Cairo in 1321: Coptic Christians and Mamluk Muslims

 

 What was life like in Cairo in 1321?  

Coptic Christians and Mamluk Muslims did not get along. 

In fact, in 1321 violence broke out and spread throughout the city.  According to this fascinating essay on the Medievalistsnet website written by Peter Konieczny,  "over a couple of weeks, eleven Christian churches would be damaged or destroyed in Cairo, and another 49 in other parts of the country."

Violence continued and grew.  Some of it had to do with anger over the Crusades and the belief that Coptic Christians supported them. 

In addition, many jobs in Cario seemed to go to Christians at the expense of poorer Muslims. Konieczny compares this to the way Jews were treated by Christians in parts of Medieval Europe.

In an engaging and fascinating embedded 17-minute video, Princeton Professor, Marina Rostow, explains how people lived in medieval Cairo. One interesting occupation was the carving of rock crystal, which is a kind of quartz valued for its transparency.  Shopkeepers who dealt in rock crystals learned the trade at a very young age and had to pay traders to get the crystal. They had to travel to mines in Africa or East Asia, which was no easy feat in 1321.

The second half of the video clip is fascinating. Professor Rostow explains that she is a social historian and looks at history from below. She also questions the term medieval. "Are we forgetting," she says, "that the bloodiest century was the 20th century?"  She notes that 

only in the 20th century have states employed industrial violence in the service of coercion. Neither medieval Europe nor the medieval Middle East  produced anything close to a totalitarian regime