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444 Pages
Professor Amalia Levanoni’s Contribution to the
Field of Mamluk Studies
Michael Winter
For over thirty years, Amalia Levanoni, Professor (Emerita) of Middle Eastern
History at the University of Haifa, has contributed, through her vast expertise,
devotion, and tireless efforts to the preservation and expansion of studies on
the political, social and cultural history of the Mamluk state (1250–1517). She
is one of the outstanding scholars in this fascinating and growing academic
chapter of the Middle East in the later Middle-Ages. While drawing on the solid
foundations of Israeli and international Mamluk scholarship, she continually
finds new and pioneering themes and approaches.
Amalia Levanoni has organized multiple international conferences in
Haifa and other universities in Israel. She has also cultivated collegial ties with
Mamlukists abroad and has been a very active participant in international
conferences on the Mamluks. She has visited and lectured in many universities and centers where Mamluk and related subjects are researched, notably
Oxford, Bonn and other German universities, as well as in Belgium, France and
North America.
Amalia Levanoni has numerous publications on the Mamluk regime and the
military which examine the Mamluk concepts of the sultanate, Shajar al-Durr,
the only woman sultan in medieval Islam, the Battle of ʿAyn Jālūt that presents a paradigmatic historical event in Mamluk historical narratives, and many
others.
Her book, A Turning Point in the Mamluk History: The Third Reign of
al-Nāṣir Muḥammad Ibn Qalāwūn (1310–1341) is a thoughtful analysis of his sultanate. Al-Nāṣir Muḥammad was one of the greatest Mamluk sultans, probably
second only to Baybars, the actual founder of the state. Al-Nāṣir Muḥammad
was a strong and energetic ruler and peace prevailed during his reign. He was
an avid builder and spendthrift, and as Levanoni writes “he pawned the future”
by his recklessness. His economic and financial policy led directly to the social,
monetary, and moral decline of the state after his death.
Amalia Levanoni has also published countless articles on cultural and social subjects and about daily life during the Mamluk period, such as the cooking and cuisine of the elite, relationships between the rulers and the ʿulamāʾ,
women in the Mamluk elite, religion and theology, Mamluk travels and pilgrimages, and the water supply in medieval Cairo. The list of Levanoni’s articles is impressive in terms of their number, the originality of the subjects, and the journals in which they were published.
These include the International
Journal of Middle East Studies, Studia Islamica, Der Islam, and Arabica. She has
also written several articles for the Mamluk Studies Review, the leading journal in the field, which is published by the University of Chicago. In addition,
Levanoni has contributed many items on Mamluk history to the Encyclopaedia
of Islam, Second Edition (EI2), and to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third Edition
(EI3). Amalia Levanoni’s many book reviews of scholarly works about Mamluks
and related issues testify to her authority in the field.
Last but not least, Amalia Levanoni is an active and involved educator and
colleague at the University Haifa, beyond Mamluk and Middle Eastern studies.
Between 2013 and 2016 she served as President of the Middle East and Islamic
Studies Association of Israel, the first woman to hold this prestigious position.
Preface
This collective volume incorporates 17 papers in the field of Mamluk studies
written by a set of leading historians of this period, both from the younger generation of scholars as well as more established ones, in honor of Prof. Amalia
Levanoni, one of the most influential scholars of Mamluk society and culture,
who recently retired from the Department of Middle Eastern History at the
University of Haifa.
The articles in this volume are divided into five thematic categories covering social and cultural issues, women in Mamluk society, literary and poetic
genres, the politics of material culture, and finally regional and local politics.
Obviously in a project of this nature there is a certain element of eclecticism
which has to do with the interests of the scholars participating, and some of the
papers could very well fit into more than one category.
I have nonetheless tried
to group them in categories which best suit the main themes discussed and
allow different perspectives and comparisons on given subjects. For the most
part the articles deal with topics their authors have already dealt with in the
last decade or two, in previous projects and publications. Their current work
can thus be seen as a statement about the field of Mamluk studies today and a
review of its recent developments. This field has been changing very rapidly in
recent decades and today includes hundreds of active researchers worldwide
who write in numerous languages and constitute a lively, strong community.
