Imperial Power, Tribal Settlement and Fiscal Revolts in the Early Islamic Delta (Seventh to Ninth Century <span class='sc'>CE</span>)

doi:10.1017/9781009175166.012

11 - Imperial Power, Tribal Settlement and Fiscal Revolts in the Early Islamic Delta (Seventh to Ninth Century CE)

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2024

Sobhi Bouderbala

Edited by

Katherine Blouin

Show author details

Katherine Blouin: Affiliation:
University of Toronto

Book contents

Get access

Summary

The history of Egypt during the first centuries of Islam comes with a striking paradox. While Upper Egypt, from Fusṭāṭ to Aswan, has received much attention due to the numerous papyri from the region, the Delta is rarely attested in these documents. This is most probably linked to the region’s humid soil, which contributed to the progressive degradation of papyri. Indeed, other than a few private letters written in Alexandria, no papyri from this period have been found in the Delta. Despite this, the Delta occupied a central place in the imperial construction of Islam, especially during the Umayyad period (40/661–132/750): it linked the new capital, Fusṭāṭ, to the Mediterranean and its main cities, was the prime locus of Arab settlement from the second/eighth centuries and was a choice transit space to Syria-Palestine and Cyrenaica. Based on narratives by Egyptian Muslim writers and papyrological documents mentioning the Delta, we can sketch the history of the administrative and fiscal management of this space, to follow the process of tribal settlement in relationship with imperial policies and to analyse the latter’s consequences on the social situation in the Delta at the end of the Umayyad period and in the early Abbasid period.

Keywords

History Egypt Nile Delta Islamic Medieval Administration Settlement

Type: Chapter
Information: The Nile Delta
Histories from Antiquity to the Modern Period
, pp. 397 - 420

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009175166.012 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Primary Sources

Abū Yūsuf, Yaʿqūb. 1979. al-Kharāj. Beirut: Dār al-ma‘rifa.Google Scholar

al-Kindī, and Guest, R. (ed.) 1912. Kitāb al-wulāt wa kitab al-quḍāt. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar

al-Maqrīzī, and Sayyid, A.F. (ed.) 2002. al-Mawā‘iẓ wa al-i‘tibār fī dikr al-khitat wa al-āthār, vol. 1. London: Dār al-furqān.Google Scholar

al-Nuwayrī, and ʿAtiyya, ʿA.S. (ed.) 1968. al-Ilmām bi al-iʿlām fī mā jarat bihi al-al-aḥkām wa al-umūr al-maqḍiyya fī waq‘at al-Iskandariyya, vol. 1. Hyderabad: Dā’irat al-ma‘ārif al-uthmāmiyya.Google Scholar

Ibn ʿAbd, al-Ḥakam and Torrey, C. (ed.) 1922. Futūḥ Miṣr wa akhbāruha. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar

Ibn ʿAsākir, and ‘Ammūrī, S. (ed.) 1995. Tārikh madīnat Dimashq. Beirut: Dār al-fikr.Google Scholar

Ibn, Ḥawqal. 1992. Ṣūrat al-arḍ. Beirut: Dār al-ḥayāt.Google Scholar

Ibn Zūlāq, and ʿUmar, ʿA.M. (ed.) 2000. Fāḍā’il Miṣr. Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī.Google Scholar

Ps. Sawīrus b. al-Muqaffa’, and Evetts, B. (ed. and trans.) 1910. History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria III: Agathon to Michael I (766). Paris: Patrologia Orientalis.Google Scholar

Secondary Sources

Aillet, C. 2011. ‘Introduction’, in Valérian, D. (ed.), Islamisation et arabisant de l’Occident musulman médiéval (VIIe–XIIe siècle), 7–34. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.CrossRef Google Scholar

al-ʿAlī, S.A., and Cahen, C. 1986. ‘ʿArīf’, in Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 1, 629–30.Google Scholar

al-Qāḍī, W. 2008. ‘Population Census and Lands Surveys under the Umayyads’, Der Islam 83: 341–416.CrossRef Google Scholar

Borrut, A. 2010. Entre mémoire et pouvoir: l’espace syrien sous les derniers Omeyyades et les premiers Abbasides (v. 72–193/692–809). Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar

Bouderbala, S. 2008. Ǧund Miṣr: étude de l’administration militaire dans l’Égypte des débuts de l’Islam (21/642–218/833). Paris: University of Paris.Google Scholar

