The Ottoman Genizah | Jane Hathaway

E586 | What can a single, discarded scrap of paper reveal about life in Ottoman-era Cairo? In this episode, Jane Hathaway discusses her open-access book Ottoman-Era Documents from the Cairo Genizah. A genizah is a storeroom or repository where Jewish communities preserved worn-out texts and papers, especially those containing the name of God. Long famous for its medieval Jewish materials, the Cairo Genizah also preserves a rich and still understudied corpus of later Arabic- and Ottoman Turkish-script documents. The conversation explores some of this archive’s unexpected Ottoman afterlife, from Sharia court summaries and commercial records to petition letters, Sufi poetry, and an ilm-i hal primer on Islamic practice. The book, which presents the documents fully transcribed and translated with a scholarly commentary, sheds light on Jewish merchants and bankers, Ottoman officials, port customs in Damietta and Alexandria, sugar supplies bound for Istanbul, and the dense networks linking Cairo to the wider empire, and much more. The conversation also invites us to reflect on archives themselves: how documents survive, how scholars decipher them, and how collaborative reading can open new windows onto Ottoman and Jewish history. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2026/05/hathaway.html Jane Hathaway is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of History at Ohio State University. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1992 under the direction of Cemal Kafadar. She has published seven books and scores of articles related to Egypt and other Ottoman Arab provinces, the Ottoman Chief Harem Eunuch, the legendary sword Zülfikar, and the Jewish messianic figure Sabbatai Zevi. Maryam Patton is Assistant Professor of History at Wesleyan University. Her research interests span the cultural and intellectual history of the late medieval and early modern Ottoman Empire, the history and theories of time and temporality, and cross-cultural transmission in the Mediterranean world, among others. She received her PhD in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and is preparing her first book on the Ottoman conception of time. CREDITS Episode No. 586 Release Date: 23 May 2026 Sound production by Maryam Patton Music: "Vibing Over Venus" by Kevin MacLeod Images and bibliography courtesy of Jane Hathaway at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2026/05/hathaway.html