Mathew Barber, Research and Data Visualisation Consultation, KITAB team, AKU-ISMC London
Historians of the Mamluk period are often indispensable and unique witnesses to Fatimid history. In any work on the Fatimids, one will find references to historians such as Ibn Muyassar (d. 677/1268), al-Nuwayrī (d. 733/1333) and al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442). However, we too often take these historians’ knowledge of the Fatimid period for granted. The fact is these scholars were writing about Fatimid history from a much later perspective, influenced by the concerns of their own times.
Abstract: This paper, therefore, proposes to investigate the manner in which later historians made use of and organised Fatimid history. I will focus on the historiography of the period 450-515/1058-1121, studying a corpus of histories using digital methods (crucially, text reuse analysis alongside topical and structural analyses). Particular attention will be paid to the great crisis of the period (often termed the Shidda) that resulted in the appointment of the Fatimids’ first vizier from a military background, Badr al-Jamālī (r. 467-487/1078-1094), which is often seen as a major turning point. These events were evidently of importance to authors writing in the Mamluk period, as moments that defined the history of Cairo and Egypt and which resonated with the crises of later times. It is my hypothesis that the manner in which the history of this period has been told has been partly shaped by Mamluk re-reading and repackaging of Fatimid historiography. This is seen, in particular, in the contrast that has been drawn between the viziers of the pen and the viziers of the sword.