Bouderbala, S. 2014. ‘Les Mawālī à Fusṭāṭ aux deux premiers siècles de l’Islam et leur intégration fiscale’, in Nef, A. and Ardizonne, F. (eds.), Les dynamiques de l’islamisation en Méditerranée centrale et en Sicile: nouvelles propositions et découvertes récentes, 141–51. Roma: École française de Rome.Google Scholar

Bouderbala, S. 2018. ‘Murtaba’ al-jund et manzīl al-qabā’il: pénétration militaire et installation tribale dans la campagne égyptienne aux premiers siècles de l’Islam’, in Delattre, A., Legendre, M. and Sijpesteijn, P. (eds.), Authority and Control in the Countryside. From Antiquity to Islam in the Mediterranean and Near East (Sixth-Tenth Century), 367–91. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar

Bouderbala, S., and Fénina, A. 2020. ‘Fiscalité et pratiques monétaires dans l’Égypte pré-fatimide à la lumière des documents papyrologiques et numismatiques’, in Faucher, T. (ed.), Money Rules! The Monetary Economy of Egypt, from Persians Until the Beginning of Islam, 395–412. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale.Google Scholar

Bruning, J. 2018. The Rise of a Capital: al-Fusṭāṭ and its Hinterland, 18/639–132/750. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar

Crone, P. 1994. ‘Were the Qays and Yemen of the Umayyad Period Political Parties?’ Der Islam 71: 1–57.CrossRef Google Scholar

Décobert, Ch. 1991. Le mendiant et le combattant. L’institution de l’islam. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar

Denoix, S. 1992. Décrire Le Caire: Fusṭāṭ-Miṣr d’après Ibn Duqmāq et Maqrīzī. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale.Google Scholar

Djaït, H. 1986. al-Kūfa: naissance de la ville islamique. Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose.Google Scholar

Ducène, J.-Ch. 2004. ‘Le Delta du Nil dans les cartes d’Ibn Ḥawqāl’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 63(4): 241–56.CrossRef Google Scholar

Dunn, M. 1975. The Struggle for ʿAbbasid Egypt. Ph.D., University of Michigan.Google Scholar

Frantz-Murphy, G. 1986. The Agrarian Administration of Egypt from the Arabs to the Ottomans. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale.Google Scholar

Frantz-Murphy, G. 2001. Arabic Agricultural Leases and Tax Receipts from Egypt 148–427 A.H./765–1035 A.D. Wien: Verlag.Google Scholar

Garcin, J.-Cl. 1980. ‘Pour un recours à l’histoire de l’espace vécu dans l’étude de l’Égypte arabe’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 35(3–4): 436–51.CrossRef Google Scholar

Garcin, J.-Cl. 1987. ‘L’arabisation de l’Égypte’, Revue de l’Occident médiéval et de la Méditerranée 43: 130–7.Google Scholar

Gonis, N. 2004. ‘Another Look at Some Officials in Early ʿAbbāsid Egypt’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 49: 189–195.Google Scholar

Grivaud, G. 2016. ‘Introduction’, in Gelez, Ph. and Grivaud, G. (eds.), Les conversions à l’islam dans en Asie Mineure, dans les Balkans et dans le monde musulman: comparaisons et perspectives, 9–17. Athens: École française d’Athènes.CrossRef Google Scholar

Judd, S. 2010. ‘Medieval Explanations for the Fall of the Umayyads’, in Borrut, A. and Cobb, P. (eds.), Umayyad Legacies. Medieval Memories from Syria to Spain, 89–104. Leiden: Brill.CrossRef Google Scholar

Keiko, O. 2004. ‘The Coptic Church and Coptic Communities in the Reign of al-Ma’mūn’, Japan Society for Middle East Studies 19(2): 89–116.Google Scholar

Kennedy, H. 1995. ‘The Financing of the Military in the Early Islamic State’, in Cameron, A. (ed.), Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, vol. 3: States, Resources and Armies, 361–78. Princeton: The Darwin Press.Google Scholar

Kennedy, H. 1998. ‘Egypt as a Province in the Early Islamic Period’, in Petry, C. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. 1: Islamic Egypt, 642–1517, 34–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Kubiak, W. 1987. al-Fusṭāṭ: Its Foundation and the Early Urban Development. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.Google Scholar