Amalia Levanoni has been a prominent member of this community since the
1980s and many of the contributions in this volume in fact correspond with her
research and reflect her wide range of interests and research projects as well
as her vast influence on the field of Mamluk studies.
Among Amalia’s varied
research topics one can find the importance of the Battle of ʿAyn Jālūt, the role
of the ʿulamāʾ in the Mamluk state, Mamluk food and its meaning, women
in the elite of the Mamluk state, the water system in Mamluk Cairo, the writing of historians, travelers, and pilgrims during the Mamluk period, research
about specific Mamluk sultans such as al-Nāṣir Muḥammad, everyday practices in Mamluk Cairo, governance, rulership, religion, and theology during the
Mamluk period, and more. All of these issues are widely discussed in the 17
articles presented in this volume.
In the first section, Social and Cultural Issues, Carl Petry, in his article
“Already Rich? Yet ‘Greed Deranged Him’: Elite Status and Criminal Complicity
in the Mamluk Sultanate,” explores elite complicity in criminal activity as reported by contemporary observers. Students of crime in several medieval cultures have noted the ties between profitable criminal activity and individuals or groups socially situated at the apex of their societies to wield military force,
police regulation, political influence and financial coercion. Why were these
individuals or groups so motivated, when they already exercised hegemonic
levels of control and oversaw assets in excess of what the great majority of
the populace could hope to acquire?
This question raises issues as complex
and diverse as the social contexts in which they pursued their activities. In
late medieval Egypt and Syria, writes Petry, on-site observers who commented
in detail on the behavior of local elites they regarded as illicit did not offer
a uniform or consistent set of explanations for their complicity in crime for
profit. But the frequency with which these observers reported what they regarded as elite complicity in crime reveals the significance they attributed to
it. The article considers the range of explanations these observers put forward
and tries to find continuities and contrasts in their assessments of elite complicity in profitable crime.
The article presents illustrative cases from criminal
categories predictably associated with profitable gain such as larceny, theft,
fraud, corruption, and counterfeiting. Other categories less associated with fiscal gain, such as religious deviance, but which also led to criminal incidents
involving elite complicity for profit are also discussed.
Koby Yosef, in his article “Usages of Kinship Terminology during the Mamluk
Sultanate and the Notion of the ‘Mamlūk Family’,” challenges the standard perception of the family during the Mamluk period as primarily based on mamlūk
connections. Most students of the Mamluk Sultanate, writes Yosef, tend to underestimate the importance of relationships based on blood ties and marital
ties.
Instead, they emphasize the importance of mamlūk connections such as
the relationship between a master and his mamlūks, or the connections among
mamlūks of the same household serving the same master (khushdāshiyya),
generally referred to as “pseudo-familial ties.” According to Ayalon, for example, the mamlūk’s period of enslavement determined his affiliations for life
and, therefore, the structure of Mamluk society was based on what he called
the “mamlūk family.” The patron and his freedmen developed relationships
very similar to those of a biological family, and the terminology characterizing
their relations was identical to terms used for the biological family. The patron
was the ‘father’ (wālid) of his mamlūks, and they his ‘sons’ (awlād, sing. walad),
and the freedmen regarded each other as ‘brothers’ (ikhwa, sing. akh). The
khushdāsh of a master was considered an ‘uncle’ by the master’s mamlūks, and
the master of the master was considered the ‘grandfather.’
According to Aḥmad
ʿAbd al-Rāziq, the mamlūks did not understand “the true meaning of family”
since their social relationships were based on mamlūk ties. Like Ayalon, he also
emphasizes the fact that the terminology for these relationships was identical
to that of the biological family. Yosef argues instead that the terminology of the biological family was used to express hierarchy at least as much as it was used to
express affinity. Such metaphorical usages of biological familial terms are also
attested for non-mamlūks and for periods other than the Mamluk Sultanate.
