Publisher's Synopsis
This work is a description and edition of medieval Arabic legal and administrative documents written in Arabic script that are found in the Cambridge Genizah collections. The majority of these documents (desciptions of 159 are contained in the volume) were produced in Fustat (old Cairo) in the Fatimid period (10th-12th centuries AD), and most were written by Muslim notaries or officials, although a large number of them concern Jews. The documents constitute a unique source for the social and political history of medieval Egypt, especially with regard to the relations between Jews and Muslims. They also offer a penetrating insight into the practice of law in medieval Islam and the administrative structure of government offices. Nearly all the documents in the volume have not been studied before. They comprise important primary source material for a number of disciplines, including Middle Eastern history, Jewish history, Arabic philology, and Islamic law.
