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A Case of Labor Problems in Medieval Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Norman A. Stillman
Norman A. Stillman
Affiliation:
New York Universty
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Extract

Labor problems were no less a reality to big business in the medieval Islamic world than they are today. Where competition was keen and skilled laborers in limited supply, workmen could demand to receive their pay on schedule or, indeed, even demand higher wages from their employer on a par or above those paid by his competitors.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1974 , pp. 194 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 194 note 1 Long staple cotton was introduced into Egypt in 1820.Google Scholar

page 194 note 2 On the medieval Egyptian flax trade, cf. Goitein, S. D., A Mediterranean Society, vol. I (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967).Google Scholar

page 194 note 3 Singer, Charles et al. , A History of Technology, vol. II (London, 1956), p. 195.Google Scholar Egypt was already a great flax-producing nation long before classical times. It is revealing that the biblical Hebrew word for byssos or fine linen, shêsh, was apparently an Egyptian loanword. Cf Brown, F., Driver, S. R., and Briggs, C. A., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1962), p. 1058b.Google Scholar

page 194 note 4 The eleventh-century writer Abu 'l-Fadl al-Dimashqî in his mercantile handbook gives the various steps in flax processing all the way to the finished product. Cf. al-Dimashqî, , Ishâra ilâ Malidsin al-Tijâra (Cairo, 1318 a.h.), p. 4.Google ScholarCf. also Singer, et al. History of Technology, vol. II, p. 195.Google Scholar

page 195 note 1 For a detailed survey of the commercial operations of 'Awkal, Ibn cf. my article ‘The Eleventh Century Merchant House of Ibn 'Awkal,’ JESHO 16, part 1 (1973), pp. 1–18.Google Scholar An article on Ibn ';Awkal's role in the Jewish community is near completion.

page 195 note 2 For example, he is the writer of Bodl. MS Heb. c 27, f. 82 (Cat. 2835, no. 44). His name also occurs in an account statement for Ibn 'Awkal –Bodi. MS Heb. d 65 (Cat. 2877), 1. 23. The text of the latter is edited by Goitein, Tarbiz, 37 (January 1968), pp. 180–1.Google Scholar

page 195 note 3 Ibn 'Awkal does not seem to have been involved in the flax business before this time. The flax industry seems to have had a sudden efflorescence in the third decade of the eleventh century. It is not until at least this time that flax appears in the correspondence of another great business house of the period, that of the Tahertîs of Qayrawan. This may reflect a rise in the consumption and demand in the Muslim West due to increased trade relations with the Italians.Google Scholar

page 196 note 1 Not only was the madder harvested and hatcheled together with the flax, but it was even packed in the same bales (cf. the two letters below).Google Scholar

page 196 note 2 DK 13 (Kaufmann, David Collection, Budapest), ed. Goiten, S. D., Tarbiz, 37 (10 1967), pp. 64–70;Google Scholar translated in Stillman, N. A., East–West Relations in the Islamic Mediterranean in the Early Eleventh Century (unpublished doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1970), pp. 267–75.Google Scholar

page 196 note 3 Goitein, , Tarbiz, 37 (10 1967), p. 57, notes.Google Scholar

page 196 note 4 More than fifty items from the first four decades of the eleventh century.Google Scholar

page 196 note 5 ‘Youth’ or ‘young man’ (Ar. Sabî) does not denote age but rather social standing, and indicates that a person is in the service of another. Concerning this and other terms for employees, cf. Goitein, , Med. Soc. vol. I, p. 93.Google Scholar

page 196 note 6 Ibn Zakâriyyâ' is the author of TS 13J 17, f. 11, and is mentioned in Bodl. MS Heb. d 47, f. 62 (Cat. 2699, no. 25). Both are edited by Goitein, , Tarbiz, 36 (07 1967), pp. 387–8 and 382–2, respectively.Google ScholarBoth are translated in Stillman, East–West Relations, pp. 316–18 and 323–6, respectively.Google Scholar

page 196 note 7 This son of the powerful Tahertî family (cf. p. 195 n. 3) is mentioned in two letters as being involved in a rather unpleasant dispute with Ibn ′Awkal. TS 13J36, f. I, ed. Goitein, Tarbiz, 34 (January 1964), pp. 175–178,Google Scholar and Bodl. MS Heb. d 65, f. 9, ed. Assaf, S., J. N. Epstein Jubilee Volume (Jerusalem, 1950), pp. 179–81.Google Scholar Both are translated in Stillman, East–West Relations, pp. 198–204 and 208–13, respectively.Google Scholar

page 197 note 1 Muthallath: literally ‘triangle cloth’, or perhaps ‘cloth with three threads of a different type’. According to al-Muqaddasî, , Ahsân al-Taqâsim fâ Ma'rfat al-Aqâlîm, ed. Goeje, De (Leiden, 1906), p. 203, 1.Google Scholar 8, it is one of the special products of Egypt. The word also appears in zajal 103 of the Spanish poet Ibn Quzmân, where, as in this case, it was for a pair of trousers. (I owe this last piece of information to the late S. M. Stem.)

page 197 note 2 Lopez, R. S. and Raymond, I. W., Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World (New York, n.d.), p. 378.Google Scholar