Coming out of the Cave: Monks in Society in seventh and eighth Century Egypt
Starvation, solitude and saintliness. These are not the first words that come to mind when looking at the lives of Egyptian monks in the seventh and eighth century. At least, not when you look at their letters and documents on…
Burn after Reading: Epistolary Heresy in Tenth Century Baghdad
A police raid, a cache of letters, an inquisition, an execution. Sometimes you have to be careful what you write. In 322 AH/ 934 CE, the house of a man known as al-Shalmaghānī was raided by the caliph’s men. They…