Marie Legendre
Senior Lecturer in Islamic History
- Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Contact details
- Email: marie.legendre@ed.ac.uk
Availability
Drop-in hours: (Semester 1 25/26) Mondays 11-1pm, room 2.10 (2nd floor), 19 George square (except week 7 - Wednesday 29 October, 10-12, same place) or by appointment.
Background
Dr Legendre earned her PhD from the University of Leiden (2013) and Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris 4) (2014).
Before coming to Edinburgh in September 2018, she worked as Departmental Lecturer in Early Islamic History at the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and Lecturer in the History of the Pre-Modern Middle East at SOAS University of London (2016-2018). She was also a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratoire d’Excellence sur les Études Méditerranéennes (LabexMed), Aix-Marseille Université (2014-2016).
Undergraduate teaching
Islamic History A: The Formation of the Islamic World
Islamic History B: From the Crusades to the ‘Gunpowder Empires’
The Seventh Century: The Transformation of East Rome and the Rise of Islam (with Dr Yannis Stouraitis)
Guest lecturer:
- Islamic and Middle Eastern Cultures
Postgraduate teaching
The Seventh Century: The Transformation of East Rome and the Rise of Islam (with Dr Yannis Stouraitis)
Guest lecturer:
- Critical Reading in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Current PhD students supervised
Dalia Hussein, 'Land Taxes and Land Tenure in Abbasid Egypt'
Rik Janssen, 'The Empire Built by ‘Turkish’ Bow: Revising Ottoman Archery'
Stefano Nicastro, ‘Genoa in the Islamic Mediterranean: Transmission of knowledge between terra christianorum and the Dār al-Islām and Islamic perceptions of a Latin state in the later Middle Ages’
Georgi Obatnin, 'The Monetization of Taxation in Abbasid Egypt'
Samir Zhani, 'The Politics of Words: Al-Jahiz’s Oeuvre Reconsidered'
Past PhD students supervised
Nasser Alfalasi, 'Ibn al-Muqaffa': Tragedy, Legacy, and the Adab of Governance’ (2024)
Abdulla Haidar, ‘Aspects of Marwānid political thought: Between religious and tribal modes of legitimation’ (2025)
Leone Pecorini Goodall, ‘Sons and daughters of the caliphate: succession politics in the Marwanid and early Abbasid family (64-216/684-831)’ (2024)
Matteo Randazzo, ‘Sicily and Crete between Byzantium and the Dar Al-Islam (Late 7th - Mid 10th Century): An Archaeological Contribution’ (2021)
Sarah Slingluff, ‘Forgotten Umayyad Forts in Castilla-La Mancha: The History of the Fortress of Zorita and its Role in Cultural Memory' (2024)
Research summary
Dr Legendre's research interests include Late Antique and early Islamic history, especially administrative and economic history (500–1200), the early Islamic conquest, administrative and fiscal history of the Umayyad and Abbasid empires, women and gender, Arabic and Coptic papyrology and multilingualism.
Dr Legendre is co-director of the Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies
Centre for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies | The University of Edinburgh
And President of the International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) The International Society for Arabic Papyrology - Institut für den Nahen und Mittleren Osten - LMU München
She is also co-editor in chief of the Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies (with Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, Yannis Stouraitis and Daisy Livingston)
Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies : (euppublishing.com)
And co-editor of the book series on States before Modernity (with Antoine Borrut and Michael Cook):
Since September 2021, Dr Legendre is directing the research project Caliphal Finances: The Finances of the Caliphate: Abbasid Fiscal Practice in Islamic Late Antiquity (2021-2026), a five-year, European Research Council-funded project to provide for the first time a view ‘from below’ on Abbasid fiscal history through a study of papyrus documents in Greek, Coptic and Arabic written in Egypt.
For more information, see: Caliphal Finances – The Finances of the Caliphate: Abbasid Fiscal Practice in Islamic Late Antiquity