Rural Economy and Tribal Society in Islamic Egypt: A Study of Al-Nabulusi's Villages of the Fayyum

320 Pages·2018·2.704 MB·English

by  Yossef Rapoport

Rural Economy
and Tribal Society
in Islamic Egypt
THE MEDIEVAL COUNTRYSIDE
General Editor
Phillipp Schofield, Aberystwyth University
Editorial Board
Laurent Feller, Université Paris
Paul Freedman, Yale University
Thomas Lindkvist, Göteborgs universitet
Sigrid Hirbodian, Universität Tübingen
Peter Hoppenbrouwers, Universiteit Leiden
Piotr Gorecki, University of California, Riverside
Sandro Carocci, Università degli Studi di Roma
Julio Escalona, Consejo Superio de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid
Pere Benito i Monclus, Universitat de Lleida
Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book
Volume 19
Rural Economy
and Tribal Society
in Islamic Egypt
A Study of al-Nābulusī’s
Villages of the Fayyum
by
Yossef Rapoport
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
© 2018, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2018/0095/14
ISBN: 978-2-503-57518-6
e-ISBN: 978-2-503-57530-8
DOI: 10.1484/M.TMC-EB.5.112961
Printed in the EU on acid-free paper
To the incomparable G.L.

Contents
List of Illustrations..........................................................ix
Acknowledgements .........................................................xi
Abbreviations ............................................................. xiii
Measures, Weights and Monetary Units....................................xiv
Introduction............................................................... xix
Chapter 1. Al-Nābulusī and the Villages of the Fayyum ........................1
Chapter 2. The Fayyum, from the Ptolemies to the Ayyubids .............. 25
Chapter 3. Land, Water, and People in Ayyubid Fayyum ................... 53
Chapter 4. Subsistence and Tribute ........................................ 75
Chapter 5. Sugar, Orchards, and Markets..................................105
Chapter 6. Landholding and the Regime of Iqṭāʿ........................... 143
Chapter 7. Village and Tribe ..............................................171
Chapter 8. Christians and Muslims........................................205
Chapter 9. The Tribal Conversion of the Fayyum .........................231
Conclusion ................................................................249
Biblio graphy ..............................................................253
Index .....................................................................273

List of Illustrations
Figures
Figure 1. A funerary limewood panel bearing the portrait
of a young man with curly hair. Hawara, ad 80–120. ................ 30
Figure 2. Map of Egypt from Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb Ṣūrat al-Arḍ.
Sixteenth-century copy based on a 1443–44 manu script. ............ 38
Figure 3. Size of tax-free allowances to village officials, in feddans...... 189
Figure 4. Grandfather of Mercurios being attacked by cynocephaloi.
Detail of wall painting from St Anthony Monastery at the
Red Sea, 1232–33............................................... 213
Maps
Map 1. Villages of the Fayyum, 1243 .................................xvi
Map 2. Cultivated areas and major villages ........................... 55
Map 3. Relative village size (based on the Giza dike levy) ............... 71
Map 4. Distribution of land-tax on grains............................. 82
Map 5. Alms-tax on small cattle..................................... 90
Map 6. Permanent and seasonal pasture areas,
by number of grazing animals.................................... 93
Map 7. Network of sugar-cane presses and plantations................ 111
Map 8. Land-tax on flax and on cotton .............................. 120
Map 9. Land-tax on orchards and vineyards ......................... 124
Map 10. Alms-tax on grapes/raisins and dates ....................... 128
Map 11. Tribes and clans .......................................... 177
Map 12. Active churches and monasteries ........................... 207
x list of iLLUSTRATIONS
Tables
Table 1. Villages with largest shares of the Giza dike levy............... 70
Table 2. Fees on grain cultivation, by category ........................ 79
Table 3. Wheat as share of village taxes in grains ...................... 84
Table 4. Alms-tax on heads of livestock, by category ................... 99
Table 5. Sugar-cane presses in the Fayyum, 1243 ..................... 110
Table 6. Wage-labourers (murābiʿūn) and tenants (muzāriʿūn)
on sugar-cane plantations...................................... 113
Table 7. Land-tax on vineyards and alms-tax on grapes/raisins......... 127
Table 8. Revenues of Madinat al-Fayyum, by category................. 134
Table 9. Estimated aggregate tax revenues in the Fayyum,
by fiscal categories ............................................ 138
Table 10. Iqṭāʿ units with highest fiscal value in army dinars
(single village iqṭāʿ units only) .................................. 147
Table 11. Fiscal value of single- and multi-village iqṭāʿ units
in army dinars ................................................ 148
Table 12. Major iqṭāʿ-holders in the Fayyum ......................... 151
Table 13. Arrears and rates of uncollected taxes in kind (select villages) ... 167
Table 14. Arrears and withheld taxes in cash (select villages) .......... 168
Table 15. Tax-free land allowances, by category
(excluding religious institutions and clerics)...................... 188
Table 16. Tax-free allowances to village officials in Sinnūris ........... 191
Table 17. Riders for royal campaigns,
by tribal confederacies and sections ............................. 199
Table 18. Christian population of the Fayyum........................ 209