Managing Paperwork in Mamluk Cairo - (Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture) by Daisy Livingston (Paperback)

About the Book

Offers the first book-length study of archiving in the Cairo sultanate.

Book Synopsis

Archives are not only sources for history but have their own histories too, which shape how historians can tell stories of the past. This book explores the archival history of one of the most powerful polities of the late-medieval Middle East: the 'Mamluk' sultanate of Cairo. Relying on surviving original documents, it focuses on archival practices connected to waqf, the pious endowments that became one of the characteristic features of late-medieval Islamic societies. By centring a close exploration of documents connected to processes of endowment and property exchange, this book sheds light on a startling culture of document accumulation that was shared by the diverse social groups involved in founding and managing endowments: sultans and emirs, qadis, legal notaries, and scribes. Emphasising the documents' life cycles from production, to preservation, to disposal and loss, it argues for the use of surviving documents to tell their own archival histories.

Review Quotes

The text consists of a bottom-up analysis of archiving methods during the Mamluk period in relation with documents produced for individuals and not by the state administration, which makes it highly original in its approach and its subject. I will be putting it on the bibliography of my course on history of the Mamluk sultanate.--Frédéric Bauden, University of Liège

This book manages superbly both to position the proposed study within the rich and complex literature on the subject and to add carefully presented but extremely important new insights. These will substantially change the way the source corpus of managing paperwork can and will have to be engaged with in the future.--Jo Van Steenbergen, Ghent University.