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Jelle Bruning
Leiden University, Middle-Eastern Studies, Faculty Member
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Middle-Eastern Studies, Arabic Literature, Medieval Islamic History, Medieval Islam, Late Antiquity, Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, and 30 moreLate Antique Archaeology, Islamic Archaeology, Abbasid History, Abbasid Literature, Umayyad History, Umayyads (Islamic History), Umayyad Literature, Umayyad coinage, Umayyad and Abbasid History, The Umayyads and 'Abbasids In EGYPT, The Rightly Guided Caliphs, Rashidun Caliphate, Egyptian Archaeology, Coptic Studies, Middle East History, Islamic History, Arabic Papyrology, Classical Arabic Prose Literature, Coptic Papyrology, Early Islam, Islamic Historiography, Early Islamic History, Greek Papyrology, Papyrology, Early Islamic Archaeology, Arabic Prose Literature, Classical Arabic Poetry, Christian Arabic Literature, Arabic Historiography (History), and Coptic (Languages And Linguistics) edit
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Jelle Bruning specializes in the social history of early Islamic Egypt (ca. 640-1000 CE). He works extensively with d... moreJelle Bruning specializes in the social history of early Islamic Egypt (ca. 640-1000 CE). He works extensively with documentary sources in Arabic, Coptic, and Greek and contemporary literary texts. He currently works on a critical edition, translation and study of Ibn al-Sabbagh's (ابن الصباغ) late tenth-century treatise on Alexandria's religious virtues (فضائل الاسكندرية). edit
During the period 500-1000 CE Egypt was successively part of the Byzantine, Sasanian and Islamic empires. All kinds of events, developments and processes occurred that would greatly affect its history and that of the eastern Mediterranean... more
During the period 500-1000 CE Egypt was successively part of the Byzantine, Sasanian and Islamic empires. All kinds of events, developments and processes occurred that would greatly affect its history and that of the eastern Mediterranean in general. This is the first volume to map Egypt’s position in the Mediterranean during this period. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, the individual chapters detail its connections with imperial and scholarly centres, its role in cross-regional trade networks, and its participation in Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultural developments, including their impact on its own literary and material production. With unparalleled detail, the book tracks the mechanisms and structures through which Egypt connected politically, economically and culturally to the world surrounding it.
Research Interests:
Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Egyptian Archaeology, Medieval Islam, Mediterranean Studies, Egyptian History, and 15 moreByzantine Studies, Coptic Studies, Late Antiquity, Abbasid History, History of the Mediterranean, Umayyads (Islamic History), Medieval Islamic History, Early Islamic Archaeology, History of the Eastern Mediterranean, Early Islamic History, Arabic Papyrology, Ceramics, Umayyad and Abbasid History, Nubian studies, and Early Islamic Egypt
In the "Rise of a Capital: Al-Fusṭāṭ and Its Hinterland, 18/639-132/750", Jelle Bruning maps al-Fusṭāṭ’s development from a garrison town founded by Muslim conquerors near modern Cairo (Egypt) in c. 640 C.E. into a bustling provincial... more
In the "Rise of a Capital: Al-Fusṭāṭ and Its Hinterland, 18/639-132/750", Jelle Bruning maps al-Fusṭāṭ’s development from a garrison town founded by Muslim conquerors near modern Cairo (Egypt) in c. 640 C.E. into a bustling provincial capital a century later. Synthesising contemporary papyri, archaeology and narrative sources, this book argues that al-Fusṭāṭ’s position in Egypt changed with the different policies of the Rightly-Guided and Umayyad caliphs and their provincial representatives. Because these policies affected the town’s centrality in the administration as well as in commercial and legal networks throughout Egypt, from Alexandria in the north to Aswan in the south, "The Rise of a Capital" offers valuable new insights into Egypt’s society during the first century of Muslim rule.
