Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt.

• Author: Malczycki, Matt
• Position: Book review

Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt. Edited by PETRA M. SIJPESTEIJN and LENNART SUNDELIN. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 55. Leiden: BRILL, 2004. Pp. xxi + 270. $180.

Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt is a collection of papers that were presented at the first meeting of the International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) in 2002. One of the goals of the organization is to eradicate the artificial compartmetalization of scholars into different linguistic camps (Arabic, Coptic, Greek) in order to reach more comprehensive conclusions about the history of the eastern Mediterranean in the late Antique and early Islamic periods. Based on the articles in this book, one has to conclude that the society is well on its way toward achieving this primary objective.

Scholars who are unfamiliar with Arabic papyrology will find Lennart Sundelin's "Introduction" a useful description of the state of the art. Here Sundelin recounts the history of the field, assesses its shortcomings, and explains the goals of the ISAP. He also addresses the major criticisms of Arabic papyrology, such as its tendencies towards philological particularism and its consequent inability to make itself relevant to historical research. Although Sundelin does not offer solutions to these criticisms, he docs express sincere confidence that the field will be able to overcome them in the future.

The first article in the book is the late Sarah J. Clackson's "Papyrology and the Utilization of Coptic Sources." In this article, Clackson explains the merits and shortcomings of Coptic papyrology as well as its potential for future research. Of particular interest is her description of how the division of early papyrus finds according to language left the misleading impression that pre-Islamic Egypt was divided into exclusively Coptic and Greek communities. As Clackson demonstrates, this was not the case and there were indeed many people who were just as Hellenistic as they were Egyptian.

The next article is Aha Hanafi's "Two Unpublished Paper Documents and a Papyrus." The two paper documents are amulets that contain Qur'anic verses, and the papyrus records the sale of a mule. The amulets date to the fourth/tenth century while the papyrus dates to 144/761-2. This article is followed by R. G. Khoury's "L'apport specialement important de la papyrologie dans la transmission et la codification des plus anciennes versions des Mille el une nuits et d'autres...