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Al-Jabartī and the Frankish Archaeologists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

C. E. Bosworth
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Extract

For the Muslims, ancient Egypt was a land of mystery and magic. The monuments of Pharaonic Egypt attested a once-flourishing civilization, and the sheer scale of so many of these remains seemed to point either to a despotic monarchy which could command the services of multitudes of slaves to build the pyramids or to carve the rock temples of Upper Egypt (this being the rationalistic explanation put forward by, e.g., Ibn Khaldūn), or else to the existence of a priestly tradition of esoteric wisdom and the ability to command supernatural powers (which Ibn Khaldūn fully admitted elsewhere in his Prolegomena). This last view had behind it the sanction of the Qur'ān, above all, in regard to the story of Moses’ throwing down his staff before Pharaoh and its metamorphosis into a serpent, and his subsequent contest in magic with the Egyptian sorcerers (Qur'ān, 7, 101–23/103–26); these events naturally lent themselves to much fascinating embellishment by the qussās or popular storytellers.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , April 1977 , pp. 229 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 See al-Muqaddima, ed. Quatremère, E. (Paris, 1858), 2, 205–207Google Scholar; Rosenthal, F., trans., The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History (New York, 1958), 2, 238–241Google Scholar, where Ibn Khaldūn stresses how the marshaling of hordes of slave workers, plus the use of levers and mechanical devices, techniques that only strong central authorities can bring to bear, amply explain the great monuments scattered across the face of the Middle East and popularly attributed to the people of 'Ād.

2 Ibid., III, 113, 156; Quatremère, , al-Muqaddima, 3, 89, 124.Google Scholar

3 E.g., on the prodigious size of the serpent, which so frightened Pharaoh that he befouled himself in his flight, see Ishāq Ahmad, Abū b. al-Tha'labī, Muhammad, ‘Arā'is al-majālis fī qisas al-anbiyā’ (Cairo, 1306/1888–1889,) pp. 245–248Google Scholar, and the commentators in Sale, G. and Wherry, E. M., A Comprehensive Commentary on the Qur'ān, (Boston, 1882–1886), 2, 225–229.Google Scholar The information in al-Suyūti's Husn al-muhadara fī akhbār Misr wa'l-Qāhira on the magicians of Egypt is conveniently reproduced and translated by the Bargès, Abbé, “Tradition musulmane sur les magiciens de Pharaon,” Journal Asiatique, 4ieme Ser., 2 (07–12 1843), 73–84.Google Scholar

4 For summaries of Muslim lore on the Pyramids and Sphinx, see Graefe, E. and Plessner, M., “Haram,” EI2, 3, 173Google Scholar, and Becker, C. H., “Abū ’l-Hawl,” EI2, 1, 125–126.Google Scholar An extended account is to be found in al-Maqrīzī's Khitat (Būlāq, 1270/1853), 1, 111–123Google Scholar, and Wiet, G., ed., El-Mawā‘iz wa’l-I‘tibār, Mémoires de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 33 (Cairo, 1913), 2 (1), 111–159Google Scholar; the chapter on the Pyramids was also edited and translated into German by Graefe, , Das Pyramidenkapitel in al-Makrīzī's “Khitat,” Leipziger Semitische Studien, 5, 5 (Leipzig, 1911).Google Scholar

5 Al-Maqrīzī, , Khitat, 1, 123Google Scholar; Wiet, , ed., El-Mawā‘iz wa’l-I‘tibār, 2 (1), 156.Google Scholar Wiet quotes another Arabic source that this piece of iconoclasm was followed by the descent of the Franks on Alexandria; in fact, the Frankish attack from Cyprus, when the Crusaders occupied the city unimpeded for four days, took place in 766/1365.

6 The latter attitude being one not only held by simple Middle Eastern peasants; when Béla Bartók was collecting folk songs in Transylvania in the first decade of this century, he was not infrequently at the outset taken to be a tax official.

7 See Ayalon, D., “The Historian al-Jabartī and His Background,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 23, (1960), 231 n.1, 233–234CrossRefGoogle Scholar; a shortened version is in Lewis, B. and Holt, P. M., eds., Historians of the Middle East (London, 1962), pp. 395 n. 15., 397–398.Google Scholar

8 ‘Ajā’ib al-āthār fī ’l-tarājim wa ’l-akhbār (Cairo, 1322/1904), 4, 303–304Google Scholar; (Cairo, 1377–1386/1958–1967), VII, 418–420; French translation, Bey, Chefik Mansour et al. , Merveilles biographiques at historiques ou chroniques du Cheikh abd-el-Rahman el-Djabarti (Cairo, 1888–1896), 9, 254–256Google Scholar (Ayalon justly stigmatizes this translation—in parts often a résumé—as an “extremely inaccurate and bad translation, and … very dangerous to use”).

