Fāṭimid Grain Policy and the Post of the Muḥtasib

Abstract

Students of Islamic history more or less agree that the Fātimid regime conducted what may be loosely termed a liberal economic policy, and that the rulers of tenth- to twelfth-century Egypt intervened in the Egyptian economy to a minimal degree. Goitein, maintaining that the Fātimid period “was one of relative tolerance and liberalism, if compared with the preceding and, in particular, the following periods,” also stresses the x201C;comparatively little interference by the [Fātimid] governments in the trade of their subjects.” Ashtor tells us that “a striking feature of the Fātimid regime was freedom of enterprise,” and that “ all sectors of economic life were free — crafts, industry and trade.” Staffa asserts that “the [Fātimid] government made no attempt to impose strict control over the economy.” It may be suspected that the notion of Fātimid “liberalism,” as opposed, say, to Ayyūbid or Mamluk “conservatism,” had helped some decades ago to mole the thesis (now generally discarded) that the origins of guilds and professional organizations in the Islamic Near East are to be sought in the Fātmid state.

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