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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 July 2012
Over the past half century, the scholarly literature on Middle Eastern economic history has grown substantially. By mining the surviving records of states and towns, scholars steeped in the region's languages have produced detailed studies of waqfs, guilds, taxation, government expenditures, monetary trends, production, land use, charity, and court systems, among many other topics. In carrying out their work, Middle Eastern historians can now draw on abundant publications that describe economic life in particular places and periods.
1 A few excellent examples are Goitein, Shelomo D., A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgment in One Volume, rev. and ed. by Lassner, Jacob (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Doumani, Beshara, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995)Google Scholar; and Matthee, Rudolph P., The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600–1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.
2 With regard to legal practices, for example, contributors differ on the practical implications of the choice of law granted to non-Muslim minorities. Compare al-Qattan, Najwa, “Dhimmīs in the Muslim Court: Legal Autonomy and Religious Discrimination,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31 (1999): 429–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with Cohen, Amnon, Jewish Life under Islam: Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), chap. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
