Download PDF | (Handbook of Oriental Studies_ Section 1_ The Near and Middle East) Amar S. Baadj (editor) - A Handbook of Modern Arabic Historical Scholarship on the Ancient and Medieval Periods-BRILL (2021).
684 Pages
English Preface
Why Modern Arabic Historiography?
The present volume brings together sixteen studies concerning modern Arabic
academic scholarship on the ancient and medieval worlds. Most of the chapters are concerned with specific disciplines or sub-disciplines (such as Egyptology, Byzantine Studies, Mamluk Studies, etc.) while others focus on what
can be characterized as “schools” or movements of historiography. Some of the
studies focus on a single country in the Arab world while others look at developments across several countries.
The arrangement of the chapters is broadly
chronological, beginning with those disciplines that study the earliest civilizations in North Africa and the Middle East, and concluding with the disciplines
and historiographical schools that are concerned with the study of what, for
lack of a better commonly accepted term, we may refer to as the “late medieval” history of the region, prior to the period of Ottoman domination. Though
the great bulk of the scholarly work under consideration in this volume is – as
one would expect – in Arabic, some of the chapters also discuss works written
by Arab historians in European languages such as English and French.
Many, though not all, of the chapters developed out of papers presented
at an international conference held in Trier, Germany between October 21
and October 23, 2017, entitled “Modern Arabic Historical Scholarship on the
Ancient and Medieval Periods”.
This conference, sponsored by Trier University
and the Thyssen Foundation, was the first of its kind. It brought together specialists in various fields from the Arab world, Europe, and North America who
discussed the development and current state of the pre-modern historical disciplines in the Arab countries, and the problem of the lack of visibility of this
scholarship in Western academic circles.
The editor is painfully aware that some very important topics are missing from this volume such as chapters on the fields of Abbasid, Fatimid, and
Crusade studies in the Arab world as well as studies on the rise and development of modern historical scholarship in Bilād al-Shām, the Arabian
Peninsula, Sudan, and Libya. These unfortunate gaps are due, in large part, to
circumstances that were beyond the editor’s control, such as unexpected and
late withdrawals of contributions for various reasons. It is hoped that these
omissions can be redressed in a second volume. At a later stage perhaps modern Arabic historiography of the Ottoman, Colonial, and Post-Independence
periods can receive similar treatment. It should be pointed out that there is also a need for reference works of this nature on modern academic Persian and
Turkish historical scholarship.
This volume has a number of aims.
It was conceived within the wider framework of a collaborative research project on “The Contemporary History of
Historiography,” led by Professor Lutz Raphael at Trier University and funded
by the German Research Foundation (dfg), which seeks to view the contemporary history of this discipline from a truly international perspective, taking
into account developments not only in Europe and North America but also
in the less studied non-Western regions. Therefore, one of the goals of this
volume is to contribute to increasing our knowledge about the rise, development, and present state of the modern academic field of historical studies in the Arab countries. To date only a small handful of studies have been
written on this subject in English and other European languages. Even these
works are overwhelmingly concerned with Arabic scholarship on the Early
Modern (Ottoman) and Modern periods. The histories of entire fields (such
as Assyriology, Byzantine Studies, Mamluk Studies, etc.) and important historiographical schools and trends in the Arab world have yet to be written in
Western languages and sometimes even in Arabic itself. As a result, most of
the studies presented in this volume are the very first of their kind and will no
doubt be of value for those who seek a global perspective on modern historiography and its various sub-disciplines.
The second goal of this book is to meet the needs of specialists in the various
disciplines of ancient and medieval studies who are based outside of the Arab
countries and who wish to be better acquainted with the state of their field in
the Arab world and with the work done by their Arab colleagues. This is obviously a pressing need in the case of fields whose geographical areas of focus
wholly (as in the case of Egyptology) or partially (as in the case of Greco-Roman
studies) overlap with a portion of the Arab world and which at the same time
do not employ Arabic as a language of research at an international level. For
example, the vast majority of Assyriologists outside of the Arab countries do
not read Arabic, therefore, they have limited knowledge of and access to a
fairly large body of Assyriological scholarship (including publications of cuneiform tablets) that has been produced by Iraqi scholars over the last 70 years.
