Writing Egypt

Reviews / Votes

This will be Rabbat's magnum opus. The culmination of the author's career-long devotion to al-Maqrizi's work, Writing Egypt is a very human assessment of the life and scholarship of one of the most influential historians of the medieval Islamic world. This beautiful work, which has one foot in Mamluk Studies and the other in historical biography, carefully examines historical craft, vividly portrays daily life in medieval Cairo, and raises important questions about identity-making in modern Egypt. -- Bethany J. Walker, University of Bonn In writing al-Maqrizi and his Egypt, Nasser Rabbat deploys the full extent of his sympathy, expertise, skills, and cultural and academic knowledge to weave a remarkably detailed tapestry that goes beyond the traditional biography of "the great man and his work." -- Dana Sajdi, Boston College In this exhaustive portrait, al-Maqrizi, the person, the moralist, and the historian, comes to life. It also serves as a fundamental bibliographical guide to Egyptian urban history. For anyone interested in writing about place and yearning in general, the carefully charted trajectory of al-Maqrizi's monumental project and its impact on Ottoman historiography, Orientalism, and modern Egyptian historical writing is informative and inspirational. -- Li Guo, University of Notre Dame This intellectual biography of al-Maqrizi is a masterpiece. One of the best assessments of an Arab intellectual to appear this decade. The work of Professor Rabbat will set the standard for biographical scholarly work on Mamluk scholars. The arch of the work is unique in modern scholarship. It excavates the author from his massive works and situates him in his environment. But more importantly, Rabbat follows the impact of the works of this scholar up to the present. This is a magisterial work. A must read for anyone interested in the intellectual history of Islam. -- Walid Saleh, University of Toronto Well-organized and written in simple and clear language, Nasser Rabbat's book is an excellent synthesis of our knowledge of al-Maqrizi. -- Pascal Buresi * Arabica * Writing Egypt is a study of a sophisticated medieval Arab intellectual, a lifetime's work that at times makes for challenging reading. Though a Mamlukist myself, I found much of the content new and difficult, yet still most welcome. -- Robert Irwin * Times Literary Supplement *