The 2025 Conway Lectures: Petra Sijpesteijn, "Running the early Islamic Empire: the papyrological evidence"
In 2002, the Medieval Institute inaugurated a lecture series in honor of Robert M. and Ricki Conway. Robert Conway was a 1966 graduate of Notre Dame and trustee of the University, He was (and his wife Ricki continues to be) a long-time friend and supporter of the Medieval Institute. The annual Conway Lectures bring senior scholars of international distinction to Notre Dame each fall to speak on topics across a variety of disciplines.
The first talk in the 2025 series will be given by Petra Sijpesteijn, Professor of Arabic at Leiden University, on "Running the early Islamic Empire: the papyrological evidence."
About the Talk
In the dry Egyptian desert sands, tens of thousands of Arabic, Coptic and Greek papyri from the first three centuries of Muslim rule in the province (7th-9th century CE) were preserved. Containing tax demand notes, fiscal receipts, lists of agricultural properties, tax payers, converts, alms payments, prisoners with the crimes they committed, the fines assigned to them or the petitions they wrote requesting to be released, decrees issued by the authorities or petitions directed to them, the papyri form the written residue of the daily running of the early Islamic Empire. They show that Arab rule was characterized by a marked continuity of daily administrative routines but also by the introduction of striking new practices. In this presentation I will discuss what the papyri tell us about the Arab administrative practices in early Islamic Egypt, what changed and what remained the same after the Arab conquest and why this was.
About the Speaker
Petra Sijpesteijn holds the chair of Arabic at Leiden University. She uses documentary sources such as papyri, seals, coins, inscriptions and manuscripts to reconstruct the daily life of Muslims and non-Muslims living under Muslim rule. Currently she runs a five-year research project entitled 'Land, space, power: Landscapes of the early caliphate' financed by the Netherlands National Science Foundation.