Moreover, in many cases during the Mamluk Sultanate, when biological family
terminology is employed with respect to mamlūks, the usage does not fit the
structure of the “mamlūk family” as envisioned by Ayalon. In addition, many
times the terminology of the biological family is used to express relationships
between mamlūks who were in-laws or even blood relatives.
Yosef concludes
that scholars’ emphasis on usages of biological family terminology with respect to mamlūks thus reflects their tendency to emphasize the importance of
mamlūk connections during the Mamluk Sultanate to a greater extent than it
reflects social reality.
Limor Yungman, in her article “Medieval Middle Eastern Court Taste: The
Mamluk Case,” examines the formation of the “Mamluk taste” as a culinary,
cultural, and political choice constituting one unique example of medieval
Middle Eastern court proclivities. Class formation and social status are shaped
and determined, among other things, by food preferences.
This article explores the idea of the taste of medieval “haute cuisine” literally and symbolically in terms of what factors shaped it, and how it was regarded and practiced.
Yungman reconstructs the tastes of the Mamluk court by investigating various
sources, mainly cookbooks, chronicles, and reports on imports of food articles
and ingredients that could not be found locally in Egypt such as rare and exotic
spices. The “Mamluk taste” was based on two factors.
The first is external and
has to do with the Mamluks’ background going back to the Golden Horde; i.e.,
the “taste” with which they came to Egypt. Remnants of Central-Asian cuisine
can be found, such as the qūmiz (mare’s milk) and horsemeat frequently gracing the sultan’s table. The second was the internal influence of earlier court
cuisines, such as the Abbasid-Baghdadi and the Fatimid, which in turn were influenced by pre-Islamic cuisines; for instance, the Persian-Sassanid. These two
axes define the unique combination of Mamluk cuisine associating “nomad”
cuisine and urban Caliphal “haute cuisine.”
In addition, the “Mamluk flavor”
was also defined as “sweet” (Amalia Levanoni) and “seasoned and unrefined”
(Paulina Lewicka), two features which are also investigated in the article.
Yungman’s examination and analysis of historical recipes and other sources,
especially in comparison to the nutrition of the rest of the population, leads
to a better understanding of Mamluk taste even beyond the “culinary,” beyond
the “eaten,” and beyond the Mamluk context.
Bernadette Martel-Thoumian, in the only French article in this volume,
“Du sang et des larmes: Le destin tragique d’Aṣalbāy al-Jarkasiyya (m. en
915/1509),” [Blood and Tears: The Tragic Fate of Aṣalbāy al-Jarkasiyya (died 1509], discusses the story of a Circassian concubine, whose tragic and fascinating life story reflects the fate of Mamluk elite women.
Aṣalbāy al-Jarkasiyya
was a concubine of the Mamluk Sultan al-Ashraf Qāytbāy (r. 1468–96) and gave
birth to his son and successor al-Nāṣir Muḥammad (1496–98). She witnessed
the rise to power of his murderer al-Ẓāhir Qānṣūh min Qānṣūh (1498–1500),
who was his maternal uncle. In 1500 she married atābak al-ʿasākir Jānbalāṭ who
in the same year revolted against Qānṣūh min Qānṣūh and dethroned him,
making the former concubine the sultaness for a short period of a few months.
She then witnessed his emprisonment in Alexandria where he was executed
and the vindication of his two successors Ṭūmānbāy and Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī.
She made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1508, which gave the sultan an opportunity to exile her, where she died and was buried about a year later.
Finally in this section, Daisuke Igarashi, in his article “The Office of the
Ustādār al-ʿĀliya in the Circassian Mamluk Era,” discusses the role of chief of
the al-Dīwān al-Mufrad, a special financial bureau entrusted with providing
monthly wages (jāmakiyya), clothing allowances (kiswa), fodder (ʿalīq) for horses, and other provisions to the sultanic mamlūks (al-mamālīk al-sulṭāniyya).