Research Interests:
History, Economic History, Archaeology, Islamic Law, Papyrology, and 24 moreLegal History, Egyptian Archaeology, Administrative History, Medieval Islam, Egyptian History, Egypt, History of the Islamic World, Social History, Islamic History, Islam, Greek Papyrology, Medieval Islamic History, Islamic History and Muslim Civilization, Arabic Papyrology, Roman, Byzantine, Early Arab Egypt, Greek and Arabic Papyrology, Arabic papyri, Coptic Papyrology, Alexandria, Arab Conquests, Muslim Conquests, Fustat, Islamic Conquests, and Premodern Societies
Translations of Arabic papyrus letters, with detailed introductions, about enslavement and the slave trade, the social integration of slaves, slave labour, and emancipation and patronage in eighth- and early ninth-century CE Egypt.
Research Interests:
Slavery, History of Slavery, Egyptian History, Abbasid History, Umayyads (Islamic History), and 15 morePatronage (History), Greek Papyrology, Medieval Slavery, Abbasids (Islamic History), Patronage (Medieval Studies), Islamic Law and Slavery, Arabic Papyrology, Umayyad and Abbasid History, History of slavery in the Mediterrenean, Coptic Papyrology, Patronage and Clientage, Early Islamic Egypt, Concubinage, Slavery In Islam, and Slavery in the Islamic World
Research Interests:
History, Cultural History, Late Antique and Byzantine History, Slavery, History of Slavery, and 14 moreByzantine Studies, Al-Andalus, Abbasid History, Social History, Islamic History, Sasanian History, Al Andalus (Islamic History), Medieval Slavery, Byzantium, Andalusia/Al-Andalus, Bactria, Ancient Slavery, History of slavery in the Mediterrenean, and Roman Slavery
This article studies tombstones from eighth- to tenth-century CE Egypt that are designed to mark the grave of a Muslim slave. These funerary inscriptions are unusual in that they do not marginalise the enslaved as much as do other early... more
This article studies tombstones from eighth- to tenth-century CE Egypt that are designed to mark the grave of a Muslim slave. These funerary inscriptions are unusual in that they do not marginalise the enslaved as much as do other early Islamic sources. Furthermore, they reveal otherwise undocumented attitudes towards persons who died as slaves. Offering a thick description of an unpublished tombstone for a ninth-century concubine-mother (umm walad), the present article analyses tombstones for slaves from two perspectives. It first studies the representation of the enslaved and the specific terminology that tombstones used to designate the deceased as enslaved. It then turns to the commemorative context of tombstones, arguing that tombstones of slaves served similar purposes, and used similar illocutionary strategies, to those used by contemporary tombstones for free Muslims. Despite these similarities between tombstones of free and enslaved persons, we see that deceased slaves were commemorated as members of the Muslim community as well as the legal property of their owners.
Research Interests:
Women's History, Slavery, History of Slavery, Funerary Archaeology, Women and Gender Issues in Islam, and 13 moreFuneral Practices, Commemoration and Memory, Abbasid History, Islamic History, Medieval Slavery, Medieval Epigraphy, Abbasids (Islamic History), Tombs (Medieval Studies), Funerary Practices, Inscriptions, Umayyad and Abbasid History, Archéologie funéraire, and Islamic Tombstones
Central to this article is an Arabic letter written on papyrus in an Egyptian prison in the late ninth or early tenth century CE. The author complains that he and his companions are kept in terrible conditions and that they have received... more
Central to this article is an Arabic letter written on papyrus in an Egyptian prison in the late ninth or early tenth century CE. The author complains that he and his companions are kept in terrible conditions and that they have received insufficient support from outside prison. Interestingly, he indicates that the group strongly inclines to offering themselves as slaves in order to find relief from their crushing living conditions. By doing so, they would transgress Islamic law of that time, which forbade the enslavement of free inhabitants of the Realm of Islam. The letter is a unique source for the social history of slavery, especially self-enslavement, in Abbasid society. This article presents, translates and annotates this letter and offers a detailed study of its contents.
Research Interests:
Islamic Law, Papyrology, Slavery, History of Slavery, Medieval Islam, and 11 moreEgyptian History, Islamic Studies, Abbasid History, Islamic History, Medieval Islamic History, Sociology of prison life, Islamic Law and Slavery, History of prisons, Arabic Papyrology, History of slavery in the Mediterrenean, and Early Islamic Egypt
A study of the image of Alexandria in Muslim literature written in the first four Islamic centuries. The chapter focuses on a theme that is particularly popular in that literature: Alexandria's destruction. It argues that the belief in... more
A study of the image of Alexandria in Muslim literature written in the first four Islamic centuries. The chapter focuses on a theme that is particularly popular in that literature: Alexandria's destruction. It argues that the belief in the city's destruction (in the past, present or future) lay at the foundation of the religious significance Muslims, especially Egyptians, ascribed to the city and contributed to the legitimisation of a hybrid Egyptian-Muslim identity.
