Download PDF | (Islamic History and Civilization, 153) Jelle Bruning - The Rise of a Capital_ Al-Fusṭāṭ and Its Hinterland, 18/639-132/750-Brill (2018).
232 Pages
Introductio
In the late-270s/880s, a scholar named Aḥmad b. Abī Yaʿqūb (d. 292/905 or later), better known as al-Yaʿqūbī, writes a geography after years of extensive travelling. In order to connect the various parts of the world he treats in his book, he describes itineraries, some of which he may have used himself during his long journeys.2 One such is an itinerary from Palestine to his current domicile, Egypt. Al-Fusṭāṭ, a flourishing town located at the southern end of the Nile delta, is the eighth stop on Egyptian soil which he mentions. In contrast to the towns that precede, however, there is reason to pay al-Fusṭāṭ special attention.
Al-Yaʿqūbī writes: ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ built its congregational mosque and its gubernatorial office, known as Dār al-Raml. East of the Nile, he set up markets around the mosque and gave each tribe [that had participated in the conquest of Egypt] a watch tower and an official who distributed military pay. West of the Nile, he built the fortress of al-Jīza, made it a fortification for the Muslims, and stationed a garrison there.3
It is not al-Yaʿqūbī’s intention to describe al-Fusṭāṭ’s foundation in the early-20s/640s; his geography is a work on the world of his time. Al-Yaʿqūbī’s reference to the building of a congregational mosque and gubernatorial office as
well as to the setting up of commercial, military, and administrative infrastructures is meant to tell his readership that in Egypt official authority radiates from
this town.4 Al-Fusṭāṭ’s centrality, he has his readers believe, can be traced back
to the very period of the town’s establishment. There is no need for details. He
provides on purpose only the information absolutely necessary to make this
point. ‘Scholars’, he writes opportunistically in the introduction to his geography, ‘usually refer […] to an abridged version of a certain book. Therefore, we
wrote our book in the form of an abridgement.’5 But as summier as his words
may be, and regardless of their exact historical value, al-Yaʿqūbī powerfully captures, in general terms, the enormous efforts that went into the establishment
of a provincial capital in an area that lacked the desired commercial, military,
and administrative amenities.
1 Studying al-Fusṭāṭ and Its Hinterland
This book studies to what extent al-Fusṭāṭ functioned or was perceived as a
provincial capital by looking at the development of the role the town played
in the province during the first century after its foundation, that is, from the
alleged beginning of the Muslim conquest of the province in 18/639 until the
establishment of Abbasid rule in 132/750. Whereas al-Yaʿqūbī ascribes, without
much nuancing, the foundation of al-Fusṭāṭ to the famous general ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ
(d. prob. 43/664), historians of the late-first/seventh century and later present
a wide variety of details of, and opinions about, events that surrounded the
establishment of the town. By and large, they claim that ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ led an
army into Egyptian territory in late-18/639. This army pursued its conquest in
the eastern Nile delta; major battles allegedly took place at al-Faramā (Pelusion), Umm Dunayn (Tendunias), and ʿAyn Shams (Heliopolis). After a siege
of reportedly seven months and the arrival of a large group of reinforcements,
ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ succeeded in conquering the fortress, or fortified town, Qaṣr alShamʿ (Babylon) at the apex of the Nile delta in the spring of 20/641.6 With
further conquests ahead, the Muslims are said to have set up a semi-permanent
camp in the unoccupied territory around Qaṣr al-Shamʿ.7 From this camp, our
sources hold, the Muslims continued their campaigns in the western Nile delta
and in Upper Egypt throughout the succeeding months, culminating in their
victory over the Byzantine army in Alexandria in late-20/641 or 21/642.8 The
Muslims maintained their camp and turned it into a garrison town, named alFusṭāṭ (Babylon/to Fossaton),9 after they succeeded in subjecting most of Egypt
to their rule
Even though we cannot take Muslim and non-Muslim historiography of the
first/seventh and succeeding centuries at face value,10 Qaṣr al-Shamʿ’s strategic location doubtlessly influenced the Muslims’ choice for the location of
their camp and future capital.11 The fortress enclosed the mouth of the siltedup Potamos Traianos, a canal that connected the Nile with the Red Sea near
al-Qulzum (Clysma) and was re-excavated in the first years after the Muslim
conquest and came to be known as Khalīj amīr al-muʾminīn, ‘Canal of the Commander of the Faithful’.12 Further, the two pontoon bridges that connected Qaṣr
al-Shamʿ with the Nile’s west bank allowed for strict control over fluvial traffic
between the Nile delta and valley.13 Hence, this site could draw on a rich agricultural hinterland that would supply al-Fusṭāṭ with food and other products.