Kunderewicz, C. 1962. ‘Les topotérètes dans les novelles de Justinien et dans l’Égypte byzantine’, Journal of Juristic Papyrology 14: 33–50.Google Scholar

Legendre, M. 2014. Pouvoir et territoire. L’administration islamique dans l’Égypte pré-ṭūlūnide (642–868). Leiden: University of Leiden.Google Scholar

Lev, Y. 2012. ‘Coptic Rebellions and the Islamization of Medieval Egypt (8th–10th Century): Medieval and Modern Perceptions’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 39: 303–44.Google Scholar

Morelli, F. 2010. ‘Consiglieri e comandanti: I titolo del governatore arabo d’Egitto symboulos e amîr’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 173: 158–66.Google Scholar

Morimoto, K. 1981. The Fiscal Administration of Egypt in the Early Islamic Period. Dohosa: Asian Historical Monographs 1.Google Scholar

Nef, A. 2016. ‘Conversion et islamisation: quelques réflexions depuis les VIIe/Xe siècles’, in Gelez, Ph. and Grivaud, G. (eds.), Les conversions à l’islam en Asie Mineure, dans les Balkans et dans le monde musulman: comparaisons et perspectives, 229–64. Athens: École française d’Athènes.Google Scholar

Noth, A. 1973. ‘Zum Verhältnis von kalifaler Zentralgewalt und Provinzen in umayyadischer Zeit: Die “Sulh-‘anwa Traditionen für Ägypten und den Iraq’, Die Welt des Islam 14: 150–62.Google Scholar

Ragib, Y. 1997. ‘Sauf-conduits d’époque omeyyade et abbaside’, Annales Islamologiques 3: 143–68.Google Scholar

Rodziewicz, M. 1998. ‘Transformation of Ancient Alexandria into a Medieval City’, in Gayraud, R.-P. (ed.), Colloque international d’archéologie islamique, 369–86. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale.Google Scholar

Sijpesteijn, P. 2004. ‘Travel and Trade on the River’, in Sijpesteijn, P. and Sundelin, L. (eds.), Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt, 115–52. Leiden: Brill.CrossRef Google Scholar

Sijpesteijn, P. 2009. ‘Landholding Patterns in Early Islamic Egypt’, Journal of Agrarian Change 9(1): 120–33.CrossRef Google Scholar

Sijpesteijn, P. 2012. ‘Amr’, in Bagnall, R.S., Brodersen, K., Champion, C.B., Erskine, A. and Huebner, S.R. (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah12010.Google Scholar

Sijpesteijn, P. 2013. Shaping a Muslim State. The World of a Mid-Eighth-Century Egyptian Official. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Silverstein, A. 2007. The Postal System in the Pre-Modern Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Sundelin, L. 2004. ‘Introduction’, in Sundelin, L. and Sijpesteijn, P. (eds.), Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt, 1–19. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar

Tillier, M. 2011. ‘Scribes et enquêteurs. Notes sur le personnel judiciaires en Égypte aux quatre premiers siècles de l’Islam’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 54: 370–404.CrossRef Google Scholar

Tillier, M. 2017. L’invention du cadi: la justice des musulmans, des juifs et des chrétiens aux premiers siècles de l’Islam. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.CrossRef Google Scholar

Tkaczow, B. 2013. ‘Historical Topography of Ancient Alexandria’, Études et travaux XXVI: 686–97.Google Scholar

Trombley, F. 2004. ‘Sawīrus b. al-Muqaffa’ and the History of the Christians of Umayyad Egypt: War and Society in Documentary Context’, in Sundelin, L. and Sijpesteijn, P. (eds.), Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt, 199–226. Leiden: Brill.CrossRef Google Scholar

Vanthiegem, N. 2014. ‘Le plus ancien sauf-conduit arabe’, Der Islam 91: 266–71.Google Scholar

Younes, Kh. 2018, ‘New Governors Identified in Arabic Papyri’, in Delattre, A., Legendre, M. and Sijpesteijn, P. (eds.), Authority and Control in the Countryside. From Antiquity to Islam in the Mediterranean and Near East (Sixth–Tenth Century), 13–43. Leiden: BrillGoogle Scholar

Zychowicz-Coghill, E. 2021. The First Arabic Annals: Fragments of Umayyad History. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRef Google Scholar