Download PDF | Ibn al-Furat, Ayyubids, Mamlukes and Crusaders, vol 1: Text, ed. Jonathan Riley-Smith, Malcolm Cameron Lyons, Ursula Lyons (1971).
294 Pages
INTRODUCTION
The author of the history Tarikh al-Duwal wa’l-Muluk, Nasir al-Din Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Hanafi, known as Ibn al-Furat, was born in Cairo and is said to have lived from 734/5-807 A.H. (1334-1405 A.D.)! . The bulk of what survives of his history is found in a manuscript belonging to the National Library of Vienna’. Flügel gives a description of nine sections of this work, which cover, albeit with several gaps, the years 501-799 A.H. The only other section known to exist is found in a manuscript in the Vatican Library, which was unknown to both Flügel and Brockelmann and was discovered by Le Strange, who described it in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society?. This covers the years 639-659 A.H. and has been copied by the scribe of the Vienna manuscript.
Four sections of the work have already been published. These are Volume 4, which covers the years 563-588 A.H., and Volumes 7-9, which cover the years 672-792 A.H. Some extracts have been translated and in this connection particular reference must be made to the French scholar A. Jourdain, who intended to write a life of Sultan Baibars. He died before his scheme could be completed, but his transcriptions from the Vienna manuscript together with his tentative translations are preserved in the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris.
The purpose of the present work, which provides extracts from Volumes 5, 6 and 7, covering the period from 641-676 A.H., is to supply the basis for a historical commentary written from the standpoint of the European sources. This, in turn, by its detailed investigation of the relationship between the Arabic and the European narratives, will, it is hoped, not only clarify the picture of the events covered but also supply evidence on the more important problem of an assessment of the real value of the Arabic tradition of historiography covering the Ayyubid and the Mamluke periods. Ibn al-Furat is of significance here in that he represents the main stream of this tradition, offering little new material of his own, but selecting and adapting all the main sources, both in direct quotations, acknowledged and unacknowledged, and in paraphrases. The passages of his work that have been chosen in this selection are, in the main, those that refer directly to the Crusaders, although this rule is at times relaxed to provide some continuity to the narrative. Much material that has an important bearing on this history of the Frankish states, such as Sultan Baibars’ relations with the Mongols, has been omitted. This has been done firstly to limit the size of the work and also to allow the commentary to concentrate on what is clearly the most important common ground between the two traditions. As the bulk of the work deals with the career of Baibars, it has been thought proper to carry it up to his death, although this has meant that the last fourteen pages of the text consist of material that has been published in the edition of Volume 7.
Of Ibn al-Furat’s sources quoted in this selection the most important is the Qadi Muhi al-Din Ibn ‘Abd al-Zàhir, Baibars’ private secretary, who also wrote his biography. An edition of part of this work, covering the years 658-663 A.H., was published in Pakistan in 1956 by Dr Fatima Sadeque. There also exists an as yet unpublished edition of the whole work in the form of a London University doctoral thesis by Dr A. A. Khowayter. It is important to note that Ibn al-Furat’s debt to Ibn ‘Abd al-Zahir is not confined to acknowledged quotations. The large number of parallel passages in which no acknowledgments are made can be noted from the references given in the textual Apparatus. A precis of Ibn 'Abd al-Zàhir's work was made by his grandson, Nasir al-Din Shafi‘ ibn ‘Ali ibn 'Asaàkir al-‘Asqalani. This is entitled Al-Mandqib al-Sirriya, and a copy of it is found in a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It is not, however, this work by Shafi‘ ibn ‘Ali to which Ibn 21-۳ ۵۲۵] refers, but a lost history called Nazm al-Suluk fi Tarikh al-Khulafa’ wa lI-Muluük.
Another eye-witness quoted by Ibn al-Furat is Sibt ibn al-Jauzi, to whom he refers as Abu'l-Muzaffar. Sibt ibn al-Jauzi died in 654 A.H. and his history, Mir at al-Zaman, concludes with the events of that year. The Mir Gt al-Zamán was continued by Qutb al-Din al-Yünini, who died in 726 A.H. Ibn al-Furàt makes use of this Appendix for its version of the death of Baibars.
Another authority quoted in these selections is Shihàb al-Din Abü Shàma, who died in the middle of Baibars' reign, in 665 A.H. He recorded events of the forty years up to his death in the Appendix to his history of the reigns of Nür al-Din and Saladin. Yet another source for Ibn al-Furat’s information on the Ayyubids and early Mamlukes was Ibn Wasil, the author of a history entitled Mufarrij al-Kurüb, which ends with the year 669. The work was continued up to the year 695 A.H. by his nephew Ibn ‘Abd al-Rahim.
Ibn al-Furadt makes a number of references to one of his own contemporaries, ‘our friend’ (sahibuna) Sàrim al-Din Ibn Duqmagq, who died in 809 A.H. The work to which he refers is the Nuzhat al-Andm, which has neither been edited nor translated, but parts of which are to be found in manuscript form.
Finally, an important authority much used by Ibn al-Furàt in acknowledged and unacknowledged quotations is ‘Izz al-Din Ibn 51120030 , known as the Geographer, to distinguish him from Baha’ al-Din Ibn Shaddàd, the biographer of Saladin. Ibn Shaddad, by birth a citizen of Aleppo, died in 684 A.H., having lived through the period of Baibars' sultanate. He was the author of several works, including a life of Baibars which has not yet been edited^, but it is his topographical history, Al-A laq al-Khatira fi Dhikr Umará' al-Shàm wa l-Jazira, from which Ibn al-Furat draws.