A small number of fiscal documents dating from the turn of the first/seventh
century indicate that taxes levied in the fortress’s direct hinterland were indeed
sent to Qaṣr al-Shamʿ.14
But beside a strategic location, al-Fusṭāṭ inherited little from Qaṣr al-Shamʿ.
The fortress is not known to have had strong enough ties with the rest of
Egypt in order to provide al-Fusṭāṭ with an immediate central role in, e.g., the
province’s administration or economy.15 The just-mentioned fiscal documents
suggest a certain but undefined and probably geographically limited role in
the collection of taxes. The existence of a bishop of Babylon since the A.D.
mid-fifth century likewise attests that the fortress possessed some local, but
not regional or provincial, centrality.16 The little information on the fortress
that exists for the half century that preceded the Muslim conquests further
indicates that it was a strategically-located military stronghold17 and that the
fortress was a regular stop on itineraries, probably a toll point.18 Consequently,
and withstanding al-Yaʿqūbī’s reference to the setting up of various infrastructures, al-Fusṭāṭ acquired its role as provincial capital virtually ex novo.19 In order
to understand how and under which circumstances al-Fusṭāṭ developed from a
garrison town into a provincial capital, we must analyse and contextualize (the
development of) the town’s relationship with the rest of Egypt. Understanding
this relationship is central to this book.
Neither the establishment of Muslim dominion nor the foundation of alFusṭāṭ marked a watershed in the history of Late-Antique Egypt. The Muslim
authorities’ initial policy preferred continuity of existing (administrative) practices rather than prescribing large-scale reforms. At the time of the conquest,
the Nile valley and delta had been divided into four eparchies, in theory independent provinces of the Byzantine empire.20 In practice, the Melkite patriarch, seated in Alexandria, may have had far-reaching authority over the offi-
cials who headed these eparchies.21 After the conquest, the Melkite patriarch
appears to have lost considerable authority. Significantly, his office remained
unoccupied for most of the Umayyad period.22 While maintaining a good relationship with the Coptic patriarch,23 also seated in Alexandria, the Muslim
authorities in al-Fusṭāṭ mostly restricted their supervision to the heads of the
eparchies.24 Lower administrative officials remained in place. By thus connecting Egypt’s existing administration to that of their own in al-Fusṭāṭ, the
Muslims were able to control, and to extract revenues from, a province in
which they formed a minority.25 This polity, perhaps together with the Muslim
community’s undifferentiated or inclusive character vis-à-vis other religious
groups at that time, as argued by some modern scholars,26 created no need for
those cooperating with the Muslim administration to (religiously or otherwise)
assimilate with their new Muslim rulers.27 The background of local notables as
well as much of their social standing and authority initially remained as it had
been under Byzantine rule.28
Although the foundation of al-Fusṭāṭ as the Muslims’ political headquarters
may at first have had limited impact beyond the level of the top of local administrations, the town’s gradually increasing influence in the rest of the prov
ince—its acquirement of province-wide centrality—brought about changes in
existing social and administrative structures. Connections developed which
did not yet exist; existing ones intensified. Politics must have significantly
influenced such developments. Imperial and provincial policies under the
Sufyanids and Marwanids set in motion, or stimulated, processes of assimilation and integration between indigenous Egyptians and Muslim new-comers.
