Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2023
This chapter presents the Buffalo Agency, a trade agency, school, and library that was owned and operated by Ibadi Muslims in Ottoma-era Cairo. It presents the book’s main argument; namely, that the history of the Buffalo Agency shows how Ibadi Muslims participated fully in the religious, economic, legal, and political life of Ottoman Egypt. Their ability to maintain cohesion as a community while also engaging fully with Ottoman society was in part due to their unusual status as both members of a religious minority and part of the Muslim majority. The chapter then situates this argument in the three conversations to which the book contributes: Ottoman history in Egypt, minority communities in the empire, and the history of Ibadi Islam. The chapter next introduces the main historical sources used to support the argument: shariah court records, manuscript evidence from private libraries, and archival documents. Methodologically, the chapter grapples with the tension between the emphasis on the material history of Ibadis in Egypt and my need to rely on digital facsimiles of many of the sources.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.