Fustat

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.

קהילת "אלשאמיין", היא קהילת בני ארץ ישראל בפוסטאט, ראתה ברס"ג את אביה הרוחני, אך לא ידוע היה למה. במאמר זה נחשפת דרכו של רבי מצליח גאון, אחד ממנהיגי הקהילה שגלה אליה מדמשק והקים בה את ישיבת "גאון יעקב" ונהג את נשיאותו ברמה. מתברר שהוא ראה עצמו כממשיכו של רס"ג, עד שאת דרשותיו ביסס על ציטוטים מעובדים של דברי רס"ג, בתוספת פתיחות וסיומים.
המאמר מלווה בבירור מקיף אודות קשרים אלו ואודות זהותו של אחד מאנשי הקשר החשובים בפרשה: רבי זכאי, הסופר ואולי גם הדיין. בשלב זה מוהדרת גם דרשתו של רבי מצליח לעשרת הדברות, שכפי הנראה נאמרה בחג השבועות. אף היא מבוססת על דרשתו של רס"ג לחג השבועות.

This paper examines previous scholarship on the houses of Fusṭāṭ. Drawing on critiques from British vernacular  architecture studies, I propose that a lack of critical reflection on (often implicit) explanatory notions in the scholarship needs to be addressed, moving towards a social interpretation of domestic space.

Joseph b. Isaac Sambari (1640–1703 CE), in his description of various synagogues in Cairo and Fusṭāṭ, based himself in part on account authored by Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī (1364–1442 CE) more than two centuries earlier. How strong, however, was his fealty to this source? Comparison of the two texts in regard to the same set of synagogues reveals near-identity in some cases, omissions in others, and expansions in yet others. By implication, while Sambari is indebted to al-Maqrīzī, his account is very much his own and he is less indebted to al-Maqrīzī than previous scholars suggest.

corrigenda

40n7: × "For Chinese Blue-and-White porcelain examples unearthed from Syria..."
→  ○ "For the local copies of Chinese Blue-and-White unearthed from Syria"




In the memory of Dr. Yoko Shindo (1960–2018)
http://www.j-orient.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/orient-e_52.pdf

Article accepted in November 2016, published in March 2017

39th Award for Young Scholars, 2017, The Society for Near Eastern
Studies in Japan
http://www.j-orient.com/prize/第39回（平成29年度）奨励賞受賞者（平成29年10月28日授/

本論文は一般社団法人日本オリエント学会に版権があり、正規の電子版はJ-STAGE上で公開されます。

T he article presents one group of Islamic vases in the Col- lection of the Byzantine and Christian Museum, which are dated to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The most impressive piece is the bowl inv. no. BXM 23450 (Figs 1 and 2), which was formerly in the possession of the Armenian collector Dikran Kelekian. Decorating the bottom of the bowl, on a coat of white slip, are rotating fish painted in white as if in relief. The bowl belongs to a category of ce- ramics of Sultanaban type, a name linked with the homony- mous city in Persia. Modern research attributes Sultanabad ware to workshops in Kashan, during the period of domina- tion of the Mongol Ilhanid rulers, who in the mid-thirteenth century conquered territories in Iran, Asia Minor and Iraq. The Iranian vases were traded in the markets of Egypt and Syria during the period of domination by Mamluk officials and had a considerable influence on local ceramic produc- tion, mainly of the first half of the fourteenth century, which was in vogue. The diffusion of the style of Iranian ceramics is exemplified by three sherds donated by Antonis Benakis to the Byzantine and Christian Museum, and which are possi- bly products of Egyptian workshops. They belong to the technique of painted pottery with deep blue and black deco- ration under a transparent glaze, in the Panel Style (with ra- diate panels on the bottom), and are dated in the fourteenth century (Figs 3 and 4).
In the period of the military oligarchy of Mamluk officials
(1250-1517), large quantities of ceramics with incised or sgraffito decoration, alluding to creations in metalwork, were produced in Egypt. Fragments of sgraffito vases have been found in abundance in excavations at Fustat, which are represented in the Byzantine Museum and are dated to the fourteenth century. Predominant in the decoration of Mam- luk sgraffito vases are inscriptions (Figs 6, 8, 9 and 10), fre- quently combined with emblems-coats of arms (Fig. 10), while pictorial decoration is rather restricted. It should be noted that in the insignia of high-rank and low-rank officials, as also in the inscriptions with honorary titles, the strict or- ganization of the Mamluk State and the court’s insistence on social order and hierarchy are expressed. In the fifteenth- century Egyptian workshops, production of sgraffito vases gradually waned and was finally abandoned, whereas, on the contrary, the production of ceramics with under-glaze deep blue or black painted designs continued, examples of which are preserved in the Museum (Figs 15 and 16). Vases with the signatures of the Egyptian potters Gazal (Figs 16-18) and possibly the well-known Gaibi are included in the Museum’s collection (Figs 19 and 20). Obvious in this group is the influence of Chinese porcelain painted in cobalt blue, of the Yuan (1279-1368) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties, which was imported to the Islamic world. Ceramics of this type en- joyed wide dissemination throughout the Mediterranean Basin.

A distinguishing feature of Jewish communities past and present from other religious systems is the degree of importance placed upon supporting poverty stricken individuals. From the biblical injunction to give a portion of every third harvest as "Ma'aser Ani” (the poor tithe) to the modern programs of the United Jewish Federation, we find that Jewish communities place great emphasis on providing for at least some of the needs of the poor. A larger discussion of the origins of Jewish charity from biblical times to the modern era is still unwritten.  What is less well known, but beginning to draw the attention of scholars, is how these post Temple-era practices developed in various diaspora communities.
In this paper we will seek to answer the question of how we find the Jewish community of Fatimid and Ayyubid Fustat taking care of its poor in light of the Geniza documents. How might the system put in place via the Qodesh and mezonot differ from halakhic  ideals as expressed by Fustat’s greatest scholar, Moses Maimonides (who was appointed Nagid (nominal head of the community) from 1171 CE until his death in 1204 CE)? Finally, we will ask if this tapestry of fundraising and distribution schemes for communal based welfare function to form a political institution? To answer this question we must first set out to determine what parameters define this community: who were its constituencies, how did the community function, and who held religio-political authority? Furthermore, we will discuss how these characteristics led to the rise of such institutions?

The domestic architecture of Fusṭāṭ, Egypt’s first capital under Muslim rule, has been revealed through various large-scale archaeological excavations over the preceding century. The archaeological remains represent an exceptional resource for understanding urbanism and daily life in one of the foremost cities of the early Islamic world.

This thesis explores the potential use and meaning of domestic space in the excavated houses of Fusṭāṭ. An assessment of previous scholarship on the houses reveals that their form has principally been understood as a style of architecture imported to Egypt by foreign élites. While certain assumptions about life in the houses have been made based on generalised notions of the traditional ‘Arab house’, there has been little critical consideration of the activities and agency of inhabitants by archaeologists. This study therefore aims to re-interpret the architecture in terms of how inhabitants conceptualised and used the space.

Fusṭāṭ represents a highly problematic dataset due the circumstances of its excavation and recording, its vast size and longevity, and the extent of modern depredation to archaeological remains. Thus, the potential of a range of archaeological approaches to the social interpretation of architectural space is assessed, considering the limitations of the available data. The analytical approach taken consists of exploratory spatial analysis of archaeological features across two of the excavated areas. These spatial patterns are considered in light of the evidence for daily life and domestic architecture from the Cairo Geniza, the collection of documents from the city’s medieval Jewish community.

A Cosmopolitan City: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Old Cairo. Ed. T. Vorderstrasse and T. Treptow, pp. 27–31, with contributions to catalog nos. 2–8 on pp. 117–29. Oriental Institute Museum Publications 38. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2015.