Avihai Shivtiel

Baghdad Mon Amour: The Jews of Iraq Memoirs and Sorrows (in Arabic), by Shmuel (Sami) Moreh

had already developed’ (p.118). As regards the army and police forces, Berridge pays special attention to the military and the ‘middle ranking officers’. It was this rank that dictated the army’s role in both revolutions. In 1964, the army was unwilling to be dragged into politics, despite the fact that the junior officers were influenced by radical ideologies then prevalent in the Middle East. However, by 1985 those officers had grievances against the regime, and soldiers, just like the population in general, were suffering from the deterioration of the economy. Also, as against 1964, in 1985 political parties had managed to penetrate into all army ranks. Within the police forces, the situation was similar to that of the army. Neither army nor police created the uprisings, ‘...although the manner in which they responded to the uprisings did to some extent determine the eventual outcome’ (p. 147). The next two chapters analyse the transitional periods following the ousting of Abboud and Nimeiri. The author highlights two points. First, the division between the political parties in 1964 65 was almost non-existent; this was not the case in 1985 due to the sharia laws of September 1985. Second, the divisions between the periphery and the centre, between urban and rural, and especially between north and south, were more noticeable in 1985: ‘...the very fact that Khartoum’s southerners constituted a Southern Front, implicitly separate from both them the UNF [United National Front] and Professional Front, illustrates the social and regional limitations of the institutions associated with the October revolution’ (p. 173). The subject of the last chapter concerns what the author calls ‘the Salvation Revolution of June 1989’. The weakness of the political parties, the economy, and the southern problem all made it possible for the military to seize power once more. Not least important was the collaboration between the army and the UNF, which opposed democracy. Al-Bashir’s regime has been the longest in Sudan’s history since its independence, and the potential for a third revolution seems unlikely. Since, according to the author, the present regime has eliminated the reappearance of the various factors that facilitated the first two uprisings, ‘Any future intifada is, therefore, unlikely to be as swift or as bloodless as the first two or even the Tunisian or Egyptian Revolutions...’ (p. 213). Berridge has written a well-researched analysis of contemporary politics of Sudan. However, a short historical description of Sudan’s political roots since before independence in 1956 would have contributed to better understanding the role of the traditional parties and professional associations during the period under discussion. Her conclusion that when another revolution occurs it will be nothing like the ones Sudan has experienced is not surprising. After all, al-Bashir’s regime has lasted 27 years and internal and Middle Eastern developments have changed considerably.

Judaeo-Romance and Judaeo-Arabic Word-list from the Genizah

The Cairo Genizah was a depository of old scrolls, books and documents discovered in the nineteenth century mainly inside a Jewish synagogue in old Cairo, which was called Fustat in the Middle Ages. The Muslim ruling dynasty at the time was the Fatimids (969-1171) under whose control lived in relative peace Jews and Christians, mainly Copts. The archive comprising about 250,000 fragments is scattered around the world in a dozen centres and private collections. However, the bulk of the material, estimated at over 140,000 fragments, was moved from Egypt to Cambridge by Dr Solomon Schechter in 1897. The collection contains parts of known and unknown works written by personalities such as Maimonides, liturgy, responsa, poetry, philosophy, sciences, including medicine, pharmacology, astronomy and astrology, as well as thousands of private and official letters, messages, lists and commercial correspondence which throw light on daily life of the Mediterranean Society, as has fascinatingly been portrayed by scholars such as Mann, Assaf, Goitein, Ashtor, Gil and others.1 The Genizah and other sources clearly prove the existence of very active and co operative communities which maintained at the time extensive commercial and social ties stretching from Muslim Spain to India and beyond. Moreover, the co operation between all these communities was not restricted to Jews but indicates strong links between Muslims, Jews and Christians who only kept their distinctive features regarding religious matters and some internal community business. The common denominators, however, included a common language, i.e. Arabic, common beliefs and folklore and many customs and manners. Hence, peaceful co-existence was not a slogan but a reality. The multifarious modes of life and the organization of the communities are reflected in the various and extensive genres of writing and languages. Thus, Muslims used Arabic; Jews used mainly Judaeo-Arabic for daily communication as well as for various scholarly and non-scholarly works (which were mainly written in Arabic but also included some Hebrew and Aramaic phrases) and Hebrew for liturgy and poetry, and to much lesser extent, some Aramaic (e.g. ketubbot), while Christians used Christian-Arabic and occasionally Coptic. Arabs and Christians used the Arabic script (Copts used sometimes the Coptic alphabet and mainly Coptic numerals), while Jews usually used the Hebrew alphabet to write Arabic and other languages, and only seldom, especially in official letters to the authorities, such as requests, petitions and the like were they * University of Cambridge. 1 For an excellent account of the Genizah collection at Cambridge, see S.C. Reifs book mentioned in the Bibliography.

C. Reviews: general

THE HISTORY OF AL‐TABARI. VOL. III: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. Translated by WILLIAM M. BRINNER. Albany, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1991. xii, 194 pp.

LANGUAGES IN CONTACT: THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE TO THE REVIVAL OF HEBREW

44.00 (hb),

Subhi Ali Adawi (translator), The Qur'an in Another Language, Translated to Hebrew

14.95 (pb). THE HISTORY OF AL‐TABARI. VOL. XXXIII: STORM AND STRESS ALONG THE NORTHERN FRONTIERS OF THE ‘ABBASID CALIPHATE. Translated by C.E. BOSWORTH. Albany, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1991. xix, 239 pp.

Mordechai Akiva Friedman, A Dictionary of Medieval Judeo-Arabic in the India Book Letters from the Geniza and Other Texts

57.50 (hb),

What 'Isa Ibn Hisham Told Us or A Period of Time, by Muhammad Al-Muwaylihi, edited and translated by Roger Allen: New York and London, New York University Press, 2015, Vol. 1, 522 pp., £25.99 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-4798-1388-9, Vol. 2, 414 pp., £25.99 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-4798-6225-2

18.95 (pb). THE AWAKENING OF PERSIA: THE REIGN OF NASR AL‐DIN SHAH 1848–1896. By A.J. ABRAHAM. USA, Vande Vere Publishing, 1992. 64pp.

Aharon Maman,Mirqam Leshonot Ha-Yehudim Bi-Tsfon Africa (The Texture of the Jewish Languages in North Africa).

18.95. THE EMERGENCE OF KURDISH NATIONALISM AND THE SHAIKH SAID REBELLION, 1880–1925. By ROBERT OLSON. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1992. THE ARAB BUREAU: BRITISH POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST, 1916–1920. By BRUCE WESTRATE. University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. xvi, 240 pp.

A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo, The History of Cambridge University's Genizah Collection

35. DIE TURKEI UND AGYPTEN IN DER WELTWIRTSCHAFTSKRISE 1929–1933. By CAMILLA DAWLETSCHIN‐LINDER. (Studien zur modernen Geschichte, 40). Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1989. xviii, 187 pp. 20 tables, 6 diagrams. DM...