Milig, Egypt

Milig (Arabic: مليج, romanized: Milīj) is a village in Monufia Governorate of Egypt, in the Nile Delta. It is a short distance northeast of Shibin El Kom. Milig's souk meets for three days each week. One day is devoted entirely to the sale of cheese and butter ("suq al-gibna"), with women making up a majority of the merchants and customers, and the other two are for groceries and goods like clothes and kitchen utensils. The 1885 Census of Egypt recorded Milig (as Melig) as a nahiyah in its own district in Monufia Governorate; at that time, the population of the town was 7,729 (3,903 men and 3,826 women). The 10th-century geographer al-Muqaddasi listed Milig (as Malīj) among the cities in the Egyptian district of Ar-Rif. A century later, in the 1060s and 70s, the Nile Delta was ravaged by Berber raids as well as famine. A Jewish legal document dated to September 1075, after the raiders had been driven out under Badr al-Jamali, records that Berbers of the Lewata tribe had sacked and looted Malij during the chaotic preceding years.