Research Interests:
Abbasid Literature, Medieval Islam, Eschatology and Apocalypticism, Abbasid History, Islamic History, and 13 moreUmayyads (Islamic History), Alexander the Great, Fatimids, Medieval Islamic History, Abbasids (Islamic History), Islamic History and Muslim Civilization, Sacred Spaces, Umayyad and Abbasid History, Sacred Places, medieval history of Egypt, Sacred Space, Alexandria, and Early Islamic Egypt
This article studies the organization of a war fleet in Egypt between ca. 640 and 800 CE. Whereas medieval historiography on this topic is largely limited to the mentioning of naval expeditions and a handful of arsenals, papyrus documents... more
This article studies the organization of a war fleet in Egypt between ca. 640 and 800 CE. Whereas medieval historiography on this topic is largely limited to the mentioning of naval expeditions and a handful of arsenals, papyrus documents written in Arabic, Coptic and Greek present a wealth of information that has hitherto not been systematically explored. On the basis of these sources, this article maps three waves of development in the organization of Egypt’s early Islamic fleet. These waves date to the 660s, the early 700s and to around 750. They are unmistakably related to empire-wide administrative and military changes introduced by Sufyanid, Marwanid and early Abbasid caliphs.
Research Interests:
Late Antique and Byzantine History, Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, Naval History, Egyptian History, Mediterranean, and 14 moreAbbasid History, Umayyads (Islamic History), Greek Papyrology, Medieval Islamic History, Abbasids (Islamic History), Early Islamic History, Islamic History and Muslim Civilization, Arabic Papyrology, Medieval Mediterranean, Early Islamic Historiography, Umayyad and Abbasid History, Coptic Papyrology, Alexandria, and Early Islamic Egypt
This article offers an edition, translation, and study of a hitherto unknown text about Ayyubid or early Mamluk Alexandria. The author, one Abū Khuzayma Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, gives a short yet rich description of the city based as... more
This article offers an edition, translation, and study of a hitherto unknown text about Ayyubid or early Mamluk Alexandria. The author, one Abū Khuzayma Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, gives a short yet rich description of the city based as much on Alexandria’s real cityscape as on legends. The text treats famous monuments, such as the city’s lighthouse and the Column of the Pillars, as well as less well-known buildings, such as mosques, colleges, watchtowers, and gates. An analysis of the account leads to the conclusion that its author wrote the account in order to mobilize Muslims for the defense of the city against Frankish or Byzantine attacks on Alexandria or Egypt’s Mediterranean coast in general.
Research Interests:
Crusades, Mamluk Studies, Medieval Islam, Ayyubid history, Classical Arabic Prose Literature, and 10 moreIslamic History, Medieval Islamic History, Crusades and the Latin East, Jihad, Alexandria, Early and Classical Islamic History, Early Islamic Egypt, Islamic Literature, Arabic and Islamic Studies, and Ayyubid Historiography and Literature
This article discusses the commercial, socio-economic and legal dynamics of slave trading in Egypt on the basis of papyri from the AH third-fourth/ninth-tenth centuries CE. Particular focus is given to the activities of slavers, the... more
This article discusses the commercial, socio-economic and legal dynamics of slave trading in Egypt on the basis of papyri from the AH third-fourth/ninth-tenth centuries CE. Particular focus is given to the activities of slavers, the networks of professional slave traders, the socio-economics of slave acquisition, and commercial dynamics at slave markets. Much of the discussion draws on the contents of five contemporary papyrus documents that are presented, translated and annotated in the appendix.
