Asyut

Asyut: a city in Upper Egypt on the west bank of the Nile, about three miles from it. Palm gardens surround it, and its wall is old. Ibn Jubayr mentions it on his way upstream to Qus. ¹

An additional source is needed: the page number in the data refers to the scanned copy, not the edition.

Asyut, the largest and busiest town of Upper Egypt, lies on the west bank of the Nile at about 27 degrees 11 minutes north, in one of the most fertile and sheltered districts of the valley. It was an important town in antiquity (Greek Lykopolis) and the chief town of a nome. Under Islam it remained the chief town of a kura, and when the country was divided into provinces it became the capital of a province. Its name is the colloquial form of the literary Usyut, from the Coptic Siout; the medieval land registers give it as Suyut or Sayut. ²

The entry says that a history of Asyut cannot be written, since the historians say little of it. It played a part under 'Ali Bey, when in 1183 AH (1769-70) it was for a time the centre of a revolt. Geographers and travellers show that it was prosperous through the Islamic period. It gained considerably in importance at the end of the nineteenth century, after the railway linked it with Cairo in 1292 AH (1875). Its population rose from 28,000 in 1293 AH (1876) to 42,000 before the First World War and about 120,000 at the time of writing. ²

In the Middle Ages Asyut was famed for corn, dates and very large quinces, and for weaving woollen, cotton and linen goods. Alum and indigo from the neighbouring oases supported extensive dyeing; materials for export to Dar Fur were dyed there. Its specialities were fine linen called dabiki, after Dabik in Upper Egypt, and woollen goods and carpets modelled on Armenian work. Black and white tulle shawls with silver appliqué survive from the old industry, and the town also prepared opium and made the black and red "Asyut-ware" pottery. ³

The annual caravans from Dar Fur, about 1,500 camels, brought slaves, ivory, ostrich feathers and other products of the Sudan, and received in exchange Egyptian manufactures, especially stuffs. Napoleon's scholars studied this trade in detail, though it had by then much declined. ⁴

Like the other industrial towns of Egypt, Asyut had a large Christian population, with some sixty, by other counts seventy-five, churches and chapels, but no Jews. Caravanserais, bazaars and baths, one of them very ancient, and mosques and other public buildings adorned the town. A minbar kept in one of the mosques was carried through the streets as a mahmal at certain seasons, full of corn (Ibn Duqmaq). ⁴

The entry names Asyut as the birthplace of Plotinus, of the Coptic saint John of Lykopolis, and of several Arab scholars named al-Suyuti, of whom the historian Jalal al-Din (died 911 AH, 1505) is the best known. ⁴