The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue

Marina Rustow

Published by Princeton University Press 2020

The Lost Archive

Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue

Marina Rustow

Volume 63 in the series Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691189529

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book is an investigation into the robust culture of written documentation in the Middle East of medieval times, based on a close examination of examples of Arabic-language official decrees, memoranda, orders, accounts, registers, receipts and other written artifacts that have been retrieved from the Cairo Geniza.

The lost archive of the Fatimid caliphate (909–1171) survived in an unexpected place: the storage room, or geniza, of a synagogue in Cairo, recycled as scrap paper and deposited there by medieval Jews. Marina Rustow tells the story of this extraordinary find, inviting us to reconsider the longstanding but mistaken consensus that before 1500 the dynasties of the Islamic Middle East produced few documents, and preserved even fewer.

Beginning with government documents before the Fatimids and paper’s westward spread across Asia, Rustow reveals a millennial tradition of state record keeping whose very continuities suggest the strength of Middle Eastern institutions, not their weakness. Tracing the complex routes by which Arabic documents made their way from Fatimid palace officials to Jewish scribes, the book provides a rare window onto a robust culture of documentation and archiving not only comparable to that of medieval Europe, but, in many cases, surpassing it. Above all, Rustow argues that the problem of archives in the medieval Middle East lies not with the region’s administrative culture, but with our failure to understand preindustrial documentary ecology.

Illustrated with stunning examples from the Cairo Geniza, this compelling book advances our understanding of documents as physical artifacts, showing how the records of the Fatimid caliphate, once recovered, deciphered, and studied, can help change our thinking about the medieval Islamicate world and about premodern polities more broadly.

Author / Editor information

Marina Rustow is the Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East and professor of Near Eastern studies and history at Princeton University. She is director of the Princeton Geniza Lab and a MacArthur fellow, and is the author of Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate.

Reviews

“There are few books like this one that take the reader on such a long-distance journey across centuries and writing systems. The Lost Archive is a veritable magnum opus that will remain a point of reference for decades to come.”—Konrad Hirschler, Freie Universität Berlin

“With great historiographical skill, Rustow brings new insights into the history of the medieval Middle East through a holistic analysis of the surviving state documents of the Fatimid dynasty. This is a splendid book.”—Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Technical Note Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: Middle East History’s Archive Problem Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
I. Source Survival
1. The Geniza: Blind Spots and Cataclysms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
2. The Storage Capacity of State Power Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
3. The Corpus: Its Shape and Coherence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
II. Chancery Practice
4. Paper: The Search for a Sustainable Support Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
5. Layout: Early Arabic Chancery Norms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
6. Script: The Impact of the Abbasid East Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	160
7. Imperial Norms: The Abbasid Chancery Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
8. The Fatimid Petition-and- Response Procedure Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
III. The Ecology of the Documents
9. Supply: A Proliferation of Decrees Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
10. Administrative Manuals and Nonmanuals Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	274
11. The Source: The Chancery Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	296
12. Copying, Storage, and Dissemination Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319
13. The Probative Value of Documents: Archiving and Registration Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	343
Appendix to Chapter 13: Fatimid ʿAlāʾim and Registration Marks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	368
IV. The Problem of Archives
14. The Rotulus as an Instrument of Performance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	381
15. The Ontological Status of the Decree Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	402
16. Archives, Documents, and the Persistence of “Despotism” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	424
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	451
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	529
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	535
Subject Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	577
Index of Manuscripts with Shelfmarks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	589
Photo Credits and Permissions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	597