Miriam Frenkel, “Medieval Alexandria: Life in a Port City,” Al Masaq, vol. 26, no. 1 (April 2014): 5-35

Antiquity, 2021

The residential architecture of Alexandria has traditionally been extrapolated based on comparison with the plans and decoration of monumental hypogea from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. New evidence from an archaeological research programme launched at Kom el-Dikka offers novel insights into the style of domestic architecture and the urban topography of the city.

2020

Across the history of dealing with problems of increasing poverty in historic city centers of developing countries, studies have indicated high levels of demand and strong support for urban revitalization projects compared to other solutions such as; relocation or clearance and redevelopment. In such historic inner city centers, heritage can become a driver for development. Revitalization projects that demonstrate a concern for affordability for less wealthy citizens has become the best alternative to meet the needs of the citizens and small businesses in such deteriorated areas in old city centers. Preparing Alexandria for the 21st century has to take into account the way by which the city’s old city center will be developed. The city needs to be equipped with strong development strategies that will support its revitalization and development, based on studies of each part and area that holds special character and potentials. This paper proposes an adaptive urban revitalization proj...

The influence of the Islamic Culture on the urban fabric of most Arab- Mediterranean cities is immense. Indeed, the urban fabric of Historic Muslim cities has a unique and special configuration that was influenced by different factors and variables. Approaches that analyze the urban fabric of Islamic Cities require additional in-depth studies of the influencing factors and variables in order to guide the conservation policies that attempt to revive and protect the identity of the Muslim City. Accordingly the paper will analyze the urban fabric of the Turkish district in Alexandria, as an example of the urban form of the Islamic city. An important pre-requisite is to identify the unique identity of the urban fabric of the study area and finding ways for reviving its urban heritage and values. It attempts to demonstrate the unique features, which identify the structure of urban fabric and street patterns of the city from the other Islamic cities so as to appraise the current and future deformation of the study area in Alexandria within the framework of sustainable urban design.

Al-ʿUsur al-Wusta, 2020

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.

Journal of Islamic thought and civilization, 2022

Alexandria is the second-largest city in Egypt; this city is the threshold of Egypt and the first place by the sea where travelers encounter and create an idea of Egypt in their minds. Many western travelers, such as Hartmann Schedel, André Thevet, Jacob Peeters, Charles Perry, Volney, Dumont, and others have visited Alexandria and wrote reports on the City past and present, through which their opinions of the city can be accessed. Without a doubt, looking at Alexandria from a traveler's point of opinion differs from the opinions of a person who has lived there and observed the city from the inside. The question is how each of these two perspectives encounters the city. What questions have each of them asked and what answers have they given? And do these questions and answers come from their social and cultural background? Can a comparison of these two opinions provide a picture of the city to help better understand its history? It seems that the questions and answers of these observers come from their social backgrounds. At the same time Volney (1757-1820) lived in France, Abdul Rahman bin Hassan al-Jabarti (1825-1753) lived in Egypt. In this study, using an asymmetric macro-comparison method, we have attempted to evaluate the information in Volney's travelogue and Jabarti's ''Ajāeb-al Asār'' based on their perspective of the inside (Jabarti) and outside (Volney) of Alexandria. In his introduction to the late 18 th century Alexandria, Volney seems to be very attached to the ideas from the French society, At the same time, Jabarti did not pay much attention to the question of Alexandria's

Introduction 1A ims "TheCompassionate and Benevolent" is amonograph about the medieval Jewish community of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. In historical terms,itis ad iachronic study, elucidating "processes" in agiven socio-political arena over ad efined period of time. Alexandria as city or community,then, is not my subject here but rather the field of research through which Ic onsider community relations and power dynamics in the medieval Jewishs ociety of the Islamic lands. The nature of the Alexandrian Jewishc ommunity and the extent of its autonomy, both important topics in themselves, are not the focus of this book. My aim here is to present aw ell-defined micro-history and through it,t or eveal some general truths as well. In some instances,t he book narrows its focus, attemptingt op rovide a glimpse into the life stories, conducts and practises of contemporaryprivatepeople. Thisisdone in order to explore the intricate affiliations between individuals and groups and to better understand wider processes. Our use of the term "Islamicate" rather than "Islamic" is crucial for this book. Coined by Marshall Hodgson in his seminal work TheV enture of Islam (1974), the term "Islamicate" refers to the areas and societies ruled by Muslims, which mayhaveincluded aMuslim majority,but that also included other significant non-hegemonic communities,who werefull participantsinthe social,economic,culturaland intellectual activity and discourse of theirtime and space, in spite of their apparent second-classs tatus ("protected peoples," ahl al-dhimma).¹ The term "Islamicate" represents the important truth that, alongside their idiosyncratic characteristics,a ll of these communities,M uslims, Jews and Christians, shared manyc ultural traits. The Jewish community of Alexandria was an indispensable component of this medieval city.A ss uch, its past does not constituteo nlyp art of Jewish history,but alsoreflects patterns and processes in medieval Islamicate society and culture.

