Eine Stadtgeschichte Alexandrias von 564/1169 bis in die Mitte des 9./15. Jahrhunderts: Verwaltung und innerstadische Organisationsreformen.

• Author: Behrens-Abousief, Doris

In her introduction the author defines her book as a historically oriented monograph on the city of Alexandria from the beginning the Ayyubid period to the mid-15th century. The choice of this specific period is due to the fact that it included the "unparalleled development" of Alexandria from a flourishing metropolis to a marginal garrison city. The book presents ruling and administrative institutions and their relationship to the central goverment in the capital, on the one hand, and to the population of the city itself, on the other hand. Due to the scarcity of specialized Alexandria chronicles, the author had to collect unevenly scattered information from various sources, which include chronicles, biographical encyclopaediae and documents of investiture.

Following chapter (A), with the introduction and the bibliographical notes, the main part of the book (B) is divided into four sections. The first consists of a synopsis of Alexandria's history during the period in question from the medieval Arabic sources. The next section is concerned with institutions, with chapters dealing respectively with the governor, the qadi, the nazir and the muhtasib before and following the Frankish raid of 1365. The third section deals with the economic history of Alexandria and the fourth with religious institutions. A resume (C) is followed by a list of governors and qadis (D).

In 95 pages the author presents the history of Alexandria during the period in question. This survey, which is intended to give the reader the basic historical information provided by the sources, does not include an analysis of the events recorded. In one case, however (p. 42), the author, referring to the persecutions of Christians after the rebellion of 1327, makes an attempt to interpret the problem of Christian-Muslim relationships, but her explanation does not reach beyond the mere truism that this relationship was problematic at that time. The rebellion of 1327 would have required a more thorough analysis in a study like this.

In the next section the author describes the function of the wali, the governor of Alexandria. Using Qalqashandi's various documents of investiture, she comes to the conclusion that under the Ayyubids the competence of the governor was particularly limited (p. 101).

Muller-Wiener interprets the scarcity of biographical material on the governors of Alexandria during the Ayyubid period and its abundance under the Mamluks as an indication of the fact that...