Fayyum Tribesmen and Country Lawyers: A 5th/11th-Century Arabic Sale of Guardianship Rights Concerning Ṭalīt

This article presents an edition, translation, and study of an Arabic contract of sale on parchment from the fifth/eleventh century Fayyum. The sale all but certainly concerns guardianship rights to the territory of Ṭalīt, an important but still little-documented Fayyum village. The document is further notable for the identities of the parties and witnesses, all of whom belong either to the Arab tribe of Banū ʿĀmir or an obscure group of Šāfiʿīs; and for the document’s late date during Fatimid Egypt’s great crisis of the later fifth/eleventh century.