As we will see in detail in the subsequent chapters, policies under the Sufyanids
predominantly affected matters related to the government of the province. The
policies of their Marwanid successors not only included administrative reforms
but also changed, for example, legal and fiscal practices. Other changes highly
relevant to the position of al-Fusṭāṭ—such as the development of commercial
relations or local conversion to Islam—are best understood as (often local or
individual) reactions to developments in society and/or official policies and are
only indirectly the result of the agency of Muslim administrators.
Modern scholarship approaches al-Fusṭāṭ and its role in the province from
predominantly two angles. One of these is that of the early-Islamic administration. The idea that al-Fusṭāṭ played a central role in Egypt’s (fiscal) administration from soon after its establishment permeates modern scholarship on
the town’s connections with the rest of the province. This is the result of the
nature of much of our source material. Many histories of Egypt written in the
Umayyad and Abbasid periods focus on the top of the province’s administration in al-Fusṭāṭ. Further, our better known documentary sources stem from
administrative circles limited to a few regions in Upper Egypt (the Nile valley
south of the delta), especially the Fayyūm (Arsinoitēs), al-Ushmūn (Hermopolis), Ishqūh (Aphroditō), and Udfū (Apollonōpolis Anō). On the basis of (some
of) these sources, such early-modern historians of Egypt as H.I. Bell, C.H. Becker
and, somewhat later, A. Grohmann studied al-Fusṭāṭ’s relationship with the
rest of Egypt in light of the province’s administrative hierarchy. Their studies
allowed them to conclude that the (often not defined or properly nuanced)
“early-Islamic period” saw, in Bell’s words, ‘an almost excessive centralization’
around al-Fusṭāṭ.29 The subsequent publication of new documents, the thorough papyrological studies, and the in-depth inquiries into Muslim historiography on al-Fusṭāṭ by scholars such as K. Morimoto, F. Morelli, P.M. Sijpesteijn,
and S. Bouderbala—to name just a few—have greatly contributed to, and
nuanced, our understanding of the development of al-Fusṭāṭ’s administrative
relationship with the rest of Egypt.30 It is now clear that this relationship was
not static and drastically changed throughout the first century of Muslim rule
under the pressure of increasing state expenses combined with lessening tax
revenues and because of changing religious ideologies and social as well as
demographic circumstances. The early-Marwanid period was a turning point
in the history of this relationship. From c. 80/700, the town’s administrative
influence over the province increased considerably. Changes in al-Fusṭāṭ’s role
in the province took the shape of new administrative structures. By replacing
indigenous heads of administrative districts by Muslims (who lacked a local
power base), for instance, the Marwanid authorities seated in al-Fusṭāṭ secured
for themselves more control over local administrations and, hence, over the
districts’ tax revenues.31 It is in the same period that we have the first records
of monks being subjected to taxes,32 that unoccupied agricultural land was
assigned to villagers in order to generate tax revenues,33 and that the number of
preserved safe conducts, meant to control the movement of fiscally liable persons and issued by the central administration, sharply increases.34 In al-Fusṭāṭ,
too, contemporary administrative changes, among which were reorganizations
of the military pay registers (Ar. sg. dīwān), increased the authorities’ power
over the town’s Muslim populace.35 On the basis of these and other changes,
modern scholarship has been able to connect al-Fusṭāṭ’s changing position in
the province to developments at the level of the caliphate; we will briefly return
to this below.
