%0 Generic
%A Chalyan-Daffner, Kristine
%D 2014
%F heidok:17711
%K Arabische Literatur, Ajaib wa gharaib, Malhama, astro-meteorologie, Chroniken, Erdbeben, Nil, Überschwemmung,Dürre, Transkulturalität
%R 10.11588/heidok.00017711
%T Natural Disasters in Mamlūk Egypt (1250-1517): Perceptions, Interpretations and Human Responses.
%U https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/17711/
%X This thesis examines the socio-cultural history of ‎‎“natural” disasters such as earthquakes, ‎floods and droughts in Egypt during the Mamlūk era (1250-‎‎1517). The first part explores ‎what a natural disaster is, and how it is defined in the Arab culture. Here ‎concepts of ‎disaster and interpretation models take center stage. The main argument in this part is that Mamlūk ‎authors reworked interpretations of catastrophes as they knew from pre-Islamic ancient ‎cultures and added new understandings which they gleaned from cross-cultural ‎interactions.    The second part gives a systematic analysis of historical disasters, providing a greater insight into the ‎various ways they affected social, political and economic life on the local level.‎ Relying on primary sources, it shows how Mamlūk ‎society ‎shaped responses to these catastrophic events, and to what extent the perception and ‎interpretation had an impact on the socio-cultural ‎handling of natural disasters‎. ‎The answers to all these questions lead to the final and central question of the study: Can Mamlūk Egypt be ‎considered a “culture of disaster” in accordance with Greg Bankoff’s theory?