Illustrated by documents and literary texts from the Cairo Genizah, this talk will examine interfaith relations in the Middle East during the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. We will explore how the Egyptian Muslim state legally and politically approached Christian and Jewish faith communities, and how relationships worked on the ground, such as in terms of mercantile connections, shared living quarters, friendships and intellectual collaboration.
Dr. Esther-Miriam Wagner is the Executive Director of the Woolf Institute and Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. She completed her doctorate at the University of Cambridge on Judaeo-Arabic in the Cairo Genizah and has written and edited numerous books and articles on sociolinguistics, historical linguistics of Judaeo-Arabic and Yiddish, scribal practice, and Jewish-Muslim relations in Egypt and Muslim Spain as reflected in the Genizah sources. Her work has been featured on TV and Radio programs, such as on BBC3 The Essay, in History Magazine and in documentaries on the Cairo Genizah.
Lecture co-sponsored by the BYU Kennedy Center, the BYU Law International Center for Law and Religion Studies, the BYU Council for Interfaith Engagement, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and BYU Religious Education.