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The diplomatic edition of the catalogue’s unique manuscript aims at representing to some extent its organisation and the edition thus includes information such as line breaks and the various rubrics that the scribe used. For the sake of legibility, the orthography has been standardised to bring it into a form familiar to modern readers. The text is thus reproduced with full diacritical marks, although they are rather rarely used in the manuscript. The organisation of the catalogue according to alphabet, size and themes is indicated by the catalogue’s writer in display script and indicated in the edition by setting these structural terms in bold.

Egypt had come to enjoy generally peaceful and prosperous times under the Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-'Adil, while his son al-Malik al-Kamil, who was the effective ruler of Egypt, had already in John's days shown himself to be a just ruler who would not allow the Copts to be scapegoated or victimized. Throughout Egypt, monks and lay scholars were either beginning to write in Arabic, or were receiving the formation and reading the books not only the Bible and patristic works, but also Arabic Christian texts from Iraq and Syria that would enable intensive literary activity in the middle decades of the century. As Patriarch John and many other Copts of the day understood the matter, that was the position of the trouble-maker—and Melkite turncoat—Marqus ibn al-Qunbar.

This chapter reflects on the early decades of Ayyūbid rule, which corresponded with Maimonides’ early years in Egypt. The Ayyūbid rulers, while endeavouring to shape the country according to their tastes and preferences, tried to enforce an accelerated rhythm of orthodoxy. Their efforts were generally successful. But this was not the only effect of Ayyūbid domination over Egypt. As a result of Saladin’s own particular background, education, political tradition, and familial connections, his rise to power had further significant implications for Egypt. First, Egyptian involvement in the wars against the Crusaders was increased. Second, the links with other countries conquered by Saladin and ruled by his relatives were strengthened. Third, Egypt gained a predominant position in Yemen. Fourth, Egypt adopted the modes and style of government that had prevailed in the Muslim East ever since the middle of the eleventh century.

Personal knowledge of three archaeological sites in different contexts in Jerusalem offered a rare opportunity for an overview of life in the city during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. This has permitted a study of intra-site variation, hinting at different communities and their lifestyles. In particular, aspects of craft and trading activities illustrate the economy of the city. The importation of luxury ceramics from Italy and from Syria, and a suggestion of a role in the important silk trade between East and West, illustrate part of a trading network in which pilgrimage to Jerusalem played a significant role. Local commodities, health and the processing and consumption of food also illustrate living standards in a city where there was considerable poverty.

The citadel of Cairo is a monument that has been studied extensively by many scholars, especially for the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. In 569/1174 Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, ordered one of his ablest amirs, Qaraqush, to start building the citadel between the two cities of al-Qahira and Misr al-Fustat. The citadel of Cairo is divided into two sections: a northern and a southern one. The towers of Salah al-Din were semicircular towers with a rectangular rear wall projection. The radical change in military architecture in the late twelfth-thirteenth centuries has been recorded by several authors. Taking the citadel of Cairo as a prototype for investigating the reasons behind the shift of Islamic military architecture in the thirteenth century allows us to propose an alternative hypothesis of what may have initiated that shift.

By the end of eleventh century, large areas of al-Fustat were abandoned due to the disasters suffered by the Egyptian capital in the long reign of Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir. The further abandonment and depopulation of most of the southern part of the city were hastened by a major earthquake and the burning of al-Fustat at the time of the Crusaders' attack on Cairo. After those disasters happened, the Ayyubid dynasty was founded by Salah al-Din after the reign of Fatimid ended in 1171. It marked a number of important topographical developments that emphasized the change of dynasty. They demolished the Fatimid palaces of al-Qahira and remodeled the central area of the former “royal” city. With the Ayyubid dynasty, both Old Cairo and al-Fustat were redeveloped. The importance derived by Old Cairo to the Nile and the harbor of the city was reinforced by the construction of another citadel.

In the early thirteenth century, Greater Cairo had an expanse spread into a metropolitan; yet even so, some of its urban centers compete for prominence. Al-Qahira, Cairo's namesake, had been gradually giving way to the installation of Saladin's own Ayyubid system in the 1770s. This landscape, which was finished as a dynamic and expensive one, is the beginning of the story of this book. This book also deals with the different believers such as the Muslims, Christians, and Jews who were involved in the dynamics of the Coptic-Ayyubid model. Moreover, this book is not just about the Coptic-Ayyubid model, its complexities, and the boundaries of the medieval Coptic community; the lessons that need to be cleared about non-Muslim communities are included in parallel context here.

The introduction sets the scene by reviewing our knowledge of medieval Arabic libraries and the ways in which they have been studied. On the one hand it provides a historiographical discussion and on the other hand it places the Ashrafiya into the wider picture of Middle Eastern book collections.

This chapter firstly traces the foundation of the Ashrafiya in late Ayyubid Damascus. It argues that the library was set up by two principal patrons one belonging to the political elite (the city’s ruler al-Ashraf) and one belonging to the civilian elite (the prominent secretary and son of al-Qadi al-Fadil). Consequently, it is possible to identify three main regional sources from which the books originated: Rather surprisingly, the plundered former Fatimid palace library in Cairo, Northern Mesopotamia where al-Ashraf had spent his early years and the local context of Damascus. The chapter traces in a second part the subsequent development of the library until its dispersal in the early Ottoman period. This chapter is completed by a brief outline of the subsequent fate of some manuscripts originally held in this library, many of which were taken to Istanbul. The two main arguments of this chapter are thus a) thematic, to see this ‘Islamic’ book collection in its specific regional context and b) methodological, to show in what ways the study of individual manuscript notes can give insights into book circulation.

The second chapter discusses the thematic profile of the books held in the Ashrafiya. The teaching in this institution was focused on Koran recitation and its patron al-Ashraf has been depicted in modern scholarship as a rather narrow-minded Sunni ruler. Consequently, one might expect a run-off-the-mill diet of books emanating from a small number of disciplines. The chapter challenges such assumptions and shows that books relating to disciplines such as Koran, ḥadīth and even law are small in number. Rather we find a broad range of topics covered, including the antique knowledge (e.g. Aristotle and Galen), medicine, pharmacology, pre-Islamic poetry, theology and mirror for princes. This is also reflected in the content of those works that were held in multiple copies: the library’s most popular book were the Maqāmāt by al-Ḥarīrī with 15 copies. The chapter is also challenge dominating assumptions about madrasa-libraries with regard to sectarian issues (the library had many Shiite works) and issues of high culture vs low culture (it contained many ‘low-culture’ works).

The third chapter discusses one of the most intriguing aspects of this document, its system of ordering books. Our knowledge of medieval library systems has hitherto been confined to small collections and thus rudimentary systems or incomplete information in narrative sources. The chapter shows the highly-developed system for organising books according to three parameters, alphabetical order of titles, size of the books and their themes. In contrast to the highly philosophical schemes of how to organise and hierarchise the various learned branches of knowledge (such as those by al-Ghazali and al-Kindi) this library gives a very different insight into how knowledge was organised on a practitioner’s level. The organisation of the library, in addition to several other features of the catalogue, allows also an understanding of the spatial organisation of the library (the actual building was destroyed in the early 20th century). We do not have any study of the spatial aspects of a medieval Arabic library yet and the chapter offers the first exploration of this theme.

Chapter 4 provides an annotated translation of each entry in the Ashrafiya catalogue identifying the titles. Each translated entry provides brief information on the author (who is sometimes named in the catalogue), the modern edition (if existing), the book’s thematic field as well as further information that is occasionally provided (e.g. multiple copies, number of quires, illustrations, name of copyist).