I thank Professor M. Kisaichi and the participants who commented on my presentation. This article is dedicated to the memory of Roy Porter, a leading scholar on the history of madness. 1 Nathaniel Lee (a Restoration poet confined to London's Bethlem Hospital), as quoted in M. Byrd, Visits to Bedlam (Columbia, S.C. 1975), 75.
This is the first book-length study of popular culture in Islamic society, drawing together a wealth of Arabic sources to explore literature, religious celebrations and annual festivities in medieval Cairo and addressing questions of relevance throughout the Islamic world and beyond. Dr Shoshan examines popular religion against the background of the growing influence of Sufism, discussing the sermons of Abn Ata Allah, a leading Cairene Sufi, which shed considerable light on the beliefs of ordinary Muslims. The author then analyses the importance of a biography of Muhammad, which has been attributed to Abu'l-Hasan al-Bakri and suppressed by the learned, and traces the origins and popular practices of the annual Nawruz festival. Finally he explores the political beliefs and economic expectations of the Cairene commoners and demonstrates the complex relationship between the culture of the Cairene elite and that of the people.
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