The Villages of the Fayyum: A Thirteenth-Century Register of Rural, Islamic Egypt.

• Author: Varisco, Daniel M.
• Position: Rural Economy and Tribal Society in Islamic Egypt: A Study of al-Nabulsi's Villages of the Fayyum

The Villages of the Fayyum: A Thirteenth-Century Register of Rural, Islamic Egypt. Edited and translated by YOSSEF RAPOPORT and IDO SHAHAR. The Medieval Countryside, vol. 18. Turnhout: BREPOLS, 2018. Pp. viii + 260. [euro]90.

Rural Economy and Tribal Society in Islamic Egypt: A Study of al-Nabulsi's Villages of the Fayyum. By YOSSEF RAPOPORT. The Medieval Countryside, vol. 19. Turnhout: BREPOLS, 2018. Pp. xxix + 285. [euro]110.

This two-volume set is devoted to the study of a mid-thirteenth-century Egyptian tax treatise by Abu 'Amr 'Uthman b. Ibrahim b. Khalid al-Qurashi, known as Ibn al-Nabulsi (d. 660/1262). The first volume is an updated edition and English translation. The two editors acknowledge the support of a wide variety of historians, archaeologists, papyrologists, and GIS specialists in producing the final product. The title of the text is izhar ?an'at al-?ayy al-qayyum fi tartib bilad al-Fayyum, written around 1246 CE. An earlier Arabic edition was published in 1898 by Bernhard Moritz. This new edition combines a copy of the fifteenth-century manuscript, now lost, used by Moritz, along with a mid-sixteenth-century manuscript in the Ayasofya, with the editors noting that the Moritz copy has fewer errors. The brief introduction in the first volume discusses the author and his work, which is summarized in five sections: the village; taxes and fees; allowances, advances and credit; details on surgarcane; and, adhoc levies. A glossary of the major terms for measures, weights, and monetary units is provided along with a detailed map of the Fayyum settlements mentioned in the text.

The bulk of the first volume is the edition and annotated translation, facing each other respectively on each page. There are ten chapters in the text, the first six being relatively short. The first is a general description of the Fayyum with a focus on the irrigation system in place. The second chapter discusses the climate and the author's low opinion of the local inhabitants, followed by a chapter on the bad quality of water in the Fayyum. Chapter four examines the offtakes from the main canal and the dam at al-Lahun, with a history of the canal given in chapter six. Of particular interest is chapter five, which describes the "Arab tribal" groups located in the Fayyum at the author's time; the three main confederacies are noted as Banu Kilab, Banu 'Ajlan, and al-Lawatiyyun. Chapters seven and eight list the names of villages and mosques in the Fayyum...