Since the mid-twentieth century, al-Fusṭāṭ has also received ample archaeological interest.36 From 1964 until 1980, an archaeological team of the American
Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE), under the supervision of G.T. Scanlon, conducted excavations to the north-east of the Mosque of ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ. Their publications largely consist of archaeological reports and catalogues.37 A team of
the Institut Français d’ Archéologie Orientale (IFAO), headed by R.-P. Gayraud,
excavated between 1985 and 2003 an area to the south-east of the mosque,
known as Isṭabl ʿAntar. In addition to the archaeological reports and studies,
the IFAO is currently publishing the finds of its excavations there.38 Together,
the reports, catalogues, and studies of the American and French excavations
map with great chronological precision the architectural and morphological
development of al-Fusṭāṭ, which can be traced back to the period of its establishment.39 Their detailed documentation of al-Fusṭāṭ’s material culture is an
important source for studies into the economy of the town and on the town’s
connections with the rest of the province and the Mediterranean region at
large. In addition to the American and French teams, archaeologists of three
Japanese institutions, together led by M. Kawatoko, have excavated between
1978 and 1985 and are excavating again since 1998 an area east of the Mosque of
ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ which was part of the town’s central quarter and housed Muslim
notables. Most of the reports of their excavations are published in Japanese.40
The team is currently publishing their finds in catalogues; one in English has
appeared so far.41 Furthermore, another team of the ARCE, led by P. Sheehan,
has subjected the fortress Qaṣr al-Shamʿ to thorough archaeological excavations between 2000 and 2006. The results of their finds, conveniently published
in an easily readable monograph,42 reveal amongst others how the Muslims
adjusted the fortress to their needs and connected it, by building a road, to the
Mosque of ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ at the centre of al-Fusṭāṭ.
Whereas archaeological and philological scholarship on al-Fusṭāṭ and the
town’s involvement in the provincial administration is abundantly available,
modern studies only seldom discuss the town’s role in the province outside the
fiscal-administrative realm or study al-Fusṭāṭ’s relationship with areas which
are not the provenance of the bulk of our documentary sources. Building on
what has previously been written on the town, the present book maps and
analyses the form and strength of al-Fusṭāṭ’s ties with a number of understudied areas and/or at levels that have yet received little attention. This is done
on the basis of four case studies to each of which one chapter is devoted. Two
case studies deal with the development of al-Fusṭāṭ’s relationship with Alexandria at a military, administrative, and commercial level (chapters 1 and 2). The
remaining two studies deal with the town’s relationship with Upper Egypt,
with much emphasis on the region around Aswan, at a military-administrative
and judicial level (chapters 3 and 4). Areas such as the eastern Nile delta or
Barqa (Cyrenaica) are not considered because of the unavailability of (enough)
source material. The four case studies analyze al-Fusṭāṭ from the view point of
the town’s hinterland rather than that of al-Fusṭāṭ itself and, unlike much previous scholarship, connect al-Fusṭāṭ with Egypt’s extreme north and south.
It is now widely acknowledged that any study into the first century of Muslim rule should, by preference, not solely rely on the preserved Arabic literary
source material. The oral tradition that dominated the transmission of knowledge among the Muslims of the first two Islamic centuries has resulted in
an almost total lack of contemporary literature.43 This is certainly true for
first/seventh- and second/eighth-century scholarship from Egypt on the history of the province since the establishment of Muslim dominion. There is,
indeed, very little evidence of the production of scholarly writings in Arabic
in Egypt during the first/seventh century.44 By the mid-second/eighth century,
Egypt had produced a considerable number of historians of whom some may
have written local histories.45 Among the first recorded is one Ḥuyayy b. Hāniʾ
al-Maʿāfirī (d. 128/745), a participant in the conquest of Rhodes of 52/672 and
reported author of a Kitāb futūḥ Miṣr.46 Except in the form of citations in writings of the third/ninth century or later,47 copies of (parts of) the works of
Ḥuyayy b. Hāniʾ al-Maʿāfirī and his colleagues have not been preserved. Modern
scholars have long showed that this considerable span of time that separates
the events from their recording in endurable form allowed for the intrusion
of biased or even non-historical reports. Since the 1970s, some scholars even
argued that it is no longer possible to sift the historical information from the
non-historical and that future research, therefore, needs to be based on sources
that lay outside the Arabic literary tradition.48 Literary sources (originally)
composed in Coptic and Greek, however, present problems similar to those of
the Arabic sources.49
For this reason, the present book’s case studies use these problematic literary
sources only after, or in combination with, a careful examination of the available documentary source material: documents (on papyrus, potsherds, etc.;
written in Arabic, Coptic, and Greek), inscriptions, coins, exagia, and (especially in chapter 2) archaeology. Although there are limits to the objectivity
of such non-literary sources,50 they constitute an invaluable source of information. They are not only the sole contemporary sources available, they also
preserve details of social, administrative, and economic structures that have
been lost in our literary sources’ heavy focus on the top of the Muslim administration in al-Fusṭāṭ. Quite some material is available from al-Fusṭāṭ itself. A
considerable number of documentary sources excavated in the town and kept
in the archives of institutes and private collections have been made available
through scholarly publications.51 Most of such sources, however, come from
other parts of the province, making them especially useful for the present book.