9 Reading wa-‘alā ra’sihi for the texts’ wa-‘ulūw ra’sihi.

10 On the various terms used in Arabic to denote hieroglyphic writing (the qalam al-tayr used here, qibtī, barābī, barbāwī, etc.), see Wiet, , ed., El-Mawā‘iz wa ’l I‘tibār, 2, 1, p. 118 n. 5.Google Scholar

11 See Sim, Katherine, Desert Traveller; The Life of Jean Louis Burckhardt, (London 1969), pp. 410–415.Google Scholar

12 Ayalon, , “The Historian al-Jabartī and His Background,” pp. 231–232Google Scholar; Lewis, and Holt, , eds., Historians of the Middle East, pp. 395–396.Google Scholar

13 See Bosworth, C. E., ‘The Tomb in Cairo of John Lewis Burckhardt,” Journal of Semitic Studies, 18 (1973), 259–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 I have not been able to find anything out concerning al-Jabartī’s other companion Shaykh Mustafā Bākīr al-Sā‘ātī.

15 For Salt’s career and activities, see Bosworth, , ‘Henry Salt, Consul in Egypt 1816–1827 and Pioneer Egyptologist’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 57 (Autumn, 1974), 69–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 ‘Ajā’ib al-āthār fī’l-tarājim wa’l-akhbār (Cairo, 1322/1904), 4, 251Google Scholar; (Cairo, 1377–1386/ 1958–1967), VII, 329, in the obituaries for 1230/1815.

17 That the original mound of Shaykh Salāma lay to the south of the Shāri’ al-Mūskī is expressly mentioned by ‘Alī Mubārak Pasha, who says that the mosque, the Qur’ān school, and other appurtenances there were also known as ‘the mosque of Shaykh ‘Abd al-Ghanī [al-Malawānī al-Mālikī]” from the name of its khatīb, in al-Khitat al-jadīda al-tawfiqiyya (Būlāq, 1304–1306/1867–1869), III, 85, and V, 95. See also al-Jabartī, ‘Ajā’ib al-āthār, loc. cit. ‘Alī Mubārak also mentions the Darb al-Barābira as being part of the Shāri’ al-Sikka al-Qadīma which ran off the Mūskī in a loop, al-Khitat al-Jadīda, 3, 81.Google Scholar

18 Mayes, Stanley, The Great Belzoni, (London, 1959), pp. 115–131Google Scholar, tells the detailed story of this remarkable feat.

19 Ibid., pp. 148–152. Belzoni's Sekhmet statues are certainly among those acquired by Salt and now in the British Museum, among a very large number of complete and incomplete figures held there. The exact identification of the provenance of these figures is very delicate; T. G. H. James of the Museum's Department of Egyptian Antiquities has attempted to sort them out, but now confesses that “The problem of Sekhmet statues is complex and, I believe, beyond resolution’ (I am most grateful to Mr. James and to Dr. Rosalie David of the Manchester Museum for help on various Egyptological questions).

20 Halls, J. J., The Life and Correspondence of Henry Salt, Esq., F. R. S., etc. His Britannic Majesty's Late Consul General in Egypt (London 1834), 1. 497–498.Google Scholar The “purse” (kisa) mentioned by al-Jabartī must have been the Rūmī or “Greek” one, used mainly in Turkey and Syria, and of 500 piasters or qūrush rather than the Egyptian one of 620 piasters; see the discussion of the very complex currency systems of the Ottoman Empire in Gibb, H. A. R. and Bowen, Harold, Islamic Society and the West (London, 1950–1957), 1 (1), 49–59, esp. pp. 45, 58.Google Scholar

21 Halls, , The Life and Correspondence of Henry Salt, 2, 64–71.Google Scholar

22 Wiet, , ed., El-Mawā‘iz wa ’l-I‘tibār, 2 (1), 155 n 5.Google Scholar

23 Halls, , The Life and Correspondence of Henry Salt, 2, 96 ff.Google Scholar

24 Al-Maqrīzī, . Khitat, 1, 122Google Scholar; Wiet, , ed., El-Mawā‘iz wa ’l-I‘tibār, 2 (1), 155.Google Scholar The length of the cubit is computed here on the basis of the Nilometer one of 54.04 cm. =21¼ inches, cf. Hinz, W. “Dhirā‘,” EI2, 2, 231.Google Scholar Hence al-Jabartī’s figure of 32 cubits for the height of the Sphinx would amount to 56 feet 8 inches.