Mediterranean Historical Review

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Collapse, affluence, and collapse again:

contrasting climatic effects in Egypt during the
prolonged reign of al-Mustanṣir (1036–1094)

Leigh Chipman, Gideon Avni & Ronnie Ellenblum

To cite this article: Leigh Chipman, Gideon Avni & Ronnie Ellenblum (2021) Collapse,
affluence, and collapse again: contrasting climatic effects in Egypt during the prolonged
reign of al-Mustanṣir (1036–1094), Mediterranean Historical Review, 36:2, 199-215, DOI:
10.1080/09518967.2021.1963613

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2021.1963613

Published online: 25 Nov 2021.

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Mediterranean Historical Review, 2021
Vol. 36, No. 2, 199–215, https://doi.org/10.1080/09518967.2021.1963613

Collapse, affluence, and collapse again: contrasting climatic effects in

Egypt during the prolonged reign of al-Mustanṣir (1036–1094)
a
Leigh Chipman *, Gideon Avnib and Ronnie Ellenblumc
a
Independent Scholar; bArchaeological Division, Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem, Israel;
c
Department of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

The article examines the rapid and frequent transitions between periods of affluence
and periods of real famine that occurred during the long reign of the Egyptian ruler al-
Mustanṣir (1036–1094), as well as the correlation between these transitions and the
fluctuations in the annual rise in the Nile flow which determine the availability of
grain and food prices. The authors conclude that: (1) The transitions between afflu-
ence and dearth occurred under the same competent administration, and under the rule
of the same Caliph. Therefore, the administration was not the only reason for these
transitions; (2) The ruler (al-Mustanṣir) attempted, nevertheless, to identify affluence
with himself and his reign and was blamed for the periods of scarcity; (3) Well-dated
historical sources are the only way to follow the climatic and societal occurrences in
a yearly resolution. No proxy data are sensitive enough to detect such changes and to
reconstruct the historical and social processes that followed the climatic anomalies;
and (4) Two or three years of insufficient rises of the Nile were sufficient to decrease
the availability of food, reflected in price rises, food riots, and even famine. Two or
three decades of stability were enough to enable the accumulation of wealth.
Keywords: al-Mustanṣir; Egypt; climate history; affluence; collapse

This article is dedicated to the memory of Ronnie Ellenblum, a great scholar and
beloved friend, whose sudden and untimely passing prevented him from seeing its
publication.

Introduction
Many studies published over the last decade have discussed the possible connections
between changes in climate and the stability of states.1 The civil war in Syria, along
with the mass migration from the Levant and the Sahel, have prompted heated
discussions about the contribution of climatic anomalies towards the deterioration
of previously stable societies, as well as the ability of competent bureaucracies to
prevent them.2
Even those scholars who agree that climate anomalies can influence societal trans-
formations are divided as to the severity and length of time required for such changes to
take effect. Some scholars believe that several years of intense drought (e.g., the drought
of 2007–2011 in the Sahel) can lead to the destabilization of complex societies, a factor

*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

200 L. Chipman et al.

that explains mass migrations and the deterioration of these societies3; other scholars
suggest that although climatic changes might lead to temporary hardships, human
societies can adjust to the resulting temporary dearth by applying adequate policies
and technologies; and still yet other scholars maintain that only long-term climatic
changes – for instance the desertification of entire regions – can lead to structural and
societal metamorphoses,4 and that the economy and socio-political factors are more
important in determining the ability of societies to withstand such crises.5
We believe that critical examinations of well-documented past occurrences of col-
lapse and affluence may enhance and amplify the discourse underway. We therefore
chose the very special case of the Fatimid caliph Abū Tammām Maʿād al-Mustanṣir,
whose rule for 60 consecutive years (1036–1094, among the longest reigns in Muslim
history), is highly instructive. During the six decades of his reign there were periods in
which Egypt enjoyed widespread affluence, the like of which would not be repeated for
many years to come, and times of crisis of quasi-biblical dimensions. We also chose this
particular historical period since administrative and bureaucratic components that would
seem to influence the state’s economy continued to exist and function throughout it, as
well as because of the rich documentation of all events, covering both crises and periods
of affluence, in contemporary chronicles and correspondence, amply complemented by
archaeological finds.
These alterations, that occurred in a single country (Egypt), whose food security is
dominated by a single climatic factor (the amount of monsoon rains in the Ethiopian
Highlands, which is quantitatively measured in the yearly flooding of the Nile) while it
was governed by the same ruler, and by the same competent administration, constitute
a valid lesson regarding the relative positioning of the ruler and his bureaucracy, along
with the unpredictable climatic changes, and the amount of time entailed to bring
a wealthy society to the brink of collapse.
The article is based on the thorough reading of Arabic and Coptic chronicles which
describe the events – natural as well as societal – in annual and monthly resolution. The
data was complemented by the signed and precisely dated documents of the Genizah, as
well as by the yearly records of the fluctuations of the Nile. This abundance of precisely
dated evidence was cross-referenced with the independently obtained and similarly
exactingly dated and located archaeological finds to create two parallel datasets – one
of consecutive years of scarcity in which the Nile did not reach the level of 16 cubits
required to ensure the necessary affluence of water for the crops, and another of
successive years of plentiful rainfall in which the Nile rose beyond the requisite level,
enabling the proper irrigation of extended areas along its banks and beyond.
We will demonstrate the correlation between events in which consecutive years of
insufficient rise in the Nile’s water level led to food crises and even famine, precipitating
mass death from starvation and the abandonment of urban centres, and we will argue that
the relative capacity or lack of ability of the central government in these circumstances
had very limited influence on the state’s fortunes. At the same time, we will analyse the
correlation between consecutive years of a plentiful Nile and the consequent food
security, and the various manifestations of wealth that resulted. We will examine these
various phenomena and how the Fatimid state tried to credit itself with the resulting
affluence, by the public ostentation of its products in the form of luxury goods, public
works, and so forth. We will argue that neither the Egyptian government, nor the caliph
himself, had a significant impact on the country’s acquisition of riches, nor in preventing
the intermittent periods of crisis. Moreover, the personality of al-Mustanṣir himself,
whom Kirsten Thomson describes as a “weak, retiring, unexciting character [that] is so
 Mediterranean Historical Review 201

often absent from the sources . . . cannot be used as a focus for the events of his reign”.6
We therefore question whether “political history” as such is meaningful for parsing the
fine-grained periodization of periods of wealth and scarcity, and, whether – when
discussing the economy – we should generalize about the “Fatimid Period”, “the
economy of the eleventh century” or even “during the reign of al-Mustanṣir”, expressions
regularly used by the leading publications dealing with this period.7
Our claim is that political leaders – even strong and talented ones – have limited
influence upon the results of drastic climate anomalies; the same is true of weak leaders,
whereby scholars’ attempts to tie periods of affluence to their personal decisions are
equally strained.
In addition to the contribution to the current political/environmental discussion of the
role played by rulers and governments in preventing hunger or in securing wealth, we
believe that the case of Egypt helps substantiate three other arguments that our research
aims to promote:

(1) That complex societies are vulnerable to climatic disturbances (ranging from
three years to two or three decades) which affect the availability of proper
sustenance, and hence periods of affluence may be replaced by stretches of
sudden scarcity.
(2) Due to the brief intervals separating periods of affluence and scarcity, it is
unwise to rely solely – or even largely – on experimental proxy data to recon-
struct the influence of climate variations on food supply and on human welfare,
given the extensive margin of error of such data (which is longer than the
phenomena themselves), and the poor distribution of the more accurately dated
proxies, such as tree-rings and the like.
(3) The only reliable way to identify short climatic disturbances and reconstruct the
causal chains connecting them to societal transformations is through a thorough
reading of all the available written data and archives.

Periods of collapse and periods of affluence in Fatimid Egypt

The Fatimids first emerged as religious leaders of the Ismāʿīlī Shīʿī stream of Islam,
deriving their authority from a claim of descent from the Prophet Muḥammad’s daughter
Fāṭima. Their dynasty began with ʿUbayd Allah al-Mahdī, who conquered al-Qayrawan
(Tunisia) in 909. It took another 60 years for a Fatimid general to conquer Egypt and
establish the new palace city of al-Qāhira (modern Cairo, “the Victorious”), to the north
of the existing city of Fustat (full transliteration: Fusṭāṭ; cited as Old Cairo in secondary
sources); for many years, the two cities existed side by side, though Cairo itself only
began to flourish towards the end of the Fatimid period.8
From the middle of the tenth century up until 1072 there were 28 years (and perhaps
even 30) in which the Nile did not rise sufficiently for the annual crop irrigation. This is
an unprecedentedly large number of dry years, since in all its documented history, the
average number of years per century in which the Nile did not rise adequately was one or
at most two, a phenomenon that drastically affected the availability of foodstuffs and led
to a sharp rise in the prices of commodities. Given that even two or three consecutive dry
years resulted in famine, often leading to mass starvation, the fact that the tenth and
eleventh centuries saw two lengthy periods of real famine is highly significant: in eight
of the 16 years between 954 and 969 there was a prolonged dry spell, including the six
202 L. Chipman et al.

consecutive drought years of 963 to 969; furthermore, in 11 out of the 20 years spanning
1052–1072 rainfall was minimal, including the seven disastrous years 1065–1072. As
elaborated elsewhere, the insufficient flooding of the Nile inexorably led to critical food
shortages and subsequent famines, along with outbreaks of pestilence, mass migration,
widespread death, and political upheavals.9
Although these crises affected the common folk before reaching the elites, the military
and ruling strata of Egypt were by no means immune. When the regular provision of food
to the army was reduced following two or three years of consecutive drought (as, for
example, during the low Niles of 1024–1025 and the second half of the 1050s), the
shortage led to the deepening of the rivalries within the army between Turk and Black
(i.e., African, mainly from present-day Sudan) contingents, erupting into open conflicts and
fighting.10 When eventually the Treasury’s coffers were emptied, thanks also to the
attempts to subsidize food and to bribe the army into quiet, the escalating situation

Table 1: Drought years in Egypt, 10th and 11th centuries

949 CE 1 year
954–955 CE 2 years 8 years of drought out of 16 years
963–969 CE 6 years
997 CE 1 year
1004–1005 CE 2 years
1008–1010 CE 2 years
1023–1026 CE 3 years
1045–1046 CE 1 year**
1048 CE 1 year*+
1052–1056 CE 4 years 11 years of drought out of 21 years
1065–1072 CE 7 years
**Gil, A History of Palestine, 634–1099, 602a, lines 5–7 and 603a, lines 15–16; see also Gil, “Institutions and Events of
the Eleventh Century Mirrored in Geniza Letters (Part I),” 161–2. Letters from the Geniza written by Benayah b. Mūsā
indicate hunger in the Delta in 1046, but there is no evidence of an insufficient rise of the Nile.
*+Ibn al-Athīr records a drought and a plague which began in 440 AH/1048 CE “in all countries: in Mecca, Iraq, Mosul,
the Jazīra (Mesopotamia), al-Shām (Syria, Palestine), Egypt,” but there is no reference to an insufficient rise of the Nile
(and the dates do not match such an occurrence). See Ellenblum, Collapse, 147.

ultimately saw the execution of ministers and viziers (e.g., Ibn Badūs in 1026, and al-
Yāzūrī in 1058)11; in time, the combination of dearth and pestilence led the common folk
to resort to eating dogs and horses, and even (in 1072) bouts of cannibalism.12
The impact of the calamities depended on their length and their frequency. The first
of the prominent crises arose when for six consecutive years from 963 to 969 the
seasonal flooding of the Nile failed to happen, causing a prolonged drought that heralded
the collapse of the Ikhshidid dynasty and the ascension to power of the Fatimids.13
Additional crises occurred in the first decade of the eleventh century, in which once
again the Nile did not flood adequately for five non-consecutive years (including 997), in
the third decade of the same century (between 1023–1026), in its sixth decade (four
years), and, finally, during the severe drought of seven consecutive years between 1065
and 1072. Two of these long emergencies (along with the shorter crises of 1045–1046
and 1048) occurred under al-Mustanṣir, but his reign also included a 20-year-long period
of affluence whose manifestations in the public and private spheres will be analysed later.
Two of the major crises, occurring first in the 960s and again in the 1070–1080s,
were droughts of “biblical” proportions, and constitute the first documented occasions of
six or seven successive drought years to have effectively occurred. The previous two
 Mediterranean Historical Review 203

such instances were legendary: the first is the story of Joseph (Gen. 41, referenced also in
sūra 12 of the Qurʾān), which refers to seven sequential years in which the Nile failed to
flood, and the second is the story related on the so-called Famine Stele, discovered by the
Egyptologist Flinders Petrie in 1887 on an island south of Aswan in Upper Egypt.14
However, the first reliable historical evidence of such an event is that of the eleventh
century. The previous legendary precedents were well known to the medieval authors
who often mention them, probably in an attempt to answer the questions that occupy us
in the present article. Can a leader of the calibre of Joseph plan for a drought lasting six
or seven years and steer through the consequences? An example of this challenge is
given by Ibn Taghrībirdī, who notes specifically that because the seasonal flooding of the
Nile failed for seven years, the drought of the late 1060s was as bad as that which
prevailed during “the days of Yūsuf al-Ṣiddīq” (the biblical Joseph), and that the crises
climaxed in 1069/1070.15
The catastrophe began in 1052, when in the period 1052–1056 and then again from
1065 to 1072 the rains failed to arrive. As a consequence, in 11 of the 20 years between
1052 and 1072 the Nile failed to flood adequately, and the resulting dearth of food was
felt all across Egypt, eventually developing into nationwide famine. The ensuing crisis of
1065–1072 was so dire that it received the apocalyptic title of al-shidda al-ʿuẓmā (“great
calamity”).16
Arriving in Egypt in the wake of the chaos that prevailed in Egypt during the six-year
long drought and famine of 963–969, the Fatimids duly took bureaucratic steps to ensure
that this pattern was not repeated.17 Despite several further years of drought, in the 1020s
the Fatimid administration still believed that efficiency and diligent control of the grain
supply and distribution could prevent famine. Their faith in planning is reflected in
a dialogue purported to have taken place between the Fatimid caliph al-Ẓāhir and his
muḥtasib (market inspector) at the height of the crisis of 1025. As the official in charge,
the muḥtasib was responsible for the provision of grain and bread, and had the authority
to punish lawbreakers severely. The historian al-Maqrīzī (d. 1442), himself a muḥtasib in
a later period of Egypt’s history, describes the event, attributing to the caliph the claim
that since the muḥtasib had promised “to make sure that grain and bread were available
to all”, the official had broken this promise. Thus accusing the muḥtasib of “starving the
people to death and ruining the entire land”, the caliph revoked the inspector’s authority,
and ordered the opening of 150 warehouses of grain and the sale of their contents to
millers and bakers at a set and regulated price. He also ordered the seizure of all ships
bringing grain from Upper Egypt to Lower Egypt, and personally took over the manage-
ment of the grain stores. Yet his efforts were to no avail: the drought and subsequent
plague intensified and spread to neighbouring lands. The army, also affected by the
scarcity, looted Fustat and joined forces with the nomads, who raided the cities of Tinnīn
and Ashmūnayn, as well as the hajj caravan. The crisis ended only when, after yet
another year of drought, the arrival of rain caused the Nile to finally swell and flood its
banks once more.18
The period spanning 1048 and 1072 saw a different pattern, reaching its nadir during
the Nile’s repeated failure to flood and the subsequent famines of 1065–1072, the
aforementioned “great calamity” (al-shidda al-ʿuẓmā). The administrative attempts to
alleviate famine failed, probably because the time gap between one series of lean years
and the next was not long enough for sufficient food to be accumulated. The shortage of
provisions caused the army’s discipline to deteriorate, turning the Turkish soldiers
against their Black counterparts in a clash over the control of the remaining agricultural
204 L. Chipman et al.

land, creating a vicious circle, since the spreading unrest tended to cause additional
peasants to abandon that land. As Yaacov Lev points out, “[d]uring the years 461‒465/
1068‒1073, the situation in the Delta deteriorated and the fellahin were unable to
cultivate the land even though the Nile had reached its plenitude. Medieval historians
explicitly acknowledged that this was a man-made disaster”19 – but in our opinion, while
the dimensions were caused by human failure, the disaster was precipitated by abrupt
changes in the climate.
When al-Mustanṣir found himself unable to pay his troops, they responded by
plundering the royal treasuries and sold the booty at very low prices, since anything
was better than no cash at all. The fifteenth-century Mamluk historian al-Maqrīzī, whose
work frequently focuses on the Fatimids (for a while he apparently believed himself to be
a descendent of this dynasty), proposes a long list of explanations for the serious crisis in
his Ighātha:

In the reign of the same al-Mustanṣir occurred the famine that had an atrocious effect and
left a horrid memory. It lasted seven years and was caused by the weakness of the sultan’s
authority, the deterioration of the affairs of state, the usurpation of power by the military
commanders, the continuous strife among the Bedouins, the failure of the Nile to reach its
plenitude, and the absence of cultivation of the lands that had been irrigated.20

Like many modern historians, al-Maqrīzī blames the crisis on al-Mustanṣir’s weakness,
which, according to him, caused matters of state to be disrupted and the country’s
government to be seized by military leaders.21 After suggesting the Bedouin as
a possible cause, he eventually mentions the lack of the Nile’s inundation and the
abandonment of cultivated land that had previously been irrigated as reasons for the
crisis. However, while describing the events as they occurred, and while relating the
rapid deterioration as the calamity continued, he reveals what seems to us the true order
of cause and effect. The crisis, he says, began in 457 AH/1064–1065 CE, resulted in
rising prices and increased famine, and was followed by an epidemic.

The lands remained uncultivated and fear prevailed. Land and sea routes became unsafe and
travel became impossible without a large escort; otherwise, one would be exposed to danger.
Famine spread because of want of victuals, to the point that a loaf of bread was sold as if it
were a novelty at an auction in Zuqāq al-Qanādīl, in Old Cairo, for fifteen dinars. One
irdabb [73 kg] of wheat was sold at eighty dinars. Conditions worsened to the degree that
people ate each other. People were constantly on guard. So many cats and dogs were
consumed that dogs became scarce, and a dog that was destined for a meal sold at five
dinars.22 Groups of people sat in the upper stories of their houses, holding cords and ropes at
the end of which they attached hooks. When someone passed by, they would cast at him and
quickly snatch him away and cut up his flesh and eat it. Ultimately, al-Mustanṣir was
compelled to sell everything in his palace, including precious objects, clothes, furniture,
weapons and the like. He was reduced to sitting on a mat, his administrative apparatus
collapsed, and his dignity lost.23

By 1070 the women of the harem had been also reduced to starvation, and the survivors –
including al-Mustanṣir’s mother and sisters – fled to Baghdad, where some of their
jewels found their way into the hands of the Fatimids’ mortal enemies, the Abbasids.24
The calamity continued through 1072/1073, and order was only restored in 1073/1074 –
a year in which the Nile waters finally rose adequately once more, and after which for
many years there were no such extended droughts. The chronicles clearly delineate the
processes that followed prolonged periods of insufficient flooding of the Nile and the
 Mediterranean Historical Review 205

poor harvests that ensued: famines and plagues, violence and nomadic invasions – these
have an obvious beginning and end, and therefore are convenient for the chroniclers to
record in their works, but this is not the case with periods of affluence. Affluence is not
an “event” and has no discrete beginning and end: it is a gradual process that takes time
to register, and exists in the background, as it were, of political events, but can be traced
in the documents as well.

Affluence and its manifestations

In the late 1020s, before the child al-Mustanṣir ascended the throne, a period of climatic
stability began in Egypt, which continued until at least the mid-1040s. During this
period, wealth accumulated across the land and the severe crises of the first and third
decades of the eleventh century were forgotten, together with many of their typical side
effects and sequels – including the incursions of nomadic tribes, the desertion of cities
and agricultural provinces, and the persecution of non-Muslim communities. The com-
mon image of the entire “Fatimid period” is therefore one of affluence, and the Fatimid
administration is considered an exemplary bureaucracy.
Within the span of a few years, the former image of widespread crisis that character-
ized Egypt for almost 60 (non-consecutive) years between the early 960s and the early
1020s – during which the “granary of the Mediterranean” experienced unprecedented
food shortages – became one of affluence, an image that came to typify Egypt for the
next three decades. The speed with which an impression of affluence can be replaced by
one of crisis relies on a political or dated periodization of economic processes. Concepts
like “the Egyptian economy in the eleventh century” or “the Egyptian economy in the
Fatimid period”, or even “the Egyptian economy during the reign of al-Mustanṣir”,
overlook the fact that the correlation between periods of economic flourishing or crisis
and the abilities of a specific ruler is not obvious, and it is valid only in cases of
a particularly incompetent ruler or of one with outstanding capability. Rulers fortunate
enough to control a specific state in periods of prosperity do everything possible to be
identified with that affluence, but in almost every case the causal link remains elusive. In
this article we argue that the main reason for the food crises in Egypt was the repeated
lack of seasonal Nile flooding, a factor that decreased the area of cultivated land
significantly – and, as a result, also the amount of food at the population’s disposal.
Likewise, we argue that periods of affluence were caused by extraordinary series of rises
of the Nile’s waters (beyond the 16 cubits considered adequate to ensure plentiful
irrigation of the valley), which greatly increased the acreage under cultivation, and,
subsequently, the amount of food and the income available to Egypt. Like other rulers,
al-Mustanṣir attempted to link the fact of his reign to the years of plenty, and it is his
attempts to connect the political and economic dimensions that are noteworthy, rather
than the claim itself.
Evidence of the prosperity – and of the political and symbolic meaning assigned to
the very idea of affluence and to the Nile as a source of plenty – can be gathered from
Nāṣir-i Khuṣraw’s description of the opening of the khalīj (canal) when the Nile reaches
plenitude. Nāṣir-i Khuṣraw’s visit to Egypt during his seven-year journey (1046–1052)
coincided with the concluding years of a long period of stability that prevailed from 1029
to 1053 (with the possible exceptions of two years, 1045 and 1048).
206 L. Chipman et al.

When the season approaches, a large pavilion of Byzantine brocade spun with gold and
set with gems, large enough for a hundred horsemen to stand in its shade, is elaborately
assembled at the head of the canal for the sultan. In front of this canopy are set up
a striped tent and another large pavilion. Three days before the festival, drum and
trumpets are sounded in the royal stables, so the horses will get accustomed to the
noise. When the sultan mounts, ten thousand horses with gold saddles and bridles and
jewel-studded reins stand at rest, all of them with saddle-cloths of Byzantine brocade
and buqalamun woven seamless to order. In the borders of the cloth are woven inscrip-
tions bearing the name of the sultan of Egypt. On each horse is a spear or coat of armour
and a helmet on the pommel, along with every other type of weapon. There are also
many camels and mules with handsome panniers and howdahs, all studded with gold and
jewels, and coverings sewn with pearls. Were I to describe everything about this day, it
would take too long.25

It is clear that the sultan wanted the year of plenty (and affluence in Egypt is predictable
as soon as the plenitude is announced, i.e., when the Nile reaches at least 16 cubits and
the canal is opened – an event that takes place in the autumn) to be identified with him
and his own riches, and the opulence of his stables and armouries were to match the
coming abundance. Nāṣir-i Khuṣraw was an Ismāʿīlī missionary or dāʿī, who visited
Cairo in 1047 to meet his imam, and may have viewed Cairo through rose-tinted glasses,
but other contemporary sources strengthen his own view about affluence at the Fatimid
court at least during the period of his visit. These sources allow us to treat the Fatimid
period of prosperity not only in abstract terms, but in descriptive ones too, translating
affluence into everyday objects, luxury, and wealth that was ostentatious even in its own
time.
Chronicles of the Fatimid period are not very abundant, and, in some cases, the
version that has come down to us is not the original work, but a summary dating from the
Mamluk period. In some cases, the riches that were accumulated in Egypt during the
period of affluence can be gathered from the descriptions of the luxuries that were looted,
or from the monies paid out during the years of dearth.26
One such source is the Book of Gifts and Rarities (Kitāb al-Hadāya wa-l-tuḥaf)
attributed to the qadi al-Rashīd Ibn al-Zubayr (fl. 1071). It appears that the extant text is
composed of sections chosen and copied by Ibn Duqmaq (d. 1407), and the original
author cannot be identified with certainty.27 However, he seems to have been employed
by the Fatimid court during al-Mustanṣir’s reign, and his description of the valuables that
were removed from the Fatimid treasuries during the period of the “great calamity” of
1065–1072 can be regarded as a document listing items plundered from the various
storehouses, or even as an inventory prepared for the treasuries themselves.
According to the Book of Gifts and Rarities, almost unimaginable quantities of
valuables were plundered from the storehouses of the Fatimid court. Due to lack of
space, we will give only one example, what was taken from the military banner treasury
(khazāʾin al-bunūd) that according to Ibn al-Zubayr was looted and set aflame in 1068:

An expert on the contents of the military banner treasury informed me that the total amount
of equipment, goods, and treasures kept inside it was so enormous that its value was
unknown. [He also said] that the annual expenditure on this treasury – from the arrival of al-
Qāʾid Jawhar and the construction of the Palace in the year 358 [969 CE], up to the present
time, which was more than a hundred years – had been between seventy thousand and eighty
thousand dinars. [He added] that all this had remained unchanged by the passage of time, but
that it was [now] all burned so that no trace was left. [He also told me] that on that same
night [28 December 1068] tens of thousands of naphtha containers[?] had caught fire. One
could by no means count the numbers of the burned items such as leather shields, swords,
 Mediterranean Historical Review 207

spears, and arrows, including the silver staffs with their gold-embroidered cases, and others;
the velvet military banners, the saddles and bridles of cross-bred horses; the dyed fabrics for
robes; and all the insignia, the large banners, and standard-sashes.28

The story of the looting of the Fatimid treasuries has reached us in such great detail and
from different sources not only because there was apparently an inventory upon which
the chroniclers could rely, but also due to the existential chasm that lies between the
surfeit of jewellery, cloths, porcelain, and swords that al-Mustanṣir succeeded in accruing
during the period of abundance, and the times when he had to rely on charity for a loaf of
bread during the years of dearth that followed: “There was a woman named Sharifah bint
Ṣāḥib al-Sabīl, who used to send him a bowl of crumbled bread daily. . . . Al-Mustanṣir
had no nourishment except what she used to send him.”29 This seems to be a parable of
the fragility of pre-modern societies: vast wealth could be accumulated and then entirely
lost in a short span of time.
Another hint at the immense wealth that the Fatimid government accumulated during
the period of affluence is the amount of cash which was kept in the treasury. According
to al-Maqrīzī, in the drought year of 459 AH/1067 CE, al-Mustanṣir was forced to pay
his soldiers sums that collectively totalled a million dinars. During the following year,
460 AH/1067–1068 CE, which was another year of low water in the Nile, al-Mustanṣir
paid the Turkish soldiers another million dinars already in Muḥarram 460, the first month
of the year (November 1067); and then in Ramaḍān 460 (July 1068), a further
two million dinars were demanded – half to be paid to the Turkish soldiers, and half
to the Blacks.30 In other words, in the third year (out of seven) of the most severe crisis
of al-Mustanṣir’s reign, a moment before the collapse of the Fatimid state, we have
evidence of the immense fortunes accumulated in Egypt and collected beforehand – but
then al-Mustanṣir found himself facing an empty treasury and the subsequent looting of
his private riches.
The sources report on affluence in the upper strata of society, and although it is
difficult to know to what extent this wealth trickled down, the Genizah documents can
provide us a glimpse of the riches which the merchants succeeded in amassing as well.
One such episode refers to the physician ʿAlī Ibn Riḍwān and appears in his own remark,
included in his treatise On the Prevention of Bodily Illness in Egypt, that “[l]ikewise, the
wearing of gems is advantageous [during an epidemic], such as sapphire, emerald, pearl,
gold, silver, high-quality carnelian, and all the precious stones”,31 suggesting that such
precious stones and metals might be within reach of the more general public. Indeed, the
strong connection between hardship, famine, and pestilence makes the literature dealing
with hygiene all the more relevant to our discussion. Ibn Riḍwān’s chapter “On the
Means of Improving the Badness of the Air, Water, and Food in Egypt” provides quite
a few lists of cloths, foodstuffs, perfumes, and spices that he seems to consider within the
reach of the average person, all deemed relevant for healing. According to him:

The floors should be cleaned regularly, and when it is hot they should be covered with cool
mats and coverings, such as reed mats . . . . In cold weather, they should be covered with . . .
carpets, felts, types of silk brocades, and wool. Those who cannot afford these things may
use tattered mats and pelts of rams. . . . If the air is hot, you should advise the sprinkling of
cold water, fountains, and the pouring of water into pools, waterskins, pots, and tubs of
silver, china, lead, ceramic and earthenware made especially in the month of Tubah [Coptic
calendar, approx. 9 January to 7 February]. . . . For clothing, make robes of honor with
Dābiqī stuff; gowns and the rest of the clothing should be light, free and clean. . . . If the air
is cold, put stoves in the living rooms and furnish them with branches, leaves and warm
208 L. Chipman et al.

flowers . . . Cloths: silk, cotton and wool. . . . Assign to everyone what he can afford, to the
point that you may have to prescribe the dirt in the rams’ legs, which is lanolin.32

Ibn Riḍwān’s recommendations of food, clothing, and how to heat or cool one’s dwelling
demonstrate that while Ibn Riḍwān is certainly aware of poverty, he also assumes that
items like thick pile carpets and clothing of fine linen and silk are widely available.
Unlike Maimonides’s famous Regimen, this is not a text addressed specifically to
a prince. Rather, it is “imperative for the elite and the common people of Egypt, as
well as for the foreigners who come here, in order to maintain the health of their bodies
and to remove sickness”.33 According to his biographers, the said Ibn Riḍwān was the
chief physician of Egypt, and died in 1062 or 1067, during the reign of al-Mustanṣir; he
was a self-taught man, whose father had been a humble baker, thus he would have been
aware of the different income levels in Cairo/Fustat.

