Managing Paperwork in Mamluk Cairo

Archives are not only sources for history but have their own histories too, which shape how historians can tell stories of the past. This book explores the archival history of one of the most powerful polities of the late-medieval Middle East: the ‘Mamluk’ sultanate of Cairo. Relying on surviving original documents, it focuses on archival practices connected to waqf , the pious endowments that became one of the characteristic features of late-medieval Islamic societies. By centring a close explo