I note the presence of a fabulous new website devoted to the history of the Fayyum.
Rural society in Medieval Islam: ‘History of the Fayyum’
The ‘History of the Fayyum’ is a unique tax register, in Arabic, listing revenues from 130 villages and hamlets in one Egyptian province for AD 1245. It is the most detailed tax survey to have survived from any region of the medieval Islamic world, a Domesday Book for the medieval Egyptian countryside.
This website offers the tools for a quantitative and qualitative micro-study of society, economy, and agriculture of medieval Fayyum. It gives access to:
* Full fiscal and demographic data set, presented in 17 Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets.
* Spatial representation of the data, presented in 14 Geographical Information System (GIS) maps.
* Extracts from the English translation and Arabic edition of the work.
It also includes resources for teaching the rural history of the Middle East, and a forum area for postings on the history of the Fayyum (available from September 2011).
The website is part of the ‘Rural Society in Medieval Islam’ project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, and based at the School of History, Queen Mary University of London.
About the Project
The project aims to make a major contribution to the knowledge and understanding of pre-modern rural societies in the Islamic world. It offers a translation and study of the ‘History of the Fayyum’, a unique and unparalleled tax register from a 13th-century Egyptian province, and the most detailed tax survey to have survived from any region of the medieval Islamic world.
The detailed tax survey, covering about 200 fiscal, agricultural and demographic categories for about 130 villages, is a rare window into the history of the medieval Middle Eastern countryside, the Islamization of rural communities, their tribal and sedentary identity, and their relations with land holders and with state officials.
This website offers the tools for a micro-study of the social, economic and demographic realities of the medieval Fayyum. It contains an expansive database that brings together the entire fiscal, demographic and geographic information contained in the ‘History of the Fayyum’. We aim to provide researchers in a variety of disciplines (History, Archaeology, Economics, and Geography) with direct access to the data. We hope that the use of this database will break new ground in the social and economic history of Egypt in particular, and the medieval Islamic world in general.
We also present here historical and geographical information about the Fayyum; about the work and its author; extracts from the English translation of the work along with the Arabic original; and the database. The database is presented as several excel spreadsheets, accompanied by explanatory notes, and GIS generated maps. A selected bibliography and links provide further information.