Watha'iq madinat al-Qasr bi-l-wahat al-Dakhla: Masdaran li-ta'rikh Misr fi l-'asr al-'uthmani.

Varisco, Daniel Martin

Watha'iq madinat al-Qasr bi-l-wahat al-Dakhla: Masdaran li-ta'rikh Misr fi l-asr al-'uthmani. Silsilat Dirasat Watha'iqiyya. By RUDOLPH PETERS. Cairo: MATBA'AT AL-'AMMA LI-DAR AL-KUTUB WA-L-WATHA'IQ AL-QAWM1YYA, 2011. Pp. 610.

Despite the oft-cited claim by Herodotus that Egypt is the Nile, in this volume Rudolph Peters demonstrates that there is much more to Egypt, including the famous Dakhla oasis, one of seven oases in the Western Desert of Egypt. Today this site is best known for the archaeological research on the Pharaonic period, with much less information available about the Islamic era. Peters analyzes and documents a cache of over two hundred documents first discovered in 2003 by Fred Leemhuis of Groningen University's Dakhleh Oasis Project. These documents date from the Ottoman period of the late sixteenth through early twentieth centuries. They cover a variety of subjects, especially in relation to local agriculture and to legal contracts. In addition to shedding light on administrative, customary, and family documents for the town of al-Qasr, this collection is of significant comparative value for any scholar working on similar documents in the wider region.

In his introduction Peters notes that he was assisted in this major archival undertaking by a variety of scholars, both European and Egyptian. The first part of the volume consists of Peters's analysis of the materials (pp. 23-73): this has been translated into Arabic by 'Imad Ahmad Halal of the University of the Suez Canal. There is a brief history of the town of al-Qasr, from the Roman occupation, which gave the town its name, to the twelfth- or thirteenth-century Ayyubid mosque and subsequent Ottoman presence.

Dakhla Oasis was populated primarily by farmers, with local production of dates, rice, wheat, olives, and various fruits. Artesian well water was the most important resource here; thus it rather than agricultural land per se was taxed (p. 35). Peters describes the local water allocation system from the wells. Time was traditionally reckoned at night by the stars and during the day by shadow lengths, both calculation systems widely distributed throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Many of the documents relate to the sharing of water and its distribution. As Peters notes, the importance of water shares in the oasis is illustrated by the large number of signatories, as shown in document 21 (p. 79). There are also several agricultural contracts. Overall, the range of documents allows Peters to survey the local administration and customary procedures of al-Qasr, including relations with Cairo, during the Ottoman era.

The value of the corpus, like that of the Cairo Genizeh for an earlier period, is that the documents illustrate everyday issues, including family matters. A large number of the documents relate to the important local family of al-Qurshi in al-Qasr. Biographical details emerge about two members of this family in particular. Salib ibn Husayn al-Qurshi (d. 1143/1730) and 'A'isha bint 'Abd Allah, a white Circassian slave who converted to Islam. Peters argues that the corpus is especially valuable for understanding the local application of law in the oasis. The documents reflect rulings of jurists who were Shah% Maliki, and Hanafi, but also evince local customary law ('urf). A divorce case is described for a certain Sa'ada 'Ali Muhammad al-Qurshi, whose husband had been away for seven years without providing for her (pp. 60-61). The Maliki judge, unlike the Shafi'i, sided with the woman.

Two poorly illustrated maps of the oasis are provided, one with the major artesian wells indicated. Ten sample illustrations of the documents follow, although the print quality resembles a xerox rather than a clear photograph. All of these samples are transcribed in the following full corpus of documents. For each of the 134 documents archived in the text, information is given on the access number, document size and condition, document type, date, and general comments. Each line of the transcription is numbered. The indices list personal names (pp. 579-606). legal authorities mentioned in the documents (pp. 606-7), and names of wells (pp. 607-10). Given the range of details in the actual documents, a subject index would also have been a helpful addition.

DANIEL MARTIN VARISCO

HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY