Aja'ib al-Athar fi al-Tarajim wa-l-Akhbar

Aja'ib al-athar fi al-tarajim wa-l-akhbar ("Remarkable Traces in Biographies and Events") is the history of Egypt and of its notables by Abd al-Rahman ibn Hasan al-Jabarti al-Aqili al-Zayla'i al-Hanafi. Its editor Shmuel Moreh counts it among the most important historical, social, economic and literary sources for three periods of Egyptian history between 1100/1688 and 1237/1821: the late Mamluk age under Ottoman rule, the French expedition (1798-1801), and the beginning of Muhammad Ali Pasha's rule. ¹

The editor sees the first two parts as a digest of what was written in eighteenth-century Egypt on scholars, Sufi masters, amirs and events, and says al-Jabarti relied in them on many manuscript sources, although he denied this in his preface: among them Ahmad Shalabi ibn Abd al-Ghani's Awdah al-isharat, which he copied verbatim in places, and Ahmad al-Damurdashi's al-Durra al-musana, whose events he recast in his own style because of its poor language, calling it "quires blackened by some common soldiers". ^{1 2} From the Mu'jam mukhtass of his teacher Murtada al-Zabidi he took at least 172 biographies, verbatim or nearly so, after turning al-Zabidi's first person into the third and dropping al-Zabidi's self-praise, and 24 more from al-Zabidi's booklet al-Murabba al-Kabuli. ² Al-Zabidi wrote in his dictionary that al-Jabarti "has compiled a history of his age with excellent things in it"; after al-Zabidi's death (1791) his papers, which al-Jabarti bought from his widow, came to him, together with the library of his father Hasan al-Jabarti. ³

The editor notes that from 1191/1777, the start of the second part, the record of events becomes longer and more detailed, with day and month, whereas the first part summarises events and gives more space to biographies and poems of praise and lament. ³

Al-Jabarti first wrote Mazhar al-taqdis, condemning the French and praising the Ottomans; the editor reports that Burckhardt wrote on the copy he bought from the author that al-Jabarti "feared for himself after their departure and wrote this book to clear himself". ⁴ He then drew on it for the third part (1213-1220/1798-1805), revising his hostility to the French and his support for the Ottomans after seeing the oppression and extortion of the Ottoman troops, and adding Muhammad Ali's appointment. He continued with the fourth part (1221-1236/1806-1821) until his son Khalil was killed in 1237, after which he lost his sight and wrote no more. ⁵ Among its best-known passages is his account of the killing of the Mamluk amirs at the Citadel on Friday 6 Safar 1226 (see the Citadel massacre). ⁶

In the editor's reading, al-Jabarti observed during the French expedition Europe's technical, scientific and military superiority, sought the causes of the Mamluks' and Ottomans' weakness before it, and traced this to the Mamluks' neglect of the old Mamluk system of training. ^{5 7} In Aja'ib al-athar he no longer flattered rulers as in Mazhar al-taqdis but criticised what he saw as injustice by the Mamluks, the Ottomans, the French and Muhammad Ali, speaking for his generation of scholars. ⁷ He described Muhammad Ali's rule as oppressive, though he sometimes praised his energy in his reforms. ⁸ This is the editor's reading.

The book was first printed at the Bulaq press (1879-1880), and the editor says that all later editions were copied from it without comparison with the manuscripts al-Jabarti wrote or checked. ^{8 9} He found no sign that the Bulaq press removed al-Jabarti's criticism of Muhammad Ali, contrary to what Anastase Marie al-Karmali claimed, only some changes in references to his deeds and title. ¹⁰ Among the manuscripts is the Dar al-Kutub copy (Zakiyya 859), whose third part closes with the note that it was fair-copied on 22 Rajab 1237 and "collated and read to its author from beginning to end" on Saturday 14 Rabi' I 1240, in the hand of Ahmad ibn Hasan al-Rashidi, known as Sawba'. ¹¹ Moreh's edition gives the Bulaq page numbers in brackets in the text. ¹²