The documents throw new light on relations between Egypt and Nubia in the High Middle Ages, especially in the Fatimid period. They are of particular importance since previous historical studies from the perspective of Arabic sources have been almost entirely based on historiographical sources, often written a long time after the events described and distorted by tendentious points of view.
Geoffrey Khan (PhD, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 1984) is Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. His research publications focus on three main fields: Biblical Hebrew language (especially medieval traditions), Neo-Aramaic dialectology, and medieval Arabic documents. He is the general editor of The Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (Brill, 2013) and is the senior editor of Journal of Semitic Studies. His recent publications include The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Cambridge: University of Cambridge & Open Book Publishers, 2020, Performance of Sacred Semitic Texts (editor, with co-editor Hindy Najman), Dead Sea Discoveries 29, Brill. 2022, and Language Contact in Sanandaj (co-authored with Masoud Mohammadirad), Berlin, de Gruyter, 2024.