Research Interests:
Islamic Law, Papyrology, History of Slavery, Egyptian History, Slave Trade, and 13 moreAbbasid History, Social History, Islamic History, Nubian-Egyptian Relations, Medieval Slavery, Early Islamic History, Arabic Papyrology, History of slavery in the Mediterrenean, Islamic Economy, Medieval Nubia, Early Islamic Egypt, Nubian Studies and Egyptology, and Abbasid Studies
Edition and study of P.Vindob. A.P. 01788, a papyrus fragment from third/ninth-century Egypt containing Arab genealogical information in the form of two lineages. At least one of these lineages belongs to ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ (d. 43/664).
Research Interests:
Papyrology, Egypt, Abbasid History, Abbasid Intellectual History, Early Islam, and 7 moreAbbasids (Islamic History), Early Islamic History, Arabic Papyrology, Classical Arabic Literature, History and Philosophy of Islamic education, Islamic Literature, and Transmission of Knowledge In Classical Islam
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The importance of documentary sources for the history of the official postal system (barīd) in the first century of Islam has long been acknowledged. In addition to a small number of documents from the eastern part of the Muslim Empire,... more
The importance of documentary sources for the history of the official postal system (barīd) in the first century of Islam has long been acknowledged. In addition to a small number of documents from the eastern part of the Muslim Empire, Egyptian papyri from the 90s/710s and 130s/750s form the main documentary sources for modern studies on the postal system. These papyri belong to a distinct phase in Islamic history. Papyri from other, especially earlier, phases have largely been neglected. The present article addresses the history of Egypt’s official postal system from the Muslim conquest up to c. 132/750. It argues that the postal system gradually developed out of Byzantine practices and was shaped by innovations by Muslim rulers through which their involvement in the postal system’s administration gradually increased. The article ends with an edition of P.Khalili II 5, a papyrus document from 135/753 on the provisioning of postal stations.
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This article presents the edition of a legal document from c. 44/664–5, written in Arabic, that records a woman’s debt of a third of a dinar. It is the oldest preserved original of its kind. A study of the formulary of this document and... more
This article presents the edition of a legal document from c. 44/664–5, written in Arabic,
that records a woman’s debt of a third of a dinar. It is the oldest preserved original of its
kind. A study of the formulary of this document and contemporary copies of similar
documents reveals a hitherto overlooked validity clause which states that the recorded
financial transactions are in accordance with ‘the normative procedure of the believers’
(sunnat qaḍāʾ al-muʾminīn). This clause gives documentary evidence for the existence of
ideas about legal identity among the Muslim community in Egypt as early as the beginning of Umayyad rule.
that records a woman’s debt of a third of a dinar. It is the oldest preserved original of its
kind. A study of the formulary of this document and contemporary copies of similar
documents reveals a hitherto overlooked validity clause which states that the recorded
financial transactions are in accordance with ‘the normative procedure of the believers’
(sunnat qaḍāʾ al-muʾminīn). This clause gives documentary evidence for the existence of
ideas about legal identity among the Muslim community in Egypt as early as the beginning of Umayyad rule.
Research Interests:
This article studies the life and works of a hardly known littérateur and anthologist who lived in early Abbasid Baghdad and al-Fustat: Yusuf b. Ibrahim b. al-Daya. The first part of the article gives an attempted biography on the basis... more
This article studies the life and works of a hardly known littérateur and anthologist who lived in early Abbasid Baghdad and al-Fustat: Yusuf b. Ibrahim b. al-Daya. The first part of the article gives an attempted biography on the basis of personal information that can be found in anecdotes that are said to be taken from Yusuf ’s works. In the second part, these anecdotes and their relation to Yusuf ’s largely neglected literary output will be studied.
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Jelle Bruning taps a new source for the history of slavery among early Muslim communities and shows what funerary epigraphy can tell us about how ninth-century Muslims dealt with their deceased slaves.
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Blog about a ninth-century CE letter a middle-aged man wrote in order to ask for a young woman's hand. Posted on https://papyrus-stories.com/2020/09/25/a-confirmed-bachelor-wishes-to-marry/ on September 25, 2020.
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Geschiedenis magazine 45/2 (2010): 24-27
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In light of the reverence for Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem in medieval (and present-day) Islamic thought, the question whether the Egyptian city of Alexandria was of any religious significance for medieval Muslims seems trivial. Yet,... more
In light of the reverence for Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem in medieval (and present-day) Islamic thought, the question whether the Egyptian city of Alexandria was of any religious significance for medieval Muslims seems trivial. Yet, there is ample evidence that some Muslims held that city in great esteem. They considered some of Alexandria’s architecture as precious remnants of the age of prophets, they believed that the city was the ultimate place to defend the Muslim polity against enemies of Islam, and they held that the first signs of the Apocalypse would appear in Alexandria.