Information about the history and current state of the Assyriological discipline
in Iraq, and the Arabic publications in this field, is thus of great practical value
to the international community of Assyriology and can facilitate cooperation
between Iraqi scholars and their colleagues abroad.
Surprisingly, the same problem also exists in the field of Arabic and Islamic
studies. It is still the case that many monographs and dissertations on Islamic
history written in the West make no reference at all to secondary literature in
written in Arabic and other “oriental” languages such as Persian or Turkish.
With a few exceptions, Arabic studies are seldom reviewed in Western journals
and they are often missing from bibliographies. The standard bibliographical resource for the field of Islamic Studies, the renowned Index Islamicus, is,
according to its website, limited to “… material published by Western scholars
in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences, specialist area- and subjectbased areas, and by Muslims writing in European languages.”1 In order to remedy this gap, the editor and many of the contributors to the present volume
hope to eventually create an open-access database of discipline-specific bibliographies of Arabic secondary works on pre-modern history for the benefit of
international researchers.
In the European languages there is also a serious lack of basic summaries
or introductions to modern Arabic scholarship on the various sub-fields of
Islamic history that identify important scholars, historical “schools”, publications, and intellectual trends. There has been little interest in the history and
development of professional historical studies in the modern Arab world in
comparison to the rich body of literature on the history of the various European
schools of oriental studies.2 Due to the lack of such studies as well as of bibliographical aids and reviews it is difficult for specialists in medieval Islamic
history who are based in the West to gain an accurate picture of the state of
their field in the Arab world and identify Arabic works which might be helpful
in their research.
Non-Arab scholars specializing in the history of the Islamic period should
be familiar with contemporary Arabic historical scholarship, not only in order
to better “know their field” by mastering a comprehensive bibliography of the
discipline which is not limited to Western studies, but also because their own
work will be enriched and enhanced by utilizing and engaging with Arabic
scholarship.
To illustrate the importance of contemporary Arabic historical scholarship
we can look briefly at the field of medieval Maghribī history, the branch of
Islamic history with which the editor of this volume is most familiar. Until
the 1970s this field was clearly dominated at an international level by French
scholarship, though it is important to note that, by the 1950s, an Arab school of
Andalusī and Maghribī studies already existed in Egypt, which included some
pioneering historians such as Ḥusayn Muʾnis, Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh ʿInān, and
Ḥasan Aḥmad Maḥmūd.
From the 1980s onward many new universities (with new History departments) were established in the countries of the Maghrib
and as a result the number of Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian medievalists
has increased dramatically along with an accompanying surge in the volume
of publications (journals, theses, monographs, and editions of texts). At the
same time every respectable history department in the eastern Arab world has
at least one professor of medieval Maghribī and Andalusī history. Due to these
factors, today the overwhelming majority of academic studies on the medieval
Maghrib (and a very considerable portion of the studies on al-Andalus as well)
are in Arabic and they cover a great variety of topics, many of which have been
only lightly treated in Western scholarship.
A notable feature of Arabic scholarship on the medieval Maghrib and alAndalus since at least the 1980s is the great attention that has been given to
economic and social history. A considerable number of pioneering, sophisticated studies have been produced in this area, and they deserve greater recognition from specialists outside of the Arab world. A few randomly selected
examples of outstanding and thought-provoking works of this nature (some
with very different methodological approaches) include the magisterial studies of Muḥammad Ḥasan and Ṣāliḥ Baʿayzīq on the society and economy of
Ḥafsid Ifrīqīya and Bijāya respectively, ʿUmar Binmīra’s study on society in
the Moroccan countryside under the Merinids, the works of Brahim Kadiri
Boutchich (Ibrāhīm al-Qādirī Būtashīsh) on Almoravid society and on the
feudal question in Umayyad al-Andalus, Maḥmūd Ismāʿīl ʿAbd al-Rāziq’s
(often referred to as Maḥmūd Ismāʿīl) class-based, Marxian analysis of medieval Islamic history, ʿIzz al-Dīn Mūsā’s foundational work on the economic
history of the Islamic West under the Almoravids and Almohads, and Saʿīd
Binḥamāda’s remarkable study on water in al-Andalus.3 Suffice it to say that at present any scholar wishing to specialize in the history and civilization of
the medieval Islamic West must be familiar not only with secondary literature
produced in the traditional European research languages of the field (mainly
French, Spanish, and English) but also with the substantial body of contemporary Arabic studies.
