Jennifer Pruitt: Construction, Destruction, and Concealment under Cairo's "Mad Caliph"

In this talk, Jennifer Pruitt will unravel the mystery of two pivotal events conducted by 1010 CE's “mad” Fatimid Egyptian caliph, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, exploring the relationship between destruction and concealment in the context of medieval sectarianism. In doing so, she will examine the ways that architecture acted as both a stage and battleground in the negotiation of religious identity in the medieval Islamic world.