PHD
“Egypt’s Quiet Sixteenth Century: Transformation and the Production of Knowledge Across the Mamluk-Ottoman Transition”
the Philipps-Universität Marburg / supervisor: Prof. Albrecht Fuess
Egypt’s sixteenth century is one of the least-documented and most poorly understood in its otherwise rich and developed historical record throughout the Islamic period. This is all the more problematic given the importance of the century as Egypt’s transition between the Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire, as well as between the late medieval to early modern periods. Yet while there was some continuity for Egyptian society following the Ottoman Conquest of 923 / 1517, many aspects of social, political, and economic life were disrupted or altered by the takeover. This dissertation seeks to explore the problem of sources and the lacuna in the historical record within the context of the social transformations following the Conquest. Drawing on chronicles and manuscript catalogs, it studies the ways in which the social context contributed to the production of knowledge, especially historical writing, during the late Mamluk period and across the sixteenth and into the seventeenth century. In doing this, it argues that the conditions which facilitated and encouraged the production of knowledge in the late Mamluk period—patronage and inheritances, a vibrant intellectual climate, educationa and religious institutions supported by rich endowments, and proximity to the political center—were transformed by the Ottoman Conquest. The dissertation examines what historical writing is available for the sixteenth century and how the social context of the writers of history changed from the Mamluk period into the Ottoman period. It will also look at the material production of books, as well as the ways in which Cairo’s book, copyist, and paper markets changed across the period in question will also be examined. Finally, it will look ahead to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and connect that more-examined, later period with the lesser understood sixteenth century. Doing this, the dissertation offers an examination into the quietude of that century—a topic about which has been much speculation but little study—and thus offers a clearer view into a critical but obscured moment in Egypt’s otherwise detailed historical past.
MA
“From Farm to Fork: Cairo’s Food Supply and Distribution During the Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517)”
the American university in Cairo / Supervisor: Prof. Leonor Fernandes
The wealth of Cairo’s markets throughout the Mamluk period is well attested in the sources. From roving peddlers to stationary markets, the city’s food supply was a testament to Egypt’s agricultural bounty. This study attempts to understand the food economy that provisioned these food markets. In doing so, Egypt’s agricultural production, its transportation network, distribution system, and Cairo’s markets are discussed with a focus towards understanding both the nature of the many aspects of the Mamluk food economy as well as the changes occurring within it. In providing an overall description of the mechanisms by which the Mamluk food economy functioned, my thesis argues that the structure of the system was an ongoing dialectic between the labor and efforts of the peasants, the activities of the food merchants and sellers, and the contrivances of those with power, especially the Mamluk regime itself. The complexities of this system were not only influenced by the activities of these three groups but were also driven by environmental and geographic factors as well. When all of these factors worked in concert, an intricate, multi-layered system produced the abundance and wealth of Cairo’s markets that were evident for all to see. However, the effects of the plague, starting in the fourteenth century CE, combined with the labor-intensive nature of the Egyptian agricultural and transportation systems disrupted this multiplex system. The agricultural sector being key to the overall Mamluk economy, this breakdown created the conditions from which the agricultural system and, correspondingly, the economy failed to recover.