A Summary of the Contents
Chapter 1 is possibly the first overview of the Iraqi school of Assyriology from
its foundation in the 1940s by the great philologist and archaeologist Ṭāhā Bāqir
down to the present. We see that, despite extremely difficult circumstances,
the discipline continues to grow as new departments are founded, more scholars than ever before enter the field, and an impressive body of dissertations
and published works covering all the major branches of the field are produced.
Chapter 2 discusses the development of the field of Egyptology in Egypt.
We learn, contrary to what some in the West may imagine, that already in the
second half of the nineteenth century Egyptian scholars such as Aḥmad Kamāl
had begun serious study of the archaeology, history, and languages of ancient
Egypt and that colonial officials during the period of British domination did
everything in their power to hamper these efforts, including preventing the
publication of the first ancient Egyptian-Arabic dictionary and removing
native Egyptians from positions in the antiquities service in order to preserve
it as a monopoly for Europeans.
Nonetheless, Egyptian Egyptology survived
these setbacks and it has grown and flourished since the end of colonial rule
in 1952.
In recent decades tens of thousands of inscriptions in various ancient North
and South Arabian dialects have been discovered throughout the Arabian
Peninsula as well as in neighboring lands such as Jordan and Syria. Scholarship
is still in the early stages of understanding and exploiting these valuable
sources, which have the potential to shed a great deal of new light on what we
know about the history of the Near East, the development of the Semitic languages (especially Arabic), and the cultural and historical milieu out of which
Islam arose. Chapter 3 focuses on the contributions made by researchers from
throughout the Arab world to the study of the epigraphy and archaeology of
ancient Yemen.
Chapters 4 and 5 are concerned with the study of Antiquity in Morocco and
Algeria, respectively. Major themes in the development of the disciplines of archaeology and ancient history in the post-independence Maghrib are the
process of decolonization of these fields, the quest to establish a uniquely
North African perspective on the region’s ancient past, and the replacement
of French by Arabic as the principal language of instruction and publication in
the universities. The last four decades have seen a great increase in the number of archaeology and history departments in the region and a considerable
body of ma and PhD theses concerned with the pre-Islamic period has been
produced. One of the weaknesses confronting the field of ancient studies in
Morocco and Algeria is that the study of primary source languages (Latin,
Greek, Phoenician, and Lybic, as well as of Afro-Asiatic linguistics, which is
essential for understanding the context of the latter two languages) is largely
absent from the university curricula.
Chapter 6 explores Classical Studies in the Arab world. Egypt has a rich tradition of Greek and Latin studies extending back to the 1940s thanks in part
to the pioneering efforts of Tāhā Ḥusayn, one of the greatest Arab intellectuals and authors of the twentieth century. Since that time thousands of studies
have been produced in Arabic covering all facets of Greco-Roman Civilization.
The author emphasizes that Classics in the Arab world holds a particular interest as an example of Classics in a non-Western context in a region which was
once part of the Classical world and whose culture has been profoundly influenced by Greek thought as a result of the Greco-Arabic translation movement
of the ʿAbbāsid period.
Chapter 7 is the first account of Byzantine Studies in an Arab context.
