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Article: Ritual, Politics, and the City of Fatimid Cairo.
- Article from:
- The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Article date:
- January 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 American Oriental Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Focusing on processions, protocol, architecture, and urban geography, this work explains court ritual in Fatimid Egypt (358-567/969-1171) as an expression of political and religious authority which both reflected and shaped the complex relationships between the caliphs, the administration, and the urban populace in medieval Cairo and Fustat. Sanders insightfully analyzes Fatimid caliphal ceremonies as a combination of their "ritual lingua franca," i.e., "ceremonies of broad appeal and little if any explicit Isma ili content" (pp. 81-82, 135, et passim) and Isma ili ideology, rather stressing the former over the latter. Chapter 3, "The Ritual City" (pp. 39-82), shows how the ...