Archaeology and material culture

The Fatimid relics on display today in the world’s great museums certainly corroborate
the historical reports of great affluence among the wealthier strata of society,34 although
only a few items can be definitely attributed to al-Mustanṣir himself, principally an
example of tirāz cloth, now held in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo.35 An interesting
item is a silver box, gilded and decorated with niello work, bearing the name and titles of
Ṣadaqa b. Yūsuf, al-Mustanṣir’s vizier in 1044–1047: this is the only such object to be
attributed to Fatimid Egypt, and its precise dating is unique.36 It is possible that a rock-
crystal ewer, decorated in relief, and bearing the name of the caliph al-ʿAzīz (r. 975–
996), may have been looted from the treasuries in 1064.37
Archaeological finds also provide evidence for a relatively high standard of living
amongst wider swaths of the population, though it is not always possible to date such
finds as precisely as written sources. Nevertheless, the archaeological evidence for the
tenth and eleventh centuries show that Fustat reached the peak of its urban development
then, and that a major expansion of the town occurred during that period, when the
eastern neighbourhoods were constructed. A typical feature of Fustat housing is the
construction of high buildings, which were prominent in the later stages of the city’s
development in the tenth and eleventh centuries, perhaps following the architectural
tradition of southern Arabia. The chronology of the city’s expansion was established
through the detailed excavation of several ancient residential complexes. The first dated
buildings hail from the second half of the seventh century, though only small segments of
these were preserved, since most of them were built over and partly destroyed by later
development.38
The wealth of Fustat in these periods is represented by the rich repertoire of finds in
the residential areas excavated by George T. Scanlon. These include local pottery and
glassware, but also a considerable amount of imported artefacts from Iraq and Iran, and
porcelain from China.39 The lifestyle of the common inhabitants of Fustat is detailed in
a Genizah document containing a lengthy list of household objects, some of them
corresponding with the archaeological records, which reflect the range of possessions
of a typical family of the period in question.40
The chronology of the later stages of Fustat’s development can be reconstructed from
the deposits discovered in numerous pits containing waste material providing a rich layer
of finds.41 These artefacts correspond with the observations of the surviving medieval
buildings in Old Cairo, which show evidence of a major programme of rebuilding
 Mediterranean Historical Review 209

between the tenth and mid-eleventh century.42 Among the buildings in so-called Old
Cairo that were constructed or renovated in this period are the church of Abu Serga, the
convent of St George, the church of St Barbara, and the Ben Ezra synagogue.43
A plentiful supply of drinking water is crucial for urban vitality and expansion, and
potable water may often be equated with wealth itself. Despite its proximity to the Nile,
Fustat suffered from a constant lack of drinking water. To ensure a regular supply, several
parallel aqueducts conveyed drinking water into the city from Birkat al-Ḥabash, a large
water source to the south of Fustat (segments of these aqueducts were unearthed during
excavations at Isṭabl ʿAntar, at the southern end of the city.) In addition to the aqueducts,
hundreds of cisterns were installed within the residential areas, designed to collect the
meagre rainwater (the average amount of annual precipitation is 25.0 mm) and bring it
into the buildings by means of a sophisticated network of conduits.44
However, despite all these signs of the wealth and prosperity that the city enjoyed
during the reign of al-Mustanṣir, the main southern and central sections of Fustat were
abandoned in the second half of the eleventh century, during the reign of the same ruler,
leaving only the minimal presence of a small neighbourhood along the Nile. Yāqūt calls
this period the “destruction of Fustat”. The two newly built eastern and western quarters
of the city, he says, likewise fell into ruin and were deserted, and the inhabitants reduced
to cannibalism.45 Yāqūt was convinced, much as we are, that the abandonment of the
city – which, prior to the calamities of the second half of the eleventh century, was home
to hundreds of thousands of inhabitants – was the direct result of the successive droughts
that greatly reduced the Nile’s water levels, bringing famine and plague in their wake,
and especially the upshot of the great calamity of 1065–1072. The abandoned buildings
were looted of their contents and also of construction stones, a fact evidenced both by the
archaeological records and by a 1072 edict issued by the vizier Badr al-Jamālī allowing
the citizens of Cairo to gather building materials from the abandoned sections of the
city.46 It seems that this regular looting of debris continued until the final abandonment
of Fustat in 1168.
The archaeological records from excavations in Fustat provide a detailed account of
large-scale building projects between the ninth and eleventh centuries, and a rapid
process of decline and collapse over the period 1050–1072, which was followed by the
mass looting of building material. It appears that the large metropolis contracted drama-
tically within a short period into a small fringe neighbourhood along the Nile. The
archaeological evidence for the rapid decline of Fustat – based mainly on the detailed
stratigraphic work of Scanlon and the American expedition, and on several probes and
small excavations conducted by Sheehan – shows that the prosperous city fell into deep
decline during the late 1060s, leaving a major part of the former Fatimid metropolis
deserted until the end of the twentieth century, and opening the road, already during the
late eleventh century (under the vizierate of Badr al-Jamālī), to the rapid expansion of
Cairo.