The
focus again is on Egypt, for though there are individual Byzantinists in some
of the other Arab countries, only in Egypt does there exist what we may call,
for lack of a better term, a “school” of Byzantine Studies that has developed
continuously from the middle of the twentieth century down to the present.
In this chapter we learn about the changing concerns and preoccupations of
Egyptian Byzantinists. The author explains how this field has evolved from
a focus in its early years on Byzantine history seen from the perspective of
Arab-Islamic civilization (Muslim-Byzantine relations) to an increased concern in recent years with what he calls “pure Byzantine studies”, including such
topics as the internal history of the Byzantine Empire, its society, culture, and
economy, and its relations with non-Muslim powers. He also provides us with
valuable information about how the study of the medieval period in general
(Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European) has been approached in the major
Egyptian universities.
The Tunisian scholar Hichem Djaït (Hishām Jaʿayṭ) is one of the most
famous living Arab historians and he is also well known in Western specialist
circles for his important studies on early Islamic history, some of which were published in French and translated into English. In his works he has explored
topics such as the life of the Prophet Muḥammad, the Great Fitna (Civil War),
the early Islamic city, and early Islamic provincial administration in North
Africa, taking a standpoint that is critical both of traditional historical scholarship in the Arab world and of orientalist scholarship.
Chapter 8 discusses the
groundbreaking work of Djaït as well as the historiographical “school” which
he has established in Tunisia, where a number of distinguished historians who
were trained by him have produced a body of important and innovative work
on the formative period of Islamic history.
Chapter 9 presents an overview of modern Arabic historical scholarship
on the Umayyad period. Different trends in historical writing are analyzed,
including the Arab nationalist, sectarian Sunni, and sectarian Shīʿī trends as
well as the works of “modernist” historians, particularly from North Africa,
who have brought a more critical approach to the field.
This chapter also discusses important new research in Arabic epigraphy, particularly in the Arabian
Peninsula, which has resulted in the discovery of many new inscriptions from
the early Islamic period (including Umayyad inscriptions) which provide a
valuable supplement to the manuscript tradition.
Iraq boasts one of the oldest national schools of historiography in the Arab
world (along with Egypt and Syria) and many distinguished historians such as
ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dūrī, Jawād ʿAlī, and Ṣāliḥ Aḥmad al-ʿAlī, to name only a few.
Chapter 10 traces the development of the Iraqi historiographical school from
its origins in the early twentieth century until the present through a series of
vignettes of prominent historians who are representative of some of the dominant trends in Iraqi history-writing. Close attention is also paid to the influence of political events on the historians and their work. Thus, we see how the
anticolonialist, Arab nationalist, Baathist, Marxist and, more recently, following the American invasion of 2003, sectarian religious trends have impacted
historical scholarship in Iraq.
Chapter 11 looks at the remarkable scholarship that has been done by a
group of Moroccan scholars on the economic and social history of the Maghrib
and al-Andalus during the medieval period. The origins of this historiographical movement extend back to the 1970s and 1980s when the Egyptian historian
Maḥmūd Ismāʿīl ʿAbd al-Rāziq was a visiting professor at the University of Fez.
Several of his Moroccan students themselves became prominent historians of
the medieval Islamic West, and they in turn have trained a third generation
of historians who are concerned with socio-economic history. These scholars
have produced important studies on such topics as economic history, class
relations, the effects of natural disasters and war on society, marginalized
groups, and mentalities in medieval North Africa and al-Andalus.
Chapter 12 concerns the study of medieval history in the Algerian universities since independence in 1962. The Algerian historiographical school is one
of the younger national schools in the Arab world and it has grown enormously
since independence. At the time of independence there was only one university in the country, the University of Algiers, and the only language of education
was French. Today there are over 100 institutions of higher education in Algeria
and the humanities and social sciences have been fully Arabized. The author
of the chapter discusses the processes of decolonization and Arabization and
also undertakes an analysis of the large corpus of ma and PhD dissertations in
medieval Islamic history that has been produced by the Algerian universities
in recent decades. This analysis reveals the topics and fields of research that
have received the most attention from contemporary Algerian medievalists as
well as those that have been relatively neglected.