Al-Ẓāhir Barqūq, the first sultan of the Circassian Mamluk dynasty, founded
the dīwān to increase and maintain his mamlūk corps.
The bureau was meant
to fortify the sultan’s position in the throes of political instability and financial
difficulties. Consequently, the newly established dīwān rapidly expanded its
role, and the Mamluk state structure was reorganized. In principle, the ustādār
al-ʿāliya was held by a high-ranking military man, usually an amīr of a hundred
(amīr miʾah muqaddam alf), although the duties were not military.
Rather, they
comprised financial management, which was usually the responsibility of the
civil services. However, sources show that the actual careers and backgrounds
of appointees varied as a function of the transition of the status and importance of the dīwān in the governmental system, which changed throughout
the Circassian Mamluk period. The article lists all appointees to the office of
ustādār al-ʿāliya and investigates the reasons for their appointment and dismissal. It systematically examines their careers and backgrounds as well as the
political and financial situations of the Mamluk state in which each appointment was made.
This detailed investigation reveals the development of the
function of the office of ustādār al-ʿāliya and helps contextualize the transition
of the status of al-Dīwān al-Mufrad in the fiscal administration of the Mamluk
state as a whole.
In the second section of this volume, Women in Mamluk Society, Yaacov
Lev, in his article “Women in the Urban Space of Medieval Muslim Cities,”
addresses the issue of women in the socio-economic life of medieval Muslim
urban society and how to read sources about them. The examination of literary sources, especially from Mamluk Egypt, has led scholars to the conclusion that
there was a considerable disparity between concepts of the ideal position of
women in society and the actual reality of their everyday lives.
The methodology adopted by some scholars can be described as a “reverse reading” of the
sources. Among other things, the article examines the wider ramifications of
this methodology and its potential pitfalls.
Yehoshua Frenkel, in his article “Slave Girls and Learned Teachers: Women
in Mamluk Sources,” concentrates on two groups of women during the Mamluk
period, slave girls (concubines) and educated women. He highlights the dualism in writing about women as reflected in male dominated sources and the
multifaceted conditions existing in urban centers of the Mamluk Sultanate.
Chronicles, biographies, legal texts, and inscriptions, writes Frenkel, shed
light on both the ideal social position of women and their image, as well as
on historical reality throughout the long Mamluk dominion.
These sources
describe free or slave women who were engaged in a variety of domestic and
non-domestic forms of labor. The prevailing social attitudes, which are reflected in legal writings, indeed reinforce their image as a marginal component of
Mamluk society. As they were prevented from holding leading legal, political
or military positions they were forced into the background. This articulated,
common arrangement is visible in accounts of social gatherings (majālis) in
which the wives did not participate, but professional female performers took
an active part. However, although women are underrepresented in Mamluk
chronicles and biographical dictionaries, it should be emphasized that these
sources offer rich accounts that highlight their lives and conditions. Hence,
readers of Mamluk documentation should not accept any overstated popular generalization and should reject a-historical statements about “Muslim
women, Islam and the woman, etc.” The information on the social position
of Mamluk women and their textual image reflects, in contrast to a simplified and idealistic picture of past societies, a complex reality.
This stems from
varying conditions, including their status and roles. The sources depict polar
opposites from the pious ascetic woman to the shameless adulteress. Mamluk
ʿajāʾib accounts (mirabilia), for example, transport their readers, as accepted
in this literary genre, into realms of fantasy. Women in these stories often have
irresistible seductive power and play the role of the destructive temptress.
Boaz Shoshan, in his article “On Marriage in Damascus, 1480–1500,” the last
article in this section, discusses the practices of marriage in Mamluk Syria.
