a synagogue in Cairo, recycled as scrap paper and deposited there by medieval Jews. Marina Rustow tells the story of this extraordinary find, inviting us to reconsider the longstanding but mistaken consensus that before 1500 the dynasties of the Islamic Middle East produced few documents, and preserved even fewer. Beginning with government documents before the Fatimids and paper's westward spread across Asia, Rustow reveals a millennial tradition of state record keeping whose very continuities suggest the strength of Middle Eastern institutions, not their weakness. Tracing the complex routes by which Arabic documents made their way from Fatimid palace officials to Jewish scribes, the book provides a rare window onto a robust culture of documentation and archiving not only comparable to that of medieval Europe, but, in many cases, surpassing it. Above all, Rustow argues that the problem of archives in the medieval Middle East lies not with the region's administrative culture, but with our failure to understand preindustrial documentary ecology. Illustrated with stunning examples from the Cairo Geniza, this compelling book advances our understanding of documents as physical artifacts, showing how the records of the Fatimid caliphate, once recovered, deciphered, and studied, can help change our thinking about the medieval Islamicate world and about premodern polities more broadly.
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Add this copy of Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo to cart. $13.95, good condition, Sold by Friends Fort Bragg Library rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from fort bragg, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2020 by Princeton University Press.
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Good in good dust jacket. 598 p. Contains: Illustrations. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern, 63. Fading to lower portion of front board. Dent to upper edge of front board. Smudges to upper and lower text edges. Book otherwise clean and unmarked with tight binding. DJ is edge worn with a tear at tail of spine.
Add this copy of The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo to cart. $43.92, like new condition, Sold by BooksRun rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Philadelphia, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2020 by Princeton University Press.
Add this copy of The Lost Archive to cart. $57.01, new condition, Sold by Paperbackshop rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bensenville, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2020 by Princeton University Press.
Add this copy of The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo to cart. $61.15, new condition, Sold by Ria Christie Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2020 by Princeton University Press.
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