From Bāwīṭ to Marw: Documents from the Medieval Muslim World

The dry climate of Egypt has preserved about 130,000 Arabic documents, mostly on papyrus and paper, covering the period from the 640s to 1517. Up to now, historical research has mostly relied on literary sources; yet, as in study of the history of the Ancient World and medieval Europe, using original documents will radically challenge what literary sources tell us about the Islamic world.

The renaissance of Arabic papyrology has become obvious by the founding of the International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) at the Cairo conference (2002), and by its subsequent conferences in Granada (2004), Alexandria (2006), Vienna (2009), and Tunis (2012). This volume collects papers given at the Vienna conference (2009) of the International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP), including editions of previously unpublished Coptic and Arabic documents, and historical and linguistic studies based on documentary evidence from Early Islamic Egypt. Potential readers include everyone interested in the documentary evidence of the Islamic World, Arabic and Coptic papyrology, monasticism, agriculture of the Nile Valley, Early Islamic administration, and Arabic astronomy.