L’Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen. By Éric Vallet. Bibliothèque historique des pays d’Islam, vol. 1. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2010. Pp. 872. €90.

Mamluk Cairo, a Crossroads for Embassies: Studies on Diplomacy and Diplomatics. Edited by Frédéric Bauden and Malika Dekkiche. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 161. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Pp. xxvii + 881. $179, €149 ; $162, €135.

A Maritime Lexicon: Arabic Nautical Terminology in the Indian Ocean. By Abdulrahman al Salimi and Eric Staples. Studies on Ibadism and Oman, vol. 11. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2019. Pp. 641, illus. €88.

While there is a tradition of Islamic world maps and geographic depictions of direction to the Kaʿba in Mecca, relatively few detailed maps of individual Islamic realms have been studied. In an early 14th-century tax ledger compiled for the Rasūlid sultan al-Malik al-Muʾayyad Dāwūd (d. 721/1321), there is a map of the fortresses (ḥuṣūn), major towns, and ports of the areas controlled and taxed, as well as individual maps of Aden, Taʿizz, al-Janad, Dhamār, al-Shiḥr, and several wadis. Given the context (...) of the text, Irtifāʿ al-dawla al-Muʾayyadiyya, as a tax register, some of the maps probably serve a functional purpose. But how should such maps be read against the lists of important locations in other Rasūlid sources and earlier compilations, such as Yāqūt’s Muʿjam al-buldān compiled a century earlier or al-Hamdānī’s 10th-century Ṣifat jazīrat al-ʿArab? In this article I analyze the range of locations, how they are iconically represented, the accuracy of their relative locations, and their links to other Rasūlid lists. In what ways do these maps better illustrate how the Rasūlids viewed their own realm, which in the early 14th century was a rival of the Egyptian Mamluks and a major player in the Red Sea/indian Ocean trade network? Finally, how does this unique set of maps fit other Islamic maps in the tradition that stems back several centuries before? (shrink)

Shipped but Not Sold: Material Culture and the Social Protocols of Trade during Yemen’s Age of Coffee. By Nancy Um. Perspectives on the Global Past. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2017. Pp. xiv + 198, illus. $64.

Towards a Cultural History of the Mamluk Era. Edited by Mahmoud Haddad, Arnim Heinemann, John L. Meloy, and Souad Slim. Beiruter Texte und Studien, vol. 118. Beirut: Orient-Institut, 2010. [Distributed by Ergon Verlag Würzburg.] Pp. xii + 164 + 152, illus. €68.

The Villages of the Fayyum: A Thirteenth-Century Register of Rural, Islamic Egypt. Edited and translated by Yossef Rapoport and Ido Shahar. The Medieval Countryside, vol. 18. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. Pp. viii + 260. €90. Rural Economy and Tribal Society in Islamic Egypt: A Study of al-Nābulsī’s Villages of the Fayyum. By Yossef Rapoport. The Medieval Countryside, vol. 19. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. Pp. xxix + 285. €110.

Wathāʾiq madīnat al-Qaṣr bi-l-wāḥāt al-Dakhla: Maṣdarān li-taʾrīkh Miṣr fī l-ʿaṣr al-ʿuthmānī. Silsilat Dirāsāt Wathāʾiqiyya. By Rudolph Peters. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-ʿĀmma li-Dār al-Kutub wa-l-Wathāʾiq al-Qawmiyya, 2011. Pp. 610.

Bedouin Ethnobotany: Plant Concepts and Uses in a Desert Pastoral World. By James P. Mandaville. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011. Pp. xv + 397. $55.

A Handbook of Modern Arabic Historical Scholarship on the Ancient and Medieval Periods. Edited by Amar S. Baadj. Handbook of Oriental Studies, The Near and Middle East, vol. 155. Leiden: Brill 2021. Pp. xxix + 653. $209, €175.

The country of Yemen, on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the most extensively terraced areas in the world. There is a well-documented tradition of both dryland and irrigated farming over the past three millennia and much of the indigenous agricultural knowledge survives. Development efforts over the past two decades in the north of Yemen have focused on expansion of tubewell irrigation at the expense of the major land use on dryland terraces and traditional subsistence crops. (...) Despite millions of dollars in aid, Yemen is far from agriculturally self-sufficient and its scarce water resource is rapidly being depleted. This articles explores the relevance of indigenous Yemeni knowledge of agriculture and the environment for the future of terrace farming in the country. It is argued that farmer knowledge can contribute to sustainable production and can be grafted on to modern methods and technology. Within Yemen the existing community support networks and pride in national heritage would assist in a reinvestment effort for the existing resource of the terraces. (shrink)

Traditional Yemeni Scholarship amidst Political Turmoil and War: Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. al-Muṭahhar al-Manṣūr and His Personal Library. By Sabine Schmidtke. Series Islamo-Arabica, vol. 1. Cordoba: Cordoba University Press, 2018. Pp. 213 + 87, illus. €40.