This lecture discusses a tenth-century CE book devoted to Alexandria’s place in Islamic sacred geography. This book is not only one of the main sources for Muslim views of Alexandria, it is known to have remained popular for centuries. The lecture will first introduce the audience to the book and its author. It will then focus on two important themes the book addresses: Alexandria’s connection with the activities of Dhu al-Qarnayn and the prophet Muhammad’s alleged visit to the city during his night-journey. These themes illustrate how medieval Muslims dealt with Egypt’s pre-Islamic past and argued for its significance in the present.
This lecture discusses a tenth-century CE book devoted to Alexandria’s place in Islamic sacred geography. This book is not only one of the main sources for Muslim views of Alexandria, it is known to have remained popular for centuries. The lecture will first introduce the audience to the book and its author. It will then focus on two important themes the book addresses: Alexandria’s connection with the activities of Dhu al-Qarnayn and the prophet Muhammad’s alleged visit to the city during his night-journey. These themes illustrate how medieval Muslims dealt with Egypt’s pre-Islamic past and argued for its significance in the present.
Research Interests:
Medieval History, Classical Arabic Prose Literature, Early Islamic Archaeology, Graeco-Roman Alexandria, Early Islamic History, and 7 moreArabic Papyrology, medieval history of Egypt, Alexandria, Early Islamic Egypt, Islamic Literature, Early Islamic art, late antiquity, and Classical and Modern Arabic Literature and Culture
This workshop aims to explore forms and functions of slavery represented in textual sources from the early-Islamic empire, ca. 600-1000 CE. It addresses questions about the realities of slavery. E.g., what makes a person slave? How does... more
This workshop aims to explore forms and functions of slavery represented in textual sources from the early-Islamic empire, ca. 600-1000 CE. It addresses questions about the realities of slavery. E.g., what makes a person slave? How does (un)freedom affect an individual’s social status? To what extent did slavery and related practices differ across historical, cultural, and geographic contexts? Hence, is it appropriate to use generic terminology, such as ‘slave’ and ‘slavery’, when we speak of forms of unfreedom throughout the Islamicate world? By integrating textual sources from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, Egypt, the Near East, Arabia, Persia and Central Asia, this workshop aims to better understand the complexity of slavery in the early-Islamic empire.
Research Interests:
Arabic Literature, History of Slavery, Byzantine Studies, Abbasid History, Islamic History, and 15 moreBactria (Archaeology), Sasanian History, Medieval Islamic History, Al Andalus (Islamic History), Medieval Slavery, Andalusia/Al-Andalus, Arabic Epigraphy, Abbasids (Islamic History), Sassanid Empire, Early Islamic History, Arabic Papyrology, Bactrian, Islamic Slavery, Slavery In Islam, and Slavery in the Islamic World
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This volume collects studies exploring the relationship of Christians and Muslims in everyday life in Early Islamic Egypt (642-10th c.) focusing mainly, but not exclusively on administrative and social history. The contributions... more
This volume collects studies exploring the relationship of Christians and Muslims in everyday life in Early Islamic Egypt (642-10th c.) focusing mainly, but not exclusively on administrative and social history. The contributions concentrate on the papyrological documentation preserved in Greek, Coptic, and Arabic. By doing so, this book transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries and offers results based on a holistic view of the documentary material. The articles of this volume discuss various aspects of change and continuity from Byzantine to Islamic Egypt and offer also the (re)edition of 23 papyrus documents in Greek, Coptic, and Arabic. The authors provide a showcase of recent papyrological research on this under-studied, but dynamically evolving field. After an introduction by the editor of the volume that outlines the most important trends and developments of the period, the first two essays shed light on Egypt as part of the Caliphate. The following six articles, the bulk of the volume, deal with the interaction and involvement of the Egyptian population with the new Muslim administrative apparatus. The last three studies of the volume focus on naming practices and language change.