Scholarly interest in such a multidisciplinary approach towards the study of
early-Islamic Egypt—an approach combining documentary sources written in
Arabic, Coptic, and Greek as well as, among others, epigraphic and numismatic
sources—has considerably increased over the past years. Beside organizing
workshops and summer schools dedicated to the study of Arabic documents,
the International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP), founded in 2002, stimulates the collaboration of scholars from different fields by organizing multidisciplinary conferences.52 Various research projects, most of them involving a
number of leading institutions, have recently followed the ISAP’s lead.53
On the basis of this source material, the case studies in this book reveal
three stages in the development of al-Fusṭāṭ as Egypt’s capital before 132/750.
These stages largely coincide with dynastic changes or empire-wide reforms
and suggest a strong relationship between the chronology of the development
of al-Fusṭāṭ’s role in Egypt and events at the level of the caliphate. The first
stage begins with the traditional date of the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Egypt, 18/639, and ends with Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān’s accession to
the caliphate in 41/661. During this twenty-year period, the Muslims subdued
Egypt to their rule, established their headquarters at al-Fusṭāṭ, and instituted
changes in the existing military and administrative organization in order to
maintain their rule in the province. The second stage starts in 41/661, the date
of the empire-wide recognition of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān’s caliphate after the
First CivilWar54 and the relocation of the imperial administration from Medina
on the Arabian Peninsula to Damascus in Syria. The many reforms of the earlySufyanid period, of which some were doubtlessly related to Muʿāwiya b. Abī
Sufyān’s coming to power, increased al-Fusṭāṭ’s relations with the rest of Egypt
to such an extent that they signify the beginning of a new stage in the town’s
history. This book, therefore, joins in the modern scholarly debate on the extent
to which the caliphate was a centralized state under Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān.55
It addresses this question from a provincial (Egyptian) point of view and by
considering the effects of this (de)centralized nature of the caliphate on the
relations between the provincial capital and its hinterland. Conversely, scholars widely recognize the caliphate to have been (or become) a centralized state
during the reigns of the Marwanid caliphs.56 Fully in accordance with modern scholarship on the town’s administrative relationship with its hinterland,
referred to above, the sources used in this book show that the empire-wide and
centralizing reforms of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān (r. 65/685–86/705) and his
successors caused al-Fusṭāṭ’s ties with the rest of the province to strengthen
considerably. The Marwanid period, and predominantly the half century after
the defeat of the rival caliph ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr in 73/692, after which
most reforms were implemented, forms a third stage in the development of
al-Fusṭāṭ’s role in the province. This book’s chapters follow this three-stepped
chronology.
