Cosmopolitanism in Medieval Alexandria: Introduction

Abstract

Channel for goods between Europe and the East, target of crusading expeditions, home to merchants and scholars, place of exile for disgraced Mamlūk emirs – Alexandria was all of these things and more. Yet one theme that comes to the fore in all of these roles is the cosmopolitanism of the city; Alexandria was one of the most ethnically, religiously and socially diverse urban centres of the Mediterranean region. In this issue of Al-Masāq, the contributors explore the multifaceted nature of Alexandria through a number of studies that highlight the diversity of the city and the important role that it played in the religious, cultural, and economic matrix of the eastern Mediterranean. This issue had its genesis in a symposium entitled Cosmopolitan Alexandria, which was organised by Deborah A. Starr at Cornell University in October 2002. The conference saw participants from a wide range of disciplines examining an equally wide range of topics related to the city, and covering periods ancient, medieval and modern. The proceedings of the conference were not published, and other projects intervened, but in 2011 I approached Paul Walker and Miriam Frenkel about the possibility of revisiting the subject at the 21st Colloquium on the History of Egypt and Syria in the Fāt ̇ imid, Ayyūbid and Mamlūk Eras (CHESFAME) at the University of Ghent, Belgium, in May 2012. Paul was, unfortunately, unable to participate, but Yehoshua Frenkel and Georg Christ agreed to make up the numbers, and Jo Van Steenbergen, in his capacity as its organiser, graciously agreed to allow us to present the panel at CHESFAME as planned. He then suggested that I guest-edit an issue of Al-Masāq based on our presentations, and what you have in your hands is the result; it includes both the articles on which our CHESFAME papers were based and Paul Walker’s contribution. To set the scene, Miriam Frenkel’s “Medieval Alexandria – Life in a Port City” gives us a description of the physical and social fabric of the city that draws on archaeological remains, Muslim sources, works by European and Frankish travellers, and Geniza material to demonstrate Alexandria’s importance as a gateway city between East and West, albeit one that went through a gradual change in orientation in the sixth/twelfth century. In “Fāt ̇ imid Alexandria as an Entrepôt in the East–West Exchange of Islamic Scholarship”, Paul Walker then provides an example of how the city’s status as a point of exchange between East and West, in this case of ideas, enabled it to become a centre of Sunni learning in the Fāt ̇ imid period, despite the Shi‘ite beliefs of the rulers. My contribution to this issue, “Cosmopolitan Trade Centre or Bone of Contention? Alexandria and the Crusades, 487– 857/1095–1453”, seeks to open up for enquiry the question of the extent to which