Transmission de Biens, Mariage Et Repudiation a Uqlul, Village Du Fayyoum, Au Ve/XIE Siecle

Arabic papyrology seeks to publish documents, scattered in the collections of East and West, that often illuminate the daily life of simple people forgotten by narrative sources. Brought to light by official or clandestine excavations, these documents need to be patiently deciphered and commented at length. Yusuf Ragib, papyrologist of renown, edits, translates and comments here eight documents on paper and parchment written in the eleventh century in an obscure village in southern Fayyoum. Discovered in the late nineteenth century, six of these documents found their way to London and two to Berlin. The first five belong to the archives of a Muslim family, the Banu Barmuda; the last three are marriage contracts, one dissolved two years after its conclusion. The most important contract, which happens to be the largest Arabic document on parchment known to date, reveals the opulence of a Bedouin emir who imposed a paid protection on the villagers. The year in which Caliph al-Mustansir survived in his palace a famine that would not end, the emir offered his wife a rich dowry while promising many more sumptuous presents.