P.Cair.Arab III 167: A Discussion of the Akhmīm Declaration
Multilingual documents usually are of special historical interest. Their value for the study of the linguistic situation—multilingualism, linguistic inference and the process of arabicisation—in early Islamic Egypt has recently been considered in a number of studies.1 P.Cair.Arab iii 167, a trilingual declaration, written in Coptic, Greek and Arabic, is an exceptionally rich example of such documents. In the present paper, I shall bemainly concernedwith its administrative contents and what it reveals about how the new Arab administration reacted to complaints presented against certain irregularities committed in connection with the tax collection in Akhmīm and its surrounding area. Early Arab rule tended to be practical and keen to avoid any interruption in the smooth running of the administration. It was therefore consistent with the framework of their polity to allow—for at least a century—the perpetuation of two earlier practices: the Byzantine taxation system, and the use of the Greek and Coptic languages in local administration.With regard to taxation, Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam states that “ʿAmr agreed to levy the same amount of taxes as the Rūm (i.e. Byzantines).”2 Consequently, the new Arab administration in Egypt had to deal with the same causes of discontent that had troubled the Romans and the Byzantines before them. Although fiscal pressure had often caused Egypt’s tax-payers to rise in revolt already in the pre-Islamic period, the end of the first/seventh and first half of the second/eighth centuries especially saw tension rising, with more conflicts
Shaping a Muslim State: The World of a Mid-Eighth-Century Egyptian Official
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS NOTE ON EDITIONS, DATES, AND REFERENCES LIST OF MAPS LIST OF PLATES INTRODUCTION PART I: DISCUSSION 1. The Egyptian context: Geography and History 2. Arab Egypt: The first fifty years 3. The Second Fifty Years: Consolidation and Reform 4. Beyond Words 5. Conclusion PART II: THE TEXTS Note on the Orthography and Grammar of the Papyri Letters to 'Abd Allah b. As'ad from Najid b. Muslim Other Letters to 'Abd Allah b. As'ad Letter from 'Abd Allah b. As'ad Letters from/Related to Najid b. Muslim BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
The Mound on the Mount: A Possible Solution to the Problem with Jerusalem
Following Knauf's suggestion (2000), the article raises the possibility that in most periods in the second and first millennia BCE the main built-up area of Jerusalem was limited to a mound on the Temple Mount. This mound, which may have covered an area of five hectares and more, was boxed-in under the Herodian platform. At these periods activity in the City of David ridge was restricted to the area near the Gihon spring. In the Iron IIB and late Hellenistic Periods the fortified settlement expanded simultaneously to both the City of David ridge and the southwestern hill. In these two periods there was no need to fortify the western side of the City of David, as this line ran in the middle of the city.