The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. 1: Islamic Egypt, 640-1517.

• Author: Amitai, Reuven
• Position: Reviews of Books

The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. 1: Islamic Egypt, 640-1517. Edited by CARL F. PETRY. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1998. Pp. xx + 645. $120.

There has long been a need for a reasonably comprehensive, but relatively concise history of Islamic Egypt from the Arab conquest ca. 640 A.D. to the modem day; this has now been provided by two volumes under the general editorship of M. W. Daly. The present review focuses on the first volume, edited by Carl Petry, which is devoted to the almost nine hundred years between the conquest and the Ottoman occupation of the country in 1517, a period that can conveniently but anachronistically be called the medieval period. (For the second volume, see the following review.) While this volume provides a fairly detailed narrative survey for the entire time-span in a number of chapters (some more detailed than others), it is more than just a narrative history. Several chapters are thematic and cut across many if not all of the time periods: on the Christian and Jewish communities in Egypt (the former an increasingly smaller minority), monetary history, social history, cultural matters, material culture, and medieval Eg ypt's role in the history of the region and beyond. Only one major complaint can be made about the concept and planning of the volume: I will surely not be the only reader who will wonder how any "History of Egypt" can begin with the Islamic period, since the history of Egypt goes back many hundreds if not thousands of years before c.[subset]Amr b. al-c.[subset]As first entered the country early in A.D. 640. Given the actual scope of the present two-volume work, "The Cambridge History of Islamic Egypt" would have been a more accurate and appropriate title. Actually, a multi-volume project along the lines of The Cambridge History of Iran would have been a preferable way to go, thereby offering scholar, student, and interested layman alike the opportunity to take in the whole scope of Egyptian civilization and history. One regrets that Cambridge University Press was unable or unwilling to take on such a grand project.

Be that as it may, the editor is to be lauded for beginning the volume with two chapters that set the stage for the rest of the book, by discussing the late Roman and Byzantine periods. The first of these, by Robert K. Ritner, harks back to an earlier period and then provides a highly detailed account of the activities of various governors and other notables. In addition, it touches upon the introduction of Christianity to the country. The next chapter, written by Walter E. Kaegi, is less of a narrative account; it gives a good sense of the strengthening of Christianity, the waning of paganism, and perhaps most importantly the tensions in the country in the decades before the Islamic invasion, tensions caused by religious, social, economic, and even linguistic factors. As good as this discussion is, I would have been happy with a more extensive treatment of these matters, so important for understanding the nature of the conquest and subsequent developments. Perhaps the highly detailed rendition of the first c hapter could have been shortened to accommodate such a wider examination. The actual conquest of A.D. 640, many details of which...