The Mamluks and the Mamluk period (1250–1517) have received a great deal
of attention in Western Islamicist scholarship in recent years, perhaps more so
than any other medieval Islamic dynasty. Surprisingly, until now no attempt
has been made to present an overview of the vast and diverse body of Arabic
scholarship on the Mamluk period.
Chapter 13 gives a comprehensive survey
of the Mamluks in modern Arabic historiography from the late nineteenth
century to the present. A wide range of studies are considered, not only from
Egypt and Bilād al-Shām, but also from the Gulf states, Iraq, and the Maghrib.
These works span the fields of political, economic, social, and cultural history.
Attention is also given to the place of Mamluk history within Egyptian history
departments and how the Mamluk period is viewed in relation to the preceding
dynasties. There is no question that this chapter fills a major gap in our understanding of the development and present state of the field of Mamluk studies.
Chapter 14 complements the preceding chapter by focusing on the study of
the art and architecture of the Mamluk period in Egypt. The history and development of this field of study is surveyed from its origins to the present, followed by a detailed discussion of how Islamic art and architecture are taught
in Egyptian universities and careful analysis of the research produced (especially theses). The author provides us with a good picture of the state of the
field in Egypt today, along with its strengths, weaknesses and future prospects.
In general, Western orientalists have tended to be more interested in relations between Europe and North Africa in the medieval period rather than
relations between the Maghrib and the Mashriq.4 In the Arab countries, by contrast, the topic of Maghribī–Mashriqī relations has been a major theme
for medievalists since the 1940s, for obvious historical and cultural reasons,
and a great deal of work has been and continues to be published on this subject.
Chapter 15 presents a thorough survey of the literature on this topic from
across the Arab world, covering all aspects of Maghribī–Mashriqī contacts
such as diplomatic relations, intellectual and cultural relations, trade, travel,
and migrations of tribes.
The final chapter in this volume, Chapter 16, is about the study of Medieval
(non-Byzantine) Europe in the Arab world. Academics specializing in Medieval
Europe can be found in most of the Arab countries today, particularly in Egypt,
where there is a tradition of Latin studies in the larger universities (both in the
classics and history departments) and as a consequence, nearly all students
of medieval European history there have had some formal instruction in the
language and a few have become quite proficient in it and have done extensive
research in the Latin primary sources. The present condition and state of the
discipline are discussed, and the author analyzes the output of Arab researchers in this field (including theses, monographs, articles, translation of primary
and secondary sources, etc.) in order to draw some conclusions about their
major interests and preoccupations.
Concluding Remarks
It would be very unfortunate if, rather than existing in one large global community, each of the various disciplines discussed in this book is allowed to bifurcate into largely separate communities of Western and non-Western scholars
with limited contact between the two. Such a situation leads to inefficiency
(for example there is the problem on both sides of scholars “reinventing the
wheel” due to being unaware of research published in another language) and
hampers dialogue and exchange of ideas, essential conditions for the growth
and development of any field of scholarship. The present volume is a modest attempt to create a bridge between the Arab and Western communities of
pre-modern historians and it is the sincere hope of the editor and all of the
contributors that their work will encourage others on both sides to take the
initiative in opening new avenues for collaboration, dialogue, and exchange of
ideas and research.
Notes on Contributors
Emad Abou-Ghazi
(PhD Cairo University, 1995) is an Egyptian historian and archivist and
Professor Emeritus of Medieval Arabic Documents in the faculty of Arts, Cairo
University. He has worked in the fields of history, archives, diplomatics, and cultural policies since 1976. He has written more than 60 articles and seven books
in Arabic including: Ṭūmān Bāy al-Sulṭān al-Shahīd (1999); Taṭawwur al-Ḥiyāza
al-Zirāʿiyya fī Miṣr Zaman al-Mamālīk al-Jarākisa (2000); Ḥikāyat Thawrat 1919
(2009); 1517 Al-Iḥtilāl al-ʿUthmānī li Miṣr wa Suqūṭ Dawlat al-Mamālīk (2019).
