MES Public Talks Seminar given by Dr Lorenzo Bondioli, Junior Research Fellow, Peterhouse, Cambridge
In the eleventh century CE/fifth century AH, the Fatimid Caliphate was the regional hegemon in Southwest Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Fatimids’ powerhouse was Egypt, a region not only among the most fertile and densely populated of the preindustrial world, but also strategically positioned to mediate transit trade between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. The relevance of Fatimid Egypt is further enhanced by the availability of the Cairo Geniza, which affords a quantity and quality of evidence unmatched until Ottoman era archives. Triangulating between Geniza documents, Arabic documents from the Egyptian countryside, and fiscal manuals penned by Fatimid bureaucrats, this talk will chronicle the development of the novel synergy between state and merchants that determined profound transformations in the political economy of Egypt.
| Contact |
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| Dr Assef Ashraf: aa2098@cam.ac.uk |