2 Al-Fusṭāṭ and Political Centrality: A Short Historical Overview
Before we study al-Fusṭāṭ’s relationships with the rest of the province, it is useful to briefly discuss the development of the town al-Fusṭāṭ itself. After the
conquest, the majority of the Muslim conquerors settled in al-Fusṭāṭ; small
groups also settled, mainly on a temporary basis, in Alexandria and the rest
of Egypt. Around Qaṣr al-Shamʿ and the congregational mosque which ʿAmr
b. al-ʿĀṣ erected just north of it, the Muslim authorities endorsed the distribution of, or redistributed, pieces of land (Ar. sg. khiṭṭa) among the tribes that had
participated in the conquest.57 In order to prevent the newly-arrived Muslims
from assimilating with the local populations and, hence, the Muslim authorities from losing military back-up for their control over the province and for
future conquests, the Muslim tribesmen were not allowed to settle outside
their garrison town and to engage in agriculture or large-scale pasturalism.58
Instead, the Muslim authorities set up military pay registers in al-Fusṭāṭ59 and
distributed pay (Ar. ʿaṭāʾ ), of a height depending on one’s socio-religious standing, among those tribesmen registered.60
Al-Fusṭāṭ rapidly grew from a conglomeration of tribal units to a large-sized
town. A group of recently-published administrative documents from the early-20s/640s which record a high demand for building material in Qaṣr al-Shamʿ
evidences al-Fusṭāṭ’s early transition from a camp to a town.61 Archaeological research confirms the early construction of stone buildings over a vast area
and, further, shows a considerable population density almost immediately after
the foundation of the town.62 Literary sources, indeed, tell us that the number of Muslims registered for military pay—initially some 15,000 men—almost
tripled within forty years.63 Whereas at first al-Fusṭāṭ must have been inhabited
by mostly Muslim ‘emigrants’ or ‘believers’ (Ar. muhājirūn, muʾminūn), as they
called themselves,64 who belonged to so-called “southern”tribes,65 the building
of churches in or near the town soon after the conquest suggests an early, but
probably modest, influx of non-Muslims.66 The town’s population continued
to grow throughout the period under consideration. Archaeologists explain
changes in building techniques that appear around 80/700 as the result of an
ever increasing population density combined with a limited area available for
habitation.67 The enlargements of the town’s congregational mosque, recorded
in third/ninth century and later historiographical sources, can be interpreted as
indicative of the continuous growing of al-Fusṭāṭ’s population.68 Before the end
of the first/seventh century, the Mosque of ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ twice needed enlargement: under Maslama b. Mukhallad as early as 53/672–673 and under ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān in 77/696–697.69 Two further enlargements are recorded for
the second/eighth century.70
Al-Fusṭāṭ housed the top of the province’s administrative authorities and
formed the heart of the Muslim community in Egypt. Nonetheless, the town
may temporarily have lost its role as capital in the closing decades of the
first/seventh century to the town of Ḥulwān, located about twenty kilometres south of al-Fusṭāṭ. Even though the governorate of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān
(65/685–86/705), who founded Ḥulwān, is among the best documented governorates of the first century of Muslim rule over Egypt, the role of Ḥulwān in that
period remains enigmatic. From the third/ninth to the ninth/fifteenth century,
historians have been unable to establish the date of, and reason for, the foundation of Ḥulwān. The most common report has it that ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān
moved there in an attempt to escape an outbreak of the plague in al-Fusṭāṭ in
70/689–690.71 But other sources claim that he founded Ḥulwān when he was
appointed governor (which would be in line with the tradition of new Muslim
dynasties)72 or that physicians advised him to reside there after he had fallen
ill.73 It is equally uncertain to what extent Ḥulwān actually was a capital and
not merely the governor’s place of residence.74 The alleged minting of dinars in
Ḥulwān, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān’s reported building of a nilometer there, and
the town’s alleged housing of (the top of?) the jund may support the idea that
Ḥulwān was an administrative capital.75 That ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān is said to
have ordered ‘notables [Ar. arākhina] from Upper Egypt and the other administrative districts’ to build residences for themselves in Ḥulwān may also point
in this direction.76 A late source asserts that the governor aspired to depopulate
al-Fusṭāṭ and to have Ḥulwān replace al-Fusṭāṭ as the region’s main commercial centre,77 but this contradicts ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān’s well-known building
projects in al-Fusṭāṭ on which more will be said in chapter 2. Whether or not
Ḥulwān replaced al-Fusṭāṭ as Egypt’s capital, the latter’s position was restored
under ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān’s successors; the temporary change seems to
have had little impact on the relationships between al-Fusṭāṭ and the rest of
Egypt.
