THE CHRISTIAN CLERGY’S ISLAMIC LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN LATE MARWANID AND ABBASID EGYPT

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the role of the Christian clergy in ruling the province of Egypt during the Marwanid and the early Abbasid periods (second and third/eighth and ninth centuries). Focusing on documents excavated on monastic sites, I trace the increased involvement of Christian religious officials, such as deacons, monastic headmen and scribes, in various fields of administration, namely tax collection, archival practices, scribal education, and control of mobility. The relationship between Christian clergy and Muslim rulers in early Islamic Egypt has been traditionally studied as part of the intercommunal interaction between conquerors and indigenous subjects during the transition from Roman to Islamic rule. In contrast, shifting the focus away from that transition, I consider religious and monastic officials as active stakeholders in constructing strategies and discourses of Islamic government. Based on both documentary and literary sources, I argue that local religious officials, who took part in the administration as political actors, cannot be reduced to mere mediators or natural representatives of communities. By highlighting the nuances of the relationship between administrative and ecclesiastical milieus, I show that members of the clergy under Marwanid and Abbasid rule actively contributed to enforcing fiscal strategies and moving resources while monastic scribes helped developing the distinct multilingual documentary culture of the period. Moreover, Christian religious officials played an active role in disseminating ideas of Islamic fair governance in the caliphate and in shaping far-reaching narratives about the relationship between rulers and religious elites in the Umayyad and the early Abbasid periods.