Who is working on Caliphal Finances?
The project’s Principal Investigator (PI) is Dr Marie Legendre, Senior Lecturer in Islamic History at the University of Edinburgh.
Marie has been working with three Postdoctoral Research Fellows and two PhD students:
Dr Noëmie Lucas was Research Fellow in Abbasid fiscal history and historiography (2021-2025).
Dr Eline Scheerlinck was Research Fellow in Coptic Papyrology (2024-2025).
Dr Dalia Hussein completed her PhD on the Caliphal Finances project: Ownership, Tax and State: Land Use in Abbasid Egypt (awarded 2026)
Dr Sophie Kovarik is Caliphal Finances Research Fellow working on Greek papyri from the 8th century (2026-2027)
Since October 2022, the team has been joined by Georgi Obatnin, who has secured PhD funding independently from the Caliphal Finances project but whose work on the monetization of taxation in Egypt is intimately related to the Caliphal Finances research agenda.
Visiting Researchers
From September to December 2022, Thomas Laver, who was then PhD Candidate at Cambridge University, joined the Caliphal Finances project as a Visiting Postgraduate Researcher. Read this interview to learn more about his background and research!
The project at a glance
The team members work on the six Work Packages as follows:
- Work Package 1 Study of the published corpus of fiscal documents in Arabic, Coptic and Greek written in the Abbasid Period (Marie and Eline)
- Work Package 2 Edition of new fiscal documents in Arabic, Coptic and Greek written in the Abbasid Period (Marie and Eline)
- Work Package 3 Beyond jizya and kharaj: a nomenclature of all attested taxes in Abbasid Egypt, their weight for tax payers and their place in the fiscal collection (Marie, Eline, and Dalia)
- Work Package 4 Making the link: fiscal practice and the literary corpus (Noëmie)
- Work Package 5 A bigger picture: the system and working of tax collection in Abbasid Egypt and beyond (all team members)
- Work Package 6 Writing a history of Abbasid fiscal practice in Islamic Late Antiquity (Marie)
