ʿAmr Munīr: Miṣr fī al-āsāṭīr al-ʿarabiiyah

Abstract

#13–2019 Cairo: al-Majlis al-Aʿ lā li-l-Thaqāfah, 2016, 475 pages. ISBN: 9789779209380 ʻAmr Munīr is an Egyptian historian and specialist in the history of Medieval Egypt. His primary research area is the folklore and cultural heritage of Egypt in the Middle Ages and early modern era. This present work Miṣr fī al-āsātīr al-‘arabīiyah (Egypt in the Arabian Myths) examines the myths about Egypt in the writings of Muslim-Arab travellers and historians. It develops a new approach in modern historical studies that differs from the Arab classical historical studies, which present historical studies built on the classic narratives of the past written by the contemporary chroniclers. In contrast, Munīr’s approach may be considered a transmission stage in recent Arab historiography combining cultural heritage studies and classic historical studies. He seeks to trace the popular imaginations stored in myths and tales that the traditional sources included, but which have been neglected by previous studies. Munīr investigates historical and folk sources of Egypt, Egyptian Society, as well as Egyptian Cities and the Nile. To distinguish between myths and historical events, the author examines the old myths about Egypt that people transmitted through the ages. Munīr then compares and evaluates the perception and transmission of these myths in the writings of the classical Muslim historians, chroniclers and travellers. This method enables Munīr to differentiate between the traditional myths transferred and inherited by generations through the ages, on the one hand, and historical events as recorded in historiographical Arabic sources, on the other. Munīr considers the account of al-Maqrīzī (1364-1442), Kitāb al-mawāʿiẓ wa-l-iʿtibār bi-dhikr al-khīṭaṭ wa-l-āthār (Topographic and historical description of Egypt), which also known as al-khiṭaṭ al-maqrīziyyah, as the most prominent source of this study that contains substantial heritage materials about Egyptian history and folklore. Another significant study source is the book Seyahatnâme Miṣr (book of travel of Egypt) by Evliya Çelebi (1611–82), an Ottoman traveller through the territories of the Ottoman Empire and neighbouring lands. Munīr states that this traveller provided a unique description of Egyptian society and its folklore, including many popular tales, myths and superstitions circulated among the Egyptian populace. The sources of this work include a wide range of contemporaneous Muslim sources. In broad terms, the majority of the sources and writers were chroniclers, eyewitnesses and classical Muslims historians. Therefore, Munīr’s book relied on a variety of other sources, such as Kitāb futūḥ Miṣr wa-akhbāruhā (Conquests of Egypt and REVIEW 103