Al-Amin Abouseada
(PhD Birmingham University, 2000) is professor of Medieval History at Tanta
University, Egypt, and currently visiting professor of Medieval History at King
Faisal University, Saudi Arabia. His research interests include: Byzantine history,
Byzantine-Muslim relations, relics, Medieval Poland and Christian-Muslim
polemics. He has several publications on these topics.
Youcef Aibeche
(Doctorat d’état, Mentouri University, Constantine, Algeria, 2007) is professor
of ancient history at the University of Sétif 2 where he is also vice-rector of
postgraduate studies and research. He is a specialist on Late Antiquity whose
research focuses on the transition from the ancient to the Islamic period in
North Africa. He is responsible for the archaeological mapping project of
the Sétifienne region, co-director of the archaeological research project of
Lambaesis (with the Algerian Ministry of Culture cnrs-ens) since 2014, and
he directs projects at other sites such as Cuicul, Milev and the prehistoric site
of Ain el-Hennech near Sétif.
Sidi Mohammed Alaioud
(PhD Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, 2005) is professor at the École
Normale Supérieure (ens) at Mohammed v University in Rabat. His research
focuses on urbanization and architectural development in the cities of preIslamic Morocco. His publications include Mudun wa Marākiz al-Maghrib
al-Qadīm (2015); Al-Taṭawwur al-Ḥaḍārī li Walīlī min al-Fatra al-Mūriyya ilā alFatra al-Islāmiyya: Musāhama fī Dirāsat Mudun al-Maghrib (2015); Min Salā ilā
Shāla: Dhākirat Madīna (2nd ed. 2020).
Abdulhadi Alajmi
(PhD Durham University, 2004) is professor of history at Kuwait University,
where he was also chair of the history department and assistant dean of academic affairs. He specializes in early Islamic history and historiography, and
the Umayyad period in particular. In 2020 he received the prestigious pan-Arab
award for historical studies Shawāmikh al-Muʾarrikhīn al-ʿArab from the Union
of Arab Historians (Ittiḥād al-Muʾarrikhīn al-ʿArab) in Cairo. He has published
more than 30 studies in English and Arabic including Political Legitimacy
in Early Islam: Al-Awzāʿī’s Interactions with the Umayyad and ʿAbbasid States
(2009); “ʿUlama and caliphs new understanding of the “God’s Caliph” term”
in Journal of Islamic Law and Culture (2011); Al-Brājmātiyyūn fī al-Qarn al-Hijrī
al-Awwal (Cairo, 2019).
Allaoua Amara
(PhD University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, 2002) is a historian of the medieval Islamic Maghrib. He teaches in the History Department of Emir Abdelkader
University in Constantine. He is an associate researcher at the National Center
for Prehistoric, Anthropological and Historical Research (cnrpah, Algiers)
and the National Center for Scientific Research (cnrs, Paris). He is the
author of a number of books, including Dirāsāt fī Tārīkh al-Jazāʾir wa al-Gharb
al-Islāmī (2nd ed., 2016); L’histoire de l’Algérie dans la recherche historique en
France (2010), Madīnat Qusanṭīna (2016), and numerous articles.
Lotfi Ben Miled
(PhD University of Tunis, 2009) is assistant professor of medieval history at
the University of Tunis (Manouba). He is particularly interested in relations
between the Maghrib and the Mashriq in the period from 1030 to 1530 ce. His
publications include Ifrīqīya wa al-Mashriq al-Mutawassiṭī min Awāsiṭ al-Qarn
5 h./11 m. ilā Maṭlaʿ al-Qarn 10 h./16m. (Tunis, 2011); “Tracking down the Hafsid
Diplomats all the way to the Turco-Mamluk Border 1487–1491” in Mamluk
Cairo, a Crossroads for Embassies (Leiden, 2019).