The remaining sources quoted by Ibn al-Furat in this selection are mentioned in the notes on the text and can be found in the Index of Names. They include Muntakhab al-Din Yahya ibn Abi Tayy, who died in 630 A.H. and who was the author of a lost world history; the Kitab al-Buldán of Usàma ibn Mungqidh, who died in 584 A.H., and a letter written by al-Qadi al-Fadil, Saladin's vizier, who died in 596 A.H.*.
In addition to these there are other sources which, though not directly quoted by Ibn al-Furát, are of service in the study of his text because of the inter-relationship of their traditions. These include al-Nuwairi, who died two years before Ibn al-Furat was born, in 732 A.H., and who was the author of an encyclopedic history in thirty parts, Nihàyat al-Arab fi Funün al-Adab. Volume 25 of this work covers the years 659-701 A.H. and is found in a Paris manuscript. In spite of the resemblances in their accounts, Ibn al-Furàt never acknowledges or mentions al-Nuwairi.
A closer contemporary of Ibn al-Furàt — and one who did acknowledge al-Nuwairi as a source — was Mufaddal ibn Abi’l-Fada’il. He died in 759 A.H. and his history of Egypt under the Mamlukes, called Al-Nahj al-Sadid, covers the years 659-699 A.H. Last amongst these sources is al-Maqrizi, who flourished nearly half a century later than Ibn al-Furat and died in 845 A.H. The two volumes of his Kitab al-Sulük li-Ma rifat Duwal al-Mulük have been edited in Cairo. Earlier they were translated by Quatremére, a translation extended by Blochet, who covered the period from 626-648 A.H. Ibn al-Furát's work must have been known to al-Maqrizi, though he makes no direct reference to him. The evidence for this is a note in his own hand in the Vatican manuscript of Ibn al-Furat®.
A number of authors of general or specific histories remain to be mentioned for general accounts or details they contain that are relevant to the present selections. The authors of general histories include Ibn al-Athir, who died in 630 A.H., translated extracts from whose work A/-Kamil fi l-Tárikh are given in the first two volumes of the Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, as are extracts from his work on the Atabek state. Baibars al-Mansuri, who died in 725 A.H., was the author of a history of Islam, Zubdat al-Fikra fi Tarikh al-Hijra, which includes an account of Baibars’ reign. The parts relevant to this are found in manuscripts in the Bodleian Library and in the British Museum. Abu’l-Fida’, who died in 732 A.H., also wrote a compendious history, from which translated extracts covering the period 485-702 A.H. are to be found in the first volume of the Recueil.
Of later historians, al-'Aini, who died in 855 A.H., gives details of the Crusading period, extracts from which are to be found in Recueil 2, covering the years 624-673 A.H. Abu'I-Mahisin Ibn al-Taghribirdi, who died in the year 873 A.H., was the author of Al-Nujiim al-Zahira fi Mulük Misr wa'l-Qdhira, a history of Egypt of which Volume 20 covers the years 648-689 A.H. Amongst the authors of town histories may be mentioned Ibn al-Qalànisi, who died in 555 A.H., and Kamal al-Din Ibn al-Adim, the historian of Aleppo, who died in 660 A.H. His history stops at a point twenty years before his death and passages relevant to the Crusades, covering the years 491-541 A.H., have been translated in Recueil 3.
The present editors make no claim to have supplied a definitive critical edition of the passages presented in this volume. Such an edition requires a study of the whole text in its relations not only to the sources themselves but to their full manuscript traditions, as it may be that later copyists of earlier sources were themselves influenced by later sources. A further complication is to be found in the difficulty of deciding which variae lectiones represent actual variants of the text and which are paraphrases. As far as possible, all Ibn al-Furàt's sources have been consulted, but not all their variants have been listed, as Ibn al-Furàt observably exercised some latitude in his quotations. Readings from later sources are quoted in cruxes, to confirm questionable points in the text and for the light that they shed on the manuscript tradition. Possible paraphrases are noted where the sense seems deficient.
The Arabic text in Ibn al-Furat’s manuscript is characterized by a large number of grammatical mistakes, orthographical inconsistencies and, in particular, variations in the spelling of proper names’. It is clear from a comparison with other works of this period that this represents the normal usage of the time and therefore such passages and words have not been emended unless the emendation can be backed by further evidence from the manuscript tradition. On a point of orthography, it may be noted that Ibn al-Furat’s copyist normally writes ya for hamza. Zuraiq's edition has followed this usage, but in the present text hamza has been restored, for the convenience of readers. These restorations have not been noted in the Apparatus. Where hamza is used by the scribe, the bearer that he gives it is normally reproduced in the text.
It should be observed that the marginalia are all in the handwriting of the original copyist. In some cases they may, perhaps, represent a different tradition, as can be seen from the addition of an apocryphal story about the siege of Tripoli? and elsewhere in the insertion of details that are not to be found in the presumptive source of the passage?.
Folio references to the manuscripts are given at the start of each passage and in the margins of the text. From pages 1-59 these references are to the Vatican Manuscript; from pages 59-202 they are to Section 6 of the Vienna Manuscript and from page 202 to the end they are to Section 7 of the Vienna Manuscript. In this final section page reference to Zuraiq's edition are given at the start of each passage. In all cases omissions from within the passages given are marked with dots (. . .). In some few cases explanatory words are added in brackets at the start of a new passage. The section headings given in the manuscripts are listed in Volume 2, so that readers may see what has been omitted.
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