Nile drought

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

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.


Abd al-Latif Baghdadi 4: Consuming the Present

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.