Aftermath
The year 1072/1073 was the last year of the famine and the first of the return of sufficient
inundation after seven years of drought. Sawīrūs Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ reports in his History of
the Patriarchs of the Christian Church that the years 1077–1088 were characterized by
the ample seasonal flooding of the Nile, abundant harvests, and increased security.47
After that, there were no further droughts until the end of the century, ensuring not only
210 L. Chipman et al.

the adequate provision of food, but probably a rise in affluence as well. Here, too, the
return of prosperity is ascribed to the Fatimid government rather than to the effects of
nature. It is usually ascribed not to al-Mustanṣir himself – who, even as an adult ruler, is
often depicted as a “fig leaf” disguising the rule of his mother (whose year of death
remains unknown, though there is evidence that she was still living in 1078)48 – but to
the clique of viziers who actually ruled the country, and especially to Badr al-Jamālī,
widely considered to be the functionary who restored order, peace, and prosperity to
Egypt from 1074.
In his chronicle of the year 1074, Ibn Muyassar reports that in his day even the
peasants prospered.49 And, indeed, riches were soon accumulated once again in Egypt,
filling the coffers of Badr al-Jamālī himself. In his report on Badr al-Jamālī’s death in
1096, al-Maqrīzī quotes Ibn al-Zubayr, describing the enormous wealth which the man
had accumulated:

At his death Badr al-Jamālī owned seven hundred slaves, each of whom had property to the
value of a hundred thousand slaves. After building the walls of Cairo, he had six million
dinars and another four hundred million dinars in dār al-wizāra, four chests of jewels and
pearls, staffs of gold and silver, mattresses, decorated saddles, and a thousand emerald
staffs.50

Already in 1086, Badr al-Jamālī is reported to have imposed fines on rebels in

Alexandria to the tune of 120,000 dinars, no less, a fact that shows how the affluence
had in fact trickled down to the lower classes.51
To conclude, the role of guaranteeing affluence and in preventing shortages and
hardships is regarded as a primary duty of governments and their rulers, who always tend
to take credit for the spread of wealth (as al-Mustanṣir himself did with the opening of
the canal during the years of plenty), claiming that such affluence is the direct result of
their shrewd policies; the downside of playing this coin is that public food riots are
largely directed at the same governments, the populace angry that their rulers proved to
be incompetent at preventing scarcity. However, the abrupt transitions between periods of
affluence and spells of acute scarcity during the reign of al-Mustanṣir – and the exact
data about positive and negative anomalies in the yearly flooding of the Nile – testify that
the importance given to the ruler’s personality and to the efficiency of the bureaucratic
apparatus in ensuring affluence and in preventing collapse is exaggerated and misplaced:
affluence was the result of long periods of climatic stability, and the consequent rise in
food quantities, by which the population expressed their newfound affluence in improv-
ing their houses, and in acquiring clothing and property. At a higher level, the rulers
chose to manifest extreme opulence as a banner of their responsibility for the widespread
prosperity, which they expressed in their sumptuous palaces and ceremonies, so as to
equate the very notion of affluence with themselves and their personalities. This identi-
fication of the ruler with power and plenty can be a double-edged sword when years of
hardship arrive, the simple logic being that if the ruler can take credit for good harvests
and bountiful food, he is also answerable for dearth and hunger. And, if so, is it not his
duty to provide food for his subjects?
All things considered, just as the importance assigned to the government in creating
affluence is overplayed, so too is the government’s role in cases of collapse: other
elements must be factored into the calculation, in both cases. The climatic disasters of
1052–1072 came after many years of affluence. The amount of resources that the
government had accumulated was immense, and it was therefore able to cope with the
 Mediterranean Historical Review 211

army’s demands for huge payments for two full years; but, in the third year, even the
wealth accumulated over decades was no longer enough, and the granaries were emptied
as well. Al-Mustanṣir himself became destitute, reduced to literally begging for a crust of
bread. His personal storehouses were looted by hungry mobs in search of food, and even
the closest women of his harem defected to Baghdad, which was under the control of his
Sunni Turkish enemies.
Finally, two points worth emphasizing at this point concern the timescale and
methodology applied. From the cases discussed here and elsewhere, it appears that as
few as three to four years of climatic crises leading to shortage and sudden price rises of
foodstuffs – or even several rounds of such non-consecutive but severe short-term
climatic crises – are enough to set in motion a domino effect triggered by a lack of
food and sustenance for the population. This chain reaction, starting with price rises and
food riots, can end with the collapse of entire regimes and states. In our opinion, the
reverse is also true. A decade or two of stability and plenty are enough to create the
illusion of continued affluence and growing wealth, which is often not invested in
a back-up plan to prolong the welfare of society if and when it is faced with conditions
of dire shortage again, thanks to a climatic downturn: instead, wealth was squandered in
horses, jewellery, and other luxuries. In modern terms: investment went into consumption
rather than into infrastructure and prevention.
Secondly, in terms of methodology, at present there seem to be no experimental
methods sufficiently fine-tuned to reconstruct such short-term catastrophes. The margin
of error of all the dating systems currently in use are at least multi-decadal, and the
catastrophes, as well as the periods of plenty, are nested within the error-range of the
measurements themselves, and therefore cannot be pinpointed. In the attempt to recon-
struct historical events – and certainly when trying to reconstruct societal reactions to
them – there is no substitute for precise historical documentation.

Notes
1. Gemenne et al., “Climate and Security.”
2. Hampson and Perry, “Human Security.”
3. For example, Kelley et al., “Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent.”
4. Lomborg, “The Skeptical Environmentalist Replies”; Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2;
Simon, “Lebensraum.”
5. Barnett and Adger, “Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict”; De Soysa,
“Paradise is a Bazaar?”; Gleditsch, “Armed Conflict and the Environment”; Koubi et al.,
“Climate Variability, Economic Growth, and Civil Conflict”; Matthew, “Environment and
Security in an International Context”; Salehyan, “From Climate Change to Conflict?”
6. Thomson, Politics and Power in Late Fatimid Egypt, 30.
7. See, e.g., Rotman, “Captif ou esclave?”; Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval
Mediterranean.
8. The most up-to-date overview of the Fatimid dynasty and their rule is Brett, The Fatimid
Empire.
9. For in-depth discussion and analysis of the lengthy periods of drought in the tenth and
eleventh centuries, and for a detailed scrutiny of the documentation of the insufficient rises
of the Nile and the effects they had on the food security of Egypt and its stability, see
Ellenblum, The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean, 41–9, 147–55.
10. Thomson, Politics and Power in Late Fatimid Egypt, 48.
11. Brett, “The Execution of Ibn Badūs”; Brett, “The Execution of al-Yāzūrī.”
12. Yāqūt, Lexicon, 3: 900.
13. See Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, 315–44.
212 L. Chipman et al.