Significant changes occurred in the mid-second/eighth century. Although
al-Fusṭāṭ continued to flourish for centuries thereafter, a deliberately ignited
fire that raged through the town in 132/750 marked the end of an epoch. During the Abbasids’ tumultuous assumption of power, the last Umayyad caliph
Marwān b. Muḥammad (r. 127/744–132/750) fled from northern Syria via Palestine to al-Fusṭāṭ in 132/750, hoping to reach North African supporters via the
Egyptian oases.78 In an attempt to halt his Abbasid persecutors, Marwān b.
Muḥammad ordered that al-Fusṭāṭ be set on fire and the pontoon bridges that
connected the town with al-Jīza on the west bank be cut loose and burnt as
well.79 The History of the Patriarchs writes that the town burnt ‘from south to
north’, that the dīwāns went up in flames, and that the Mosque of ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ just survived the fire. It reports that there was an immediate shortage of
food among the town’s surviving population as well as that of al-Jīza because
the Umayyad caliph had burnt al-Fusṭāṭ’s granaries and people had fled across
the Nile en masse.80 Although few other sources describe al-Fusṭāṭ’s burning in
such detail,81 archaeology fully confirms its devastating effects, especially for
the town’s southern quarters.82 But to Marwān b. Muḥammad the fire was of
no avail: Abbasid armies eventually caught and killed him in Būṣīr (Bousiris) in
northern Upper Egypt.83 At the end of Muḥarram 133/August 750, Egypt’s first
Abbasid governor, Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAlī, victoriously entered al-Fusṭāṭ.84
Possibly as a result of the fire’s destruction of al-Fusṭāṭ’s administrative heart,85 the new Abbasid government relocated Egypt’s administrative headquarters to al-ʿAskar (lit. ‘the cantonment’).86 Initially a garrison town, this new military and administrative district was located on the site of al-Ḥamrāʾ alQuswā, a former northern suburb of al-Fusṭāṭ that was largely depopulated at the time of the Abbasid take-over.87 Throughout the second half of the second/eighth century, the authorities tried to keep their new headquarters separated from the habitation areas of al-Fusṭāṭ. Contact between the administration in al-ʿAskar and the (Muslim) population of al-Fusṭāṭ went primarilyvia delegatory visits of the latter’s notables.88
To be sure, markets that sprung up around al-ʿAskar’s congregational mosque, built by the governor al-Faḍl b.Ṣāliḥ in 169/785–786,89 took from the district its purely administrative and military character.90 But the authorities prohibited the large-scale construction of private buildings there before 200–201/816.91 Even though the fourth/tenthcentury historian al-Kindī reports that in 146/763–764 the caliph al-Manṣūr sent a letter to Yazīd b. Ḥātim, governor of Egypt, ordering him for unknown reasons to relocate the administrative headquarters from al-ʿAskar back to alFusṭāṭ and to transfer the dīwāns to the churches of Qaṣr al-Shamʿ,92 al-ʿAskar remained the seat of the administration until the Tulunid period (254/868–292/905).93
Regardless of the close proximity between al-ʿAskar and al-Fusṭāṭ,94 the forceful separation of the new Abbasid administrative district from al-Fusṭāṭ ended the latter’s position as administrative capital of the province. The relationship between al-Fusṭāṭ and al-ʿAskar, summarily outlined above, and the impact of the creation of al-ʿAskar on al-Fusṭāṭ’s relationship with its hinterland is beyond the scope of this book. For this reason, the following chapters largely concentrate on al-Fusṭāṭ’s relationships with its hinterland before the arrival of Abbasid rule.
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