While the basic customs associated with the act of marriage in Islam are well
known, marriage customs in the pre-modern Middle East are less well explored. Among the hundreds of notarial documents included in Shihāb al-Dīn
Aḥmad Ibn Ṭawq’s Taʿlīq, a sort of “diary” (yawmiyyāt) recorded between 1480 and 1503 CE containing detailed and variegated information about the social
fabric of Damascus at the end of the Mamluk era, there are reports of about
150 marriage contracts, 65 of which contain relatively rich information.
This is
undoubtedly the best set of data on this subject one could hope to find for a
pre-Ottoman Islamic society anywhere. The article analyzes the marriage data
and comments on the pattern of marriages among the Damascene population
at the end of the Mamluk era.
In the third section, Literary and Poetic Genres, Li Guo’s “Songs, Poetry, and
Storytelling: Ibn Taghrī Birdī on the Yalbughā Affair” discusses two ballīq-songs
originally composed as a muʿāraḍa-duet between a court poet, Ibn al-Kharrāṭ,
and a street entertainer, Ibn Mawlāhum. Medieval Arabic vernacular poetry developed alongside the classical crown jewel, the shiʿr. The staples of the “popular” kind—muwashshaḥ, mawāliyā, dū-bayt, zajal, and kān wa-kān—further
developed into several sub-genres which display discernable timely features
and regional flavors. The ballīq-ballad, a spin-off of the zajal, is one example: it
was Mamluk and Cairene. Medieval and modern sources tend to juxtapose the
term balālīq (pl.) with azjāl (pl.) as a general reference to “songs and ballads”;
often the two terms are used interchangeably—a testimony to the popularity
of this particular zajal form throughout Ottoman times, and extending to modern day Egypt. However, while Mamluk poetry production, including the zajal
in general, has attracted steady interest in recent years, little has been written about the ballīq.
The topic of the poetic debate discussed in Guo’s article
was the status and state of a soldier versus that of a scholar. What makes this
even more interesting is that these ballads were performed for Sultan Ḥasan
ibn Muḥammad (r. 1347–51, 1354–61) in a song-and-dance format. After a close
reading of the texts (the songs and the accompanying materials), this article
examines the artistic features of the Egyptian Mamluk ballīq (continuity and
discontinuity versus earlier Iraqi samples provided by Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī), and
aspects of Mamluk courtly performance (the tension between the vernacular
verses and “low-brow” entertainment and the high madḥ-panegyric courtly
ritual).
Frédéric Bauden, in his article “Maqriziana XIII: An Exchange of Correspondence between al-Maqrīzī and al-Qalqashandī,” examines correspondence
between two prominent Mamluk authors at the beginning of the fifteenth
century: al-Maqrīzī and al-Qalqashandī. Correspondence between scholars in
the Mamluk Sultanate has not yet received the attention it deserves although
several collections of letters are available to researchers.
In the case discussed
here both scholars worked together at the chancery in Cairo, before their ways
parted when al-Maqrīzī opted for a different career. However, an exchange of
two letters between them shows that they kept in touch. These two letters (an inceptive letter and its answer) were quoted by al-Qalqashandī’s son, Ibn Abī
Ghudda (d. 1471) in his own chancery manual which is still unpublished. This
text indicates that a few years before al-Qalqashandī’s death, al-Maqrīzī sent
him a letter in which he consulted him about the use of the verb rasama in the
meaning of amara (to order, to decree), a connotation which was not found in
dictionaries. Beside the significance of al-Qalqashandī’s answer for the field of
Mamluk diplomacy, the two letters, writes Bauden, also provide crucial information about the works of these two authors.
The article describes the letters,
analyzes their content, and determines their significance for Mamluk diplomacy, epistolography, lexicography, and the authors’ bibliographies.
In the third article in this section, Michael Winter, in his article “Sultan Selīm’s
Obsession with Mamluk Egypt according to Evliyā Çelebi’s Seyāḥatnāme,” discusses the writings of this famous Ottoman 17th-century traveler who produced a ten-volume travelogue (Seyāḥatnāme) describing the countries he
visited.
