Dr Yossef Rapoport
Senior Lecturer in History
Location: Arts Two 3.29email: y.rapoport@qmul.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7882 8362
Yossi Rapoport took his first degree at Tel Aviv University, and his PhD from Princeton University, where he worked on the social history of marriage and divorce in medieval Muslim societies (1200-1500). He then moved to Oxford, where he participated in the Medieval Islamic Views of the Cosmos project, dedicated to the study of a unique 11th-century Arabic cosmographical manuscript in the Bodleian Library. He then held the Mellon Career Development Fellowship in Arabic in association with Pembroke College, before joining Queen Mary in 2007.
Research interests:
Dr Rapoport’s main research interest is the social history of the central Islamic lands in the medieval period (1000 – 1500), with special attention to the history of law, gender and cartography. He has worked on the history of marriage and divorce, and on gender boundaries, in the late medieval Middle East. He has also worked on critical edition of the Book of Curiosities, a medieval Arabic manuscript with a unique series of maps, which open a window to contemporary views of the world and the cosmos. Another research interest is the life, thought and modern legacy of the controversial medieval reformer Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). Current research focuses on the history of the peasantry, with focus on a 13th century cadastral register from medieval Egypt.
Web links:
Rural Society in medieval Islam: http://www.history.qmul.ac.uk/ruralsocietyislam/
The Book of Curiosities – a medieval Arabic cosmography: http://cosmos.bodley.ox.ac.uk/hms/home.php
Postgraduate supervision:
- Middle Eastern and Islamic medieval history
- Women and gender in Islam
- History of Islamic law
- History of cartography
Publications:
Select Publications:
Books
Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Critical editions
With Emilie Savage-Smith, The Book of Curiosities: A critical edition. World-wide-Web publication. (www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/bookofcuriosities) (March 2007).
Edited volumes
With Shahab Ahmad, Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, Proceedings of a conference held at Princeton University, 8-10 April 2005 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010).
Papers and Articles
‘Siyasa and shari‘a: A legal history of the Mamluk Sultanate’ (Mamluk Studies Review , 16 July 2012).
‘Reflections of Fatimid Power in the Maps of Island cities in the ‘Book of Curiosities’, in Martina Stercken / Ingrid Baumgärtner (Eds.), Herrschaft verorten. Politische Kartographie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, (Medienwandel - Medienwechsel - Medienwissen), Zürich: Chronos, 2012).
With Ido Shahar, "Irrigation in medieval Islamic Fayyum: Local Control in a Large Scale Hydraulic System”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 55 (2012).
“Ibn Taymiyya’s radical legal thought: Rationalism, pluralism and the primacy of intention”, in S. Ahmad and Y. Rapoport (eds.), Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, Proceedings of a conference held at Princeton University, 8-10 April 2005 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 191-226.
“The View from the South: The Maps of the Book of Curiosities and the Commercial Revolution of the Eleventh Century”, in R. Margariti, A. Sabra and P. Sijpesteijn (eds.), Histories of the Middle East: Studies in Middle Eastern Society, Economy, and Law in Honor of A.L. Udovitch (Leiden: Brill, December 2010), 183-212.
“The Book of Curiosities: A Medieval Islamic View of the East”, in The Journey of Maps and Images on the Silk Road, ed. by Philippe Forêt and Andreas Kaplony. Brill's Inner Asian Library, vol. 21 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 115-171.
With Emilie Savage-Smith, “The Book of Curiosities and a unique map of the world”, in Richard Talbert and Richard Unger (eds.), Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 121-138.
“Women and Gender in Mamluk Society – an Overview”, Mamlūk Studies Review, 11, 2 (November 2007), 1-45.
"Invisible Peasants, Marauding Nomads: Taxation, Tribalism and Revolt in Mamluk Egypt", Mamlūk Studies Review, 8/2 (May 2004), 1-22.
“Ibn Taymiyya on Divorce Oaths”, in A. Levanoni and M. Winter (eds.), The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian Politics and Society (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 191-217.
"Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlīd: The Four Chief Qadis under the Mamluks". Islamic Law and Society, 10/2 (2003), 210-228.
Examples of research funding:
Dr Rapoport recently received an AHRC grant for a project, entitled 'Rural society in medieval Islam: Translation and study of "The History of the Fayyum"'. This project hopes to make a major contribution to the knowledge and understanding of pre-modern rural societies in the Islamic world through a translation and study of 'History of the Fayyum', a unique and unparalleled tax register from a 13th-century Egyptian province.
The project will offer the first translation of the text into a European language, as well as a micro-study of the Fayyum villages in their concrete historical context, a framework of inquiry not possible for any other region of the medieval Islamic countryside. The study will address fundamental questions for the history of the medieval Middle East, such as the Islamization of rural communities, their tribal identity and their relations with the state.
Undergraduate teaching:
History of the Medieval Islamic World, 600-1500 (Level 4)Women and Gender in Medieval Islam (Level 5)
Bedouin, fellahs and sultans: history of the Islamic countryside (Level 5)
The Reform of Islam: The life and legacy of Ibn Taymiyya (Level 6)
Postgraduate teaching:
The Mamluks: Politics, Society, Religion (level 7)