A “Documentary Turn” in the Medieval History of Egypt and Syria?

Abstract

The field of medieval Middle East history has seen a renewed attention to the use of documentary sources in recent years. These sources have long seen some neglect, and their interpretation has suffered from a stubborn narrative of paucity that has tended to relegate them to the fringe of this history. With the impact of other scholarly trends in the historical field at large, such as the “archival turn” and an emphasis on materiality, they are now being revisited with new and creative approaches. This article outlines this “documentary turn” in the medieval history of Egypt and Syria, focusing on three scholarly approaches which may have special potential and import for the field: the rejuvenation of history “from below,” the foregrounding of the lives of documents themselves, and the discovery of “new” document corpora.