Talk:Fustat/Archive 1

Archive 1

improvements

this article has undergone some pretty good recent changes, i think other areas for improvement are: to increase the number of citations used, just to ensure that everything is verified; in some places the quality of citation might need improvement - the Encyclopedia of the Orient for example can be replaced by some more specialist sources. content-wise it doesn't seem to have any major omissions; i'll check through some sources later to help fix both issues. other than that i would say there is good potential here for a future GAC. ^_^ ITAQALLAH 23:06, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. And I was actually just at the bookstore yesterday, picking up some new Islam-related books. There are also some good public-domain sources available, like this 1901 book on the History of Egypt.[1] I would have been in editing a bit more today, but I didn't want to step on your own changes. You've been doing great, and I'm enjoying working with you. :) And yes, I look forward to getting this to GA. It'll be a great addition to Wikipedia.  :) --Elonka 23:12, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, so i was pondering over what else could be added to the article. i think most of what can be mentioned is (there isn't as much detail as i had hoped in most of my available sources), and there's been a lot of improvement in terms of citations. i'm thinking about going through the article once more to see if any sentences can be cleaned up or any citations added/improved upon, and then probably see how a GA nom. goes after that. any thoughts? ITAQALLAH 13:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I think we've gone about as far as we can with existing sources. There might be a few factoids that we could add here or there (I'll keep looking), but I think we're ready for GA. --Elonka 16:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Images

I would love to add an image to this article, which shows a drawing of what Fustat looked like in its heyday. So far I've had no luck whatsoever in finding that, or in finding an image of Shawar. Do you have access to anything that we might be able to use? --Elonka 23:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

i have located an image, from the book "History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 11" (it's from Project Gutenberg, and the indications are that it's free) which is an illustration of Fustat: [2]. here's another image too: [3]. (the pages load up with firefox, not so sure about IE) ITAQALLAH 00:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Good find! Took me a bit to get the pictures to load, but I see them now, and agree that they'd be a good addition to the article. The book appears to have been published in 1903-1906, so that'd be public domain. I do a lot of uploading to the Commons, shall I handle it? Or would you like to? Either way's fine with me.  :) The proper tag would be {{PD-Gutenberg}}. --Elonka 02:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

yes, feel free to upload them. ITAQALLAH 02:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've posted one. Since I haven't dealt with Gutenberg images before, I'd like to let this one sit for a day or so, and see if anyone has concerns about the info I provided. If there are no objections, I'll go ahead and upload other relevant images from the book as well. --Elonka 02:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I've uploaded more images from the book, and created a gallery at Commons:Old Cairo which includes both those, and some other images which I found scattered around (none of Fustat though). If you find any others and would like help uploading, let me know.  :) --Elonka 00:42, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

excavations

i was wondering whether the material on recent excavations (in the History section) should be moved to the section on Modern Fustat, because the latter section seems to discuss archaeological research and (the possibility of) discovery of remnants from the city. ITAQALLAH 18:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's a bit tangled. I do think that some of it is worth mentioning in the History section, to give a sense of the reach that the markets had. But it can probably be a bit better-worded. I did some copyediting to it, please take a look? Feel free to try reworking it, and if we go back and forth, we'll see if we can come up with a consensus version.  :) --Elonka 17:28, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

i think the information works well in either place- it pertains to Fustat in its prime, and is derived from recent archaeological developments. i don't mind much because of its relevance to both sections, the sentence about items preserved in the Museum of Islamic Art does belong in the later section i think, so that was a good move. ITAQALLAH 18:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Automated peer review

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You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Elonka 16:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

GAC review

It's an interesting well-sourced article but there are just these minor fixes needed:

• "It was built by the Arab general Amr ibn al-As immediately after the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641 CE, and also featured the Mosque of Amr, the first mosque ever built in Egypt, meaning it was the first mosque built on the African continent." - the "also" is redundant. It's not obvious to a casual reader why being the first mosque in Egypt means being the first mosque on the African continent.
  • tried to clarify somewhat. ITAQALLAH 09:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
• "burned in 1168 by its own vizier Shawar," - a comma after vizier may be needed.
• "multiple locations up and down the Nile, in locations such as" - the "in locations" is repetitive and redundant
• It's not clear why "Misr" became the Arabic name for Egypt.
  • It means "City", and is a shorthand for the full name of "Misr al-Fustat", "City of the Tents". I'm afraid I don't have a source that says much more than that. --Elonka 15:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
• A smoother transition is needed between the third and forth paragraphs of the history section. Who were the Umayyads and when did they rule?
• "The city reached its peak in the 9th century, when it had a population of approximately 120,000." - this is mentioned in the lead but not the main text. How is its peak defined? From the text, it seems the 10th and 11th centuries were its wealthiest periods.
  • Fixed. Good point, and I went and found a very reliable source that said "200,000" right before the city was burned, so I reworked the article to include that info. --Elonka 05:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
• "The city was famous for its beauty, with shaded streets, gardens, and markets." - peacock term
• "when the Abbasid caliphate came into power. This conflict was focused not in Egypt" - the words "this conflict" are inappropriate as no conflict has been previously mentioned; it was merely stated that a new caliphate had come into power.
• I think the Other Egyptian capitals section should be merged with the history section. It's confusing reading about events not in chronological order.
  • We can probably demote the section header a bit, but it's really a separate concept. The fate of the other capitals wasn't really directly tied to Fustat, but the whole area's history is kind of merged in today's "Old Cairo". --Elonka 15:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Fixed. I reorganized some sections, putting the "capital" info at the beginning, so the history part should flow better now. --Elonka 05:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
• The history section should maybe be renamed Early History, as the Destruction section is also concerned with the city's history.
• "This situation lasted only until 905, when the city was destroyed and the capital returned to Fustat, where it remained until the city was ordered burned" - this reads as though the capital remained at Fustat until it was burnt in 1168, however, we were told the capital moved to Cairo in 969.
  • tried to address this, Cairo might have been built with the intention of making it a capital (i'll check the sources in a few) but for its early period it remained an enclosure for the Fatimids. it was only after Ayyubid ascension that the expanding Cairo was made the capital proper. ITAQALLAH 11:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Cairo was built with the intention of making it the "home of the Caliph", but it wasn't considered the capital (meaning where actual administration took place) until after Fustat was burned. In other terms, it might be helpful to think of Cairo as having been built as an enormous palace, that was big enough to be a small city, but wasn't where the actual townspeople lived. For the day-to-day governing, bureaucracy, markets, trade caravans, etc. etc., those were all in Fustat. Or in other terms, Cairo was the "gated community" where the royals lived, but it wasn't where the government buildings were.  ;) --Elonka 15:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
      • It may be helpful for readers of this article if Capital of Egypt was made clearer. Epbr123 19:52, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
        • Fixed. At least, IMHO. :) Please look it over again, and let me know if you like this version better? --Elonka 05:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
• "$150,000 per day" - probably best to mention it's US$.
• "and famous for shifting alliances" - peacock term. Famous amongst who?
  • Famous in any history book that talks about him. See Shawar. Though we can probably bring a few of those sources over here. --Elonka 15:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Fixed. I went ahead and expanded the section about Shawar, and added a more specific ref. --Elonka 05:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
• "Mosque of Ibn Tulun, from the 9th Century" - century doesn't have a capital
• There are minor WP:MOS issues such as date linking and dash usage.
  • I'm not seeing those, but I'll admit that those particular kinds of things tend not to jump out at me, since I'm pretty laid-back when it comes to dates and dashes.  :) Feel free to fix, or list things here and we'll get them addressed? --Elonka 05:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me know when these are fixed or if you disagree with any. Thanks, Epbr123 22:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Good work. Pass. Epbr123 08:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Arabic sources

I was looking through the library today for more books about Fustat. So far most of what I've found is more about the details of the archaeological digs, with lots of details about beads and glass and cloth fragments, but very little about the actual history of the city. Then I thought I found the perfect source, a "History of Fustat", but evidently it's in Arabic and I can't read it.  :/ There is a library here in St. Louis that carries it (Washington University), and I actually went and looked it up and held it in my hand, but couldn't do much more than look at the pictures.  :) Itaqallah, do you have access to a large enough library, that you might be able to track down a copy? Here are WorldCat links to a couple of the books I found: [4][5] I don't think that any info in these will slow down the GA promotion (providing that the article meets with Epbr123's approval), but I think if we can find enough sources for expansion, this might be a really good FA-candidate too. :) --Elonka 05:42, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

i may/may not be able to find those works, but i am still learning the language myself so i wouldn't be able to translate it to a high standard. i'll make another push to find more resources on the topic. i looked at ar.wiki's article on fustat and it uses a book that may well have further information in that is not currently in this article (i think we can request for someone to cross-check?). ITAQALLAH 13:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

First African mosque?

What about that of Negash, built by the migrants in Aksum/Ethiopia at the time, predating the Hijra? Nothing of it remains that I'm aware of, but it would predate the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 08:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

that's very observant of you :). i'm sure the assertion regarding being Africa's first mosque is present in the sources, but i'll double check that. ITAQALLAH 18:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. I can affirm multiple sources which say that the Mosque of Amr was the first mosque in Africa, but I'm open to proof that those sources may be wrong. Based on what I was seeing of Negash, it's affirming that it was a Muslim settlement, that had a mosque, but it doesn't say anything about the building date of that mosque. Can we get more info on that? Thanks, Elonka 19:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a very delicate matter, & I hope that whoever is brave enough to resolve it will thoroughly research the matter first, before attempting to make a definitive edit. Based on my (admittedly unreliable) memory, I can't recall an explicit statement that the Muslim colony at Negash built a mosque, simply that the tombs there were so venerated that they were the object of many pilgrimages. Further, despite the size and age of its Muslim population, Ethiopia is surprisingly underserved with mosques & it is possible that no such structure existed in Negash before Mohammed Al Amoudi had one built. -- llywrch 23:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I found this reference, although it's not exactly an expert opinion:

"Situated on a small hill around 10 km north of Wikro is the tiny town of Negash -- the first site of Muslim settlement. Fleeing persecution in -- Arabia in Mohammed's own lifetime, a community of Muslims took refuge here. The current mosque is said to lie on the site of the 7th-century original. An ancient cemetery, also believed to date from the 7th century, was found recently. - Lonely Planet 2000, pp.195-6

The citation is from here, page 18. I'll look for better ones, though. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 18:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Right, to change our claim, we'd need not just something that said the mosque was built in the 7th century, but something that said that it was built prior to 642, the building date of the Mosque of Amr. My guess is that this has already been covered somewhere... If there genuinely were a "first mosque" there, I'd think that the Islamic historians would have already pounced on it and made a big deal of it. But, it can't hurt to check things out.  :) --Elonka 18:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Th above discussion hinges on the definition of a mosque. Under Islamic law (and this is supported by a tradition of the prophet) the entire earth may be used as a mosque. Indeed masjid is a place of prostration. Bless sins (talk) 00:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Misr

(copied from internal comment in the article)

I tried to check your references on this, but they were not online references. Can you quote exactly what they say about this? Because it is well known that Misr is an ancient Semitic root for Egypt. In the Bible it's call'd Mitsrayim, which is a dual (as opposed to singular or plural). The article on Egypt also points this out. I don't have my Arabic dictionary with me to see what meaning the root might have in Arabic, but according to the Egypt article it means "metropolis", "civilization", "country", or "frontier-land". It is certainly not the normal word for "town", and it certainly had the meaning of "Egypt" long before the time of Amr ibn al-'As.

You are correct that those are offline references, but there are also several online references which discuss the name being "Town of the tents". Check this Google search, for example: [6] You can also search at books.google.com, for example:[7] --Elonka 23:13, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I've checked my Arabic dictionary, and it's true that Miṣr can mean big city or metropolis, and the verb from the same root means to civilize or "Egyptianize". But it's not clear that the sense of "civilization" was the original. It might be derived from the sense of "Egypt". In any case, the meaning "Egypt" is an ancient meaning, going back more than a thousand years before Amr ibn al-'As. The book to which you have supplied a link also gives the meaning of Fusṭāṭ-Miṣr as "Fusṭāṭ of Egypt". (By the way, the word fusṭāṭ is singular, not plural, meaning a large tent, or pavillion.) Also the Google search you supplied gives various translations for Miṣr al-Fusṭāṭ including "Camp of Egypt". The Google search also refers to an article "Notes on the Jews in Fustāt from Cambridge Genizah Documents" from October 1905 in the Jewish Quarterly Review by Ernest Worman (pp. 1-39), and on page 6 I find the following:

"Now the meaning of [the Hebrew expression] Fustāt-Miṣraim seems plainly to be Fustāt of Egypt. The Arabic form corresponding to it is Fustāt-Miṣr, either part of the name being as often used alone. Miṣr may mean any large town, and ten such were counted by the Arabians, among which were Baghdad, Kufa, Memphis, and, later, Alexandria and Cairo. But the name itself has only been attached permanently to this district, and while Fustāt was called Miṣr in the eighth century and earlier, its neighbour Cairo is only known by the name of Miṣr or Maṣr to the inhabitants of to-day.

"Perhaps Fustāt Miṣraim may be traced to the influence of the Copic name [I don't know how to transcribe the two words], Babylon of Egypt, which was evidently inteded to be a distinction from the Asiatic Babylon. Although this Egyptian Baylon is said to be a height south of Qaṣr ash-Sham`, yet it is probable that the old and new towns, Babylon and Fustāt, overlapped one another, as Fustāt is said to have enclosed the Qaṣr, and therefore to have gone south of it. And, moreover, in a MS. list of bishoprics of Egypt, quoted by Amélineau, βαβυλων φοστατων = الفسطاط‎بابلون, is given. It does not seem necessary that Fustāt should have the name of the country attached, there being only one such place."

I think that makes it pretty clear that Miṣr meant Egypt. It may be that Egyptians don't all know that it is an ancient word for Egypt and interpret Miṣr al-Fusṭāṭ simply as "Metropolis of the Tent". It may also be that Amr ibn al-'As was making a sort of play on words. But in any case, the name of the town is not the real source of the name of the country.

Eric Kvaalen (talk) 14:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed analysis. I see that some of this covered in Egypt#Etymology, though you may want to add a bit more there. :) As far as the Fustat article, I still think that including the "Town/Camp/City of the Tents" description is useful since it is fairly well-accepted, but an etymology section might be useful here to give some of the alternate translations if you think that this would be helpful. --Elonka 15:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)