Brahim El Kadiri Boutchich
(PhD Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, 1991) is professor of history at the
University of Meknes. He specializes in the history of the Maghrib and alAndalus in the Islamic period. He has previously taught in Oman and he has
been a visiting professor in several other Arab countries. He has published dozens of studies on social history and the history of mentalities in the medieval
Islamic West including Al-Muhammashūn fī Tārīkh al-Gharb al-Islāmī: Qirāʾat
al-Tārīkh min al-Asfal (2014).
Usama Gad
(PhD Heidelberg University, 2016) is assistant professor of papyrology and
Classics at ʿAyn Shams University in Cairo. His interests include Greek and
Latin language pedagogy, papyrology, Greco-Roman Egypt, the medieval
Greek-Arabic and Arabic-Latin translation movements, modern Arabic translations of the Classics, the history of Classical Studies in Egypt, Digital Classics,
Orientalism, and Classics and Colonialism. His publications include “Who Was
Who in the Aristocracy of Byzantine Oxyrhynchus” in Proceedings of the 27th
International Congress of Papyrology, Warsaw, 29 July–3 August 2013 (Warsaw
2016); “Sale on Delivery for Reeds,” in Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete (2014).
Azeddine Guessous
(PhD El Jadida, Morocco, 2002) is currently professor of history and civilization at Chouaib Doukkali University in El Jadida. He specializes in the
history of the Maghrib and al-Andalus during the Islamic period. His publications include: Mawqif al-Raʿiyya min al-Sulṭa al-Siyāsiyya fī al-Maghrib wa alAndalus ʿalā ʿAhd al-Murābiṭīn: Dirāsa fī ʿIlm al-Ijtimāʿ al-Siyāsī (2014); Al-Sulṭa
al-Murābiṭiyya: al-Ramzī wa al-Mutakhayyal (2019).
Fayza Haikal
(PhD Oxford, 1965) is currently professor emerita of Egyptology at the
American University in Cairo, where she continues her research on many
aspects of Ancient Egyptian culture and their transmission to the modern
world. She previously taught in the Faculty of Archaeology of Cairo University
and was visiting professor at the University of Paris iv- La Sorbonne, at Charles
University in Prague, and at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. She was
the first Egyptian woman to work in Nubia during the international campaign
for the salvage of its monuments in the 1960s, and in the 1990s she directed
the international campaign for the salvage of archeological sites in North Sinai
during the digging of the Peace Canal. Her recent publications include “De la
natte au Tapis Rouge. Symbolisme de la natte hier et aujourd’hui”, in Du Sinai au
Soudan: itinéraire d’une égyptologue. Mélanges offerts au Professeur Dominique
Valbelle, (2017); (with Amr Omar) “Egyptology in Egypt: the founding institutions,” in Navratilova, H., Th. L. Gertzen, A. Dodson, A. Bednarsk (eds.) Towards
a History of Egyptology: Proceedings of the Egyptological Section of the 8th ESHS
Conference in London (2018).
Hani Hamza
(PhD Cairo University, 2004) is an independent scholar who lives in Cairo,
where he researches, writes, and lectures on the history of Mamluk architecture and other Mamluk-related topics. His academic articles in English have
been published in the journal Mamluk Studies Review (msr) in Chicago, by the
auc Press in Cairo, and by Brill in Leiden. He has also published a monograph
in English on the Northern Cemetery of Cairo and three Arabic books on the
general history of the Mamluk sultanate.
Laith M. Hussein
(PhD Philipps-University Marburg, Altorientalistik, Center for Near and
Middle Eastern Studies, 2006) specializes in Cuneiform Studies. He is currently
Director General of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq. He
previously taught in and chaired the department of archaeology in the College
of Arts at the University of Baghdad where he was also Head of the Consulting
Office and Vice-Dean for Scientific Affairs and Graduate Studies. He has participated in many international conferences, seminars and workshops and
published numerous articles in the areas of Assyriology and Mesopotamian
archaeology.
