Studying Women and the Fatimids: the Sources, the Methods and the State of Studies

The Fatimid period is one of the best-documented in medieval Islamic history. A considerable number of medieval non-Isma'ili literary works, as well as documentary, epigraphic, artistic and archaeological sources, shed light on most aspects relating to the history of the Fatimid dynasty and of the societies in those areas under Fatimid rule or influence. Complementing this body of sources are the few historical works written by Isma'ili authors and the historical references contained in the extensive Isma'ili doctrinal literature. Isma'ili and non-Isma'ili primary sources represent the core material on which the contents of this book are based. Most of these sources have been discussed, explained and classified by Paul E. Walker in his Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and its Sources (2001) and, more broadly, by F. Daftary, Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies (2004). In the present book the data drawn from a vast selection of primary sources are approached and interpreted through the methods of textual, socio-historical and contextual analyses.

As is the case with the overwhelming majority of medieval sources, none of the primary literature used here was written by women and, as a whole, none of the male writers dealt with women as their primary concern. Mediated, as they are, through the male voices, the references to women found in these sources may be said to a large extent to be more revealing about men's perceptions of women than the women themselves.