The christianization of Alexandria, 2023

Article included in "Alexandria a city and a legend", book under press at Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Ever since its birth, Alexandria has been at the crossroads of three cultures. In combining them, the city has created several original syntheses which have renewed the thought of their era, enriched civilization and established the city’s renown in space and time. The emergence and affirmation of Christianity in Alexandria took place in this perspective.

2015

This paper is afurther step in along-term research which began in 2000 and is based at present in the universities of Hamburg¹ and Rome ("Sapienza")² about the documentation, the archives, and the self-presentationofthe see of Alexandria as referred to in the histories producedwithin the bishopric or in the circles close to it.The starting point of this research was the identification by Alessandro Bausi of ah istorical narrative, enrichedw ith documents and list of names, within an ancient canonical collection attested by an Ethiopic manuscript.Thisn arrative turned out to be paralleled, at least in part,b yt hree already-known documents concerning the church of Alexandria, preserved in aLatin collection. In addition, the whole was easilyproven to belong to alost Greek Historyofthe Episcopate of Alexandria³,tobedistinguished from both the later Coptic Historyoft he Church and Copto-Arabic Historyo ft he Patriarchs of Alexandria⁴.  Asien-Afrika-Institut,H iob Ludolf Zentrum für Äthiopistik.  Dipartimento di Storia, culture, religioni.  The list of our preliminary studies on this text is now considerable. The first official announcement of the discovery was made in Bausi 2002 and 2006.Some portions of my commentary,inpreparation, can be consulted in the followingp ublications:C amplani 2004,2 006a, 2006b, 2007,2 009,2 011a, 2011b, Bausi /C amplani 2013.A tt he base of this research is the work of four scholars.The first of them is Tito Orlandi, who devoted several contributions,c ommentaries,a nd editions to the history of the church written in Coptic (CHC) as wellastoother texts, such as the Apologia secunda of Athanasius and the Historyo ft he Patriarchs. The second is Annick Martin, whose historical commentary on the Historia acephala is apoint of reference for the reconstruction of the historiographyofthe patriarchate and its ideological position (Martin 1985). The third is Ewa Wipszyckawhose contributions to the institutional church in Egypt and to the staff of the patriarch made possible acomprehension of the milieu which produced these histories. The fourth is Philippe Blaudeauwhose book about Alexandria and Constantinople has provided the theoretical frame in which my contribution finds its place(Blaudeau2 006). In particular,t he notion of "geo-ecclesiology" proves to be productive of new results in the studyofthe histories written in the episcopal circles. In J.-M. Carrié'sintroduction to Blaudeau'sb ook (Blaudeau2 006,x iv)w ef ind this interesting judgment about this concept: "Ce terme de géo-ecclésiologie par lequel l'auteurdésigne sa perspective de recherche n'est pas un simple jeu métaphorique, pour faire "chic",encore moins un jeu de mots:c'est en réalitéunmodèle de lecture de la confrontation entrechrétientés orientales qui mobilise et guide toute une stratégie herméneutique. Il permet d'appliquer àdes questions historiques souvent traitées et débattues une grille de questionnement productive,expérimentée et validée par les résultats. Par sa dynamique,l ec oncept mobilise toute une géographie (cartes àl'appui) des espaces de présenceetd'intervention en fonction des objectifs jugéss tratégiques,d es zones de tension et des théâtres d'opération".  See referenceb ibliography in the notest ot he paragraphsc oncerned with each of these histories. The followinga bbreviations will be used: HEpA =H istory of the Episcopateo fA lexandria CHC =C hurch History in Coptic

Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World: From Constantinople to Baghdad, 500-1000 CE, 2022

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.

P. Pomerey (Hrsg.), La batellerie égyptienne. Archéologie, histoire, ethnographie, 2015