The tenth volume of his work, the topic of this article, is a depiction of
Egypt and Habesh (Ethiopia). Most of this volume is devoted to Egypt as Evliyā
Çelebi saw it, but there is also a section on the history of Egypt, including the
events leading to the war between the Mamluk sultans and Sultan Selīm I,
who led his army against the last two Mamluk sultans, Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī and
Ṭūmān Bāy. Evliyā Çelebi’s writing is problematic historically, but is nevertheless fascinating because it raises numerous social and cultural issues. His narrative presents several key figures and events of the early sixteenth century in
a different light than what we know from various Arab and Ottoman chroniclers.
The article explores several episodes involving Sultan Selīm I’s conquest
of Egypt as discussed by Evliyā Çelebi which are often anachronistic, and attempts to determine their origin. These include the discovery by the Ottomans
of the tomb of Ibn al-ʿArabī, the great but controversial mystic who died in
Damascus in 1240, the circumstances surrounding the death of the Mamluk
Sultan Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī, the last days of Ṭūmānbāy, the Mamluk ruler who
spoke with Selīm before he was hanged at the Zuwayla Gate in Cairo, administrative changes the Ottoman sultan introduced before his return to his capital,
and others.
In the fourth section, The Politics of Material Culture, Warren C. Schultz, in
his article, “Mamluk Coins, Mamluk Politics and the Limits of the Numismatic
Evidence,” examines the surviving corpus of Mamluk coins to identify and
analyze the patterns that emerge.
The article focuses on four case studies of
Mamluk coins. While coins are primarily economic in nature in that they were
minted to facilitate trade and commerce, they are also documents. Their two
sides, writes Schultz, provide small billboards for the conveyance of information. Since the right of sikka was a royal prerogative, it is not unusual to find names, claims, and titles on coins that supported a ruler’s claim/right to rule.
However, there are no surviving mint manuals or similar documents from the
Mamluk era that provide insights as to what sultans or their mint supervisors
intended, let alone how the coins were made.
Although Mamluk-era historians
frequently mention coins, they rarely shed direct light on why Mamluk coins
bear certain legends. The only surviving evidence is the coins themselves. To
date, there has been no systematic examination of this large corpus of numismatic evidence on political topics, and the numismatic evidence itself is
limited. Coins by themselves seldom prove anything above and beyond their
material characteristics.
That said, their legends may support hypotheses arrived at from other evidence. They may also suggest new avenues of inquiry.
But they usually serve as additional building blocks of an argument, and seldom as the foundation.
Hana Taragan, in her article “Mamluk Patronage, Crusader Spolia: Turbat
al-Kubakiyya in the Mamilla Cemetery, Jerusalem (688/1289)” discusses the
modes of use of columns, gates, stones and marble sarcophagi taken by the
Mamluks from Crusader shrines (generally under violent circumstances) in
13th-century Bilād al-Shām, and recycled or reused in their own buildings such
as mosques, madrasas, and mashhads. Spoliation, plunder or the transfer of
valuable material including architectural components and treasury pieces
from one culture/sphere to another to reuse them was a common practice in
Late Antiquity and during the Middle Ages.
They often reflected ideological,
political and/or cultural messages. In the case discussed here, these plundered
architectural material or spolia were recontextualized in the buildings of the
victors, the Mamluks. They reflected a display of dominance, while concomitantly “defacing” the holy buildings (churches, shrines, etc.) of the defeated
enemy.
Bethany J. Walker, in her article “The Struggle over Water: Evaluating the
‘Water Culture’ of Syrian Peasants under Mamluk Rule,” evaluates the success
and failure of the Mamluks’ irrigation projects, as well as their long-term impact on villages. On the village level, conflicts over water created some of the
worst tensions between local communities and Mamluk officialdom. Changes
in land tenure and imperial agricultural policies, combined with political
struggles within the Mamluk elite, exacerbated these troubled relations.
The
special conditions of administering rural lands, however, required a flexibility
of governance that allowed a give-and-take