14. Barguet, La stèle de la famine à Séhel. The Famine Stele refers to seven successive years of
famine and drought, which ostensibly occurred during the reign of Djoser (r. 1st half of the
27th century BCE). The stele describes the king’s concern at the extended catastrophe, and
at the people’s suffering and rage. The Famine Stele, however, was inscribed only at the end
of the third or beginning of the second century BCE, and seems to describe a distant event
that apparently occurred 2500 years earlier. Both the story of Joseph and the Famine Stele
express a belief common to the authors of Genesis and to the Hellenistic carvers of the stele
alike, i.e., that such a disaster could befall Egypt, and may even echo a real occurrence of
famine.
15. Ibn Taghrībirdī, shining stars, 5: 3, 83; see Ibn al-Jawzī, chronicles, 8: 257.
16. See on this term Elbendary, “The Worst of Times.”
17. Ellenblum, Collapse, 46–9; Bianquis, “Une crise frumentaire dans l’Égypte fatimide.” For
a detailed discussion of the relations between Cairo’s grain market and famine in the
Fatimid period, see Lev, “The Regime and the Urban Wheat Market,” 149–52.
18. Al-Maqrīzī, Lessons, 1: 165.
19. Lev, “The Fatimid Caliphs, the Copts, and the Coptic Church,” 407, and references there.
20. Allouche, Mamluk Economics, 37.
21. For a discussion of this crisis not from an environmental or economic viewpoint, but as the
breakdown of an existing civilian regime and its replacement by a military one, see Brett,
The Fatimid Empire, 180–206, esp. 201–3.
22. Note the trope of starvation – cats and dogs are eaten, even cannibalism occurs, but pigs
remain safe from the starving Muslims.
23. Allouche, Mamluk Economics, 37–8.
24. Ibn al-Athīr, history, 10: 67–8; Ibn Muyassar, chronicles, 36–7.
25. Thackston, Nasir-i Khusraw’s Book of Travels, 61–6.
26. See, e.g., Ibn Muyassar, chronicles, 170–1, describing gifts and court expenses. Ibn
Muyassar’s work has survived in the form of al-Maqrīzī’s summary.
27. On the identity of the author, see al-Qaddūmī, Book of Gifts and Rarities, 11–13.
28. Ibn al-Zubayr, Book of Gifts and Rarities, §375 (al-Qaddūmī’s translation, slightly adapted
by the authors).
29. Al-Maqrīzī, Lessons, 2: 299.
30. Ibid., 2: 275.
31. Dols, Medieval Islamic Medicine, 141.
32. Ibid., 131–4. Our addition is in square brackets.
33. Ibid., 77–8.
34. See the catalogue of an exhibition held at the Institut du monde arabe in 1998: Trésors
fatimides du Caire, esp. 96–142.
35. Meinecke-Berg, “Le trésor du calife,” 107, fig. 29.
36. Ibid., 125, fig. 54.
37. Ibid., 141, fig. 87; cf. Ibn Zubayr, Book of Gifts and Rarities, §409.
38. Kubiak, Al-Fustat, 125–6.
39. See, for example, Scanlon, “Fustat Expedition, Preliminary Report 1978.”
40. Frenkel and Lester, “Evidence of Material Culture from the Geniza.” The document cited is
dated to the late eleventh century (Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 4: 338).
41. Scanlon, “The Pits of Fustat: Problems of Chronology.”
42. Sheehan, Babylon of Egypt, 92–3.
43. Ibid., 92–4; Dridi, “Christians of Fustat.”
44. Gayraud, “The Medieval Aqueducts of Fustat.”
45. Yāqūt, Lexicon, 3:900.
46. Sheehan, Babylon of Egypt, 82, citing Denoix, Décrire le Caire, 54, n. 52.
47. Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa, History of the Patriarchs, 2.3: 333.
48. In this context, see Rustow, “A Petition to a Woman at the Fatimid Court (413–414 A.
H./1022–23 C.E.).”
49. Ibn Muyassar, chronicles, 53.
50. Al-Maqrīzī, Lessons, 2: 331.
51. Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa, History of the Patriarchs, 2.3: 342.
 Mediterranean Historical Review 213

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by the Israel Science Foundation [1831/14].

ORCID
Leigh Chipman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8447-3950

Notes on contributors
Leigh Chipman (PhD 2006, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is an independent scholar,
editor, and translator based in Jerusalem. She has held post-doctoral fellowships at Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev (Beersheba) and Tel Aviv University. She has also been a research fellow
on projects on the reception of Galen in Arabic and Hebrew (Bar-Ilan University) as well as on
Arabic epigraphy and on affluence in the Fatimid period (both at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem). Chipman’s research interests are the social and intellectual history of medicine and
science in the medieval Islamicate world. She is currently working on the afterlife of medieval
Islamic pharmacy in the nineteenth-century Middle East, within the framework of an ERC-funded
project at the Hebrew University, “A Regional History of Medicine in the Middle East.”
Gideon Avni (PhD 1997, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is the Chief Archaeologist for the
Israel Antiquities Authority and Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
His academic interests focus on various aspects of Classical, late Antique, early Islamic and
Medieval archaeology, cultural and religious transformations, the diffusion of technologies and
movement of people in the Near East and beyond. His recent books are The Byzantine – Islamic
Transition in Palestine, an Archaeological Approach (Oxford University Press, 2014) and A New
Old City – Jerusalem in the Late Roman Period (Journal of Roman Archaeology supplements,
2017).
Ronnie Ellenblum (PhD 1991, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1952–2021) was Professor of
Historical Geography and Environmental History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the
author of Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge University
Press, 1998, 2003); Crusader Castles and Modern Histories (Cambridge University Press, 2005,
2009; winner of the Polonsky and the Tel Aviv Prizes); and The Collapse of the Eastern
Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950–1072 (Cambridge University
Press, 2012, 2013). At his untimely death, Ellenblum was finalizing a book-length study of the
historiography of the influence of climate on human history, in which he set out a comprehensive
new theoretical approach to “fragility,” and the impact of seemingly minor climate disturbances on
complex civilizations.

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