Nasir al-Kaabi
(PhD University of Kufa and University of Tehran, 2008) is professor of history at the University of Kufa, Iraq. He was a post-doctoral research fellow
at the University of Toronto (2014–2016). He specializes in the history of the
Sasanian Empire. His publications include: Musammā al-ʿIrāq wa Tukhūmuhu
fī al-Mudawwanāt al-Bahlawiyya al-Sāsāniyya: Dirāsa fī al-Tārīkh al-Thaqāfī wa
al-Īdiyūlūjī li al-Mafhūm (2018); A Short Chronicle on the End of the Sasanian
Empire and Early Islam: 590–660 (2016); Jadaliyyat al-Dawla wa al-Dīn fī al-ʿAṣr
al-Sāsānī (2010); Al-Dawla al-Sāsāniyya fī al-Maṣādir al-ʿArabiyya: Dirāsa fī
al-Tārīkh al-Siyāsī (2008).
Khaled Kchir
(PhD University of Tunis, 1994) is professor of medieval history at the University
of Tunis, where he has also directed the Laboratoire du Monde arabo-islamique
médiéval since 2013 and served as vice-president of the university from 2017
to 2020. His research interests include the transmission of knowledge in the
later medieval period, medieval Arabic biographical dictionaries, Ibn Khaldūn,
Arabic codicology and diplomatics. His latest works concern the Berbers and
Persians viewed by Ibn Khaldūn.
Mohammed Maraqten
(PhD Philipps-University Marburg, Semitic and Ancient Near Eastern Studies,
1987), born in Palestine and based in Germany, is a specialist of Ancient Near
Eastern languages and cultures. He is now affiliated with the University of
Heidelberg, Germany, and he also works for the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy
of Sciences and Humanities. He has conducted archaeological excavations and
surveys in Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and
published intensively on the cultures and epigraphy of Ancient Arabia and
especially on ancient South Arabian inscriptions. His recent work includes
Altsüdarabische Texte auf Holzstäbchen: Epigraphische und kulturhistorische
Untersuchungen (Beiruter Texte und Studien Nr. 103), Orient-Institut/Beirut;
Würzburg: Ergon (2014).
Amr Omar
(PhD Cairo University, 2020) is curator of the Egyptology and Coptology collection at the Rare Books and Special Collections Library of the American
University in Cairo. He has participated in many archaeological projects
such as Eternal Egypt, Archaeological Map of Egypt, Mediterranean Defense
Architecture Preservation Project, Theban Mapping Project, and currently the
Egyptian Archaeological Database Project. His publications include “Battle of
Qadesh in Ramesses II’s Memory: A Brief Note,” in Abgadiyat (2014); “Note on
Beth Shan Stela of Ramesses II,” Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte
(2019); (with Salima Ikram) “Egypt” in Bednarski, A., A. Dodson & S. Ikram
(eds.) A History of World Egyptology (2020).
Abdelaziz Ramadan
(PhD ʿAyn Shams University, 2003) is a historian of early Byzantium and its
relations with the Arabs. He taught at ʿAyn Shams University from 2003 to
2018 and is now Professor of medieval history in King Khalid University,
Saudi Arabia. He has conducted research abroad at the University of Rome
“La Sapienza” (2002–2003) and at the Freie Universität Berlin (2013). He is
the author of a number of Arabic books including Al-Marʾa wa al-Mujtamaʿ fī
al-Imbrāṭūriyyat al-Bīzanṭiyya (2005); Al-Ṭarīq ilā Bīzanṭa: Dirāsāt ḥawl al-Fikr
wa al-Dīn wa al-Siyāsa fī Sharq al-Imbrāṭūriyya al-Rūmāniyya al-Mutaʾakhkhira
(2017); and articles in English including “Treatment of Arab Prisoners of War in
Byzantium”, in Annales Islamologiques (2009); “Arab Apostates in Byzantium”,
in Byzantina Symmeikta (2019).
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