Medieval Cairo

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 5: The Year 598

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Earthquake, and hiding kings, in Revelation, 14th century - (British Library)

Another year of drought, another of famine, and even more disasters pile on for the early-13th-century Egyptians. We also see Abd al-Latif make a surprising 20th-century appearance.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

  • Barber, Malcolm. The Crusader States. Yale University Press, 2012.

  • Dols, Michael Walters. The Black Death in the Middle East. Princeton University Press, 2019.

  • Ellis, Richard. Imagining Atlantis. Knopf, 2012.

  • Modern, John. Neuromatic: Or, A Particular History of Religion and the Brain. University of Chicago Press, 2021.

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Abd al-Latif Baghdadi 4: Consuming the Present

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Image from the Luzerner Schilling, a 16th-century manuscript (Wikimedia)

What happens when the river fails to rise? In 597 (1200), Abd al-Latif found famine, crime, and cannibalism.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

  • Lev, Yaacov. Administration of Justice in Medieval Egypt: From the 7th to the 12th Century. Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

  • Lewicka, Paulina B. Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes: Aspects of Life in an Islamic Metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean. Brill, 2011.

  • Traveling Through Egypt: From 450 B.C. to the Twentieth Century, edited by Deborah Manley & Sahar Abdel-Hakim. American University in Cairo Press, 2008.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 3: Harvesting the Past

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The Sphinx, as it appears in Frederic Louis Norden's 1755 Voyage d'Égypte et de Nubie (Wikimedia)

Like many people ever since, and even now, Abd al-Latif was fascinated by Egypt's ancient sites and structures, the pyramids and the Sphinx. He was fascinated, but also disgusted with how their stones and contents had been treated as his contemporaries looked to them less with wonder, more with greed.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

  • Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ʿAbd Al-Laṭīf Al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’. Brill, 2013.

  • Ibn Abi Usaybi'a. A Literary History of Medicine. Edited by E. Savage-Smith, S. Swain, and G.J. van Gelder. Leiden, 2020.

  • Joosse, Peter. The Physician as a Rebellious Intellectual. Peter Lang, 2014.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 2: On Egyptian Flora and Fauna

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Miniature from a copy of Kitab al-hashaish, an Arabic translation of Dioscorides’s De Materia Medica. (The David Collection)

We continue the Abd al-Latif series and dig into his observations on Egypt, its plants and animals, the hybrid banana and the terrifying sea horse.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

  • Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ʿAbd Al-Laṭīf Al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’. Brill, 2013.

  • Ibn Abi Usaybi'a. A Literary History of Medicine. Edited by E. Savage-Smith, S. Swain, and G.J. van Gelder. Leiden, 2020.

  • Joosse, Peter. The Physician as a Rebellious Intellectual. Peter Lang, 2014.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 1: Scholars, Sultans & Money

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Born in the 12th century, Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi travelled the Ayyubid world in search of students, mentors, and patrons. His curiosity stands out, and does his impatience with scholars who, as he saw it, wasted their time with alchemy or other unimportant topics.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here.

Sources:

  • ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī. A Physician on the Nile: A Description of Egypt and Journal of the Famine Years. NYU Press, 2021.

  • Bonadeo, Cecilia Martini. ʿAbd Al-Laṭīf Al-Baġdādī’s Philosophical Journey From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’. Brill, 2013.

  • Ibn Abi Usaybi'a. A Literary History of Medicine. Edited by E. Savage-Smith, S. Swain, and G.J. van Gelder. Leiden, 2020.

Brancacci's Mission 1: From Florence to Cairo

Detail from Masaccio’s The Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel

Detail from Masaccio’s The Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel

In 1422, Felice Brancacci set out from Florence to establish trading relations with Mamluk Egypt, and to advocate for his city's currency. This is that story, part one of two.

If you like what you hear and want to chip in to support the podcast, my Patreon is here, my Ko-fi is here, and Paypal is here.

Sources:

  • Florence's Embassy to the Sultan of Egypt, translated by Mahnaz Yousefzadeh. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

  • Behrens-Abouseif, Doris. Practising Diplomacy in the Mamluk Sultanate: Gifts and Material Culture in the Medieval Islamic World. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.

  • Goldthwaite, Richard A. The Economy of Renaissance Florence. JHU Press, 2009.

  • Najemy, John M. A History of Florence, 1200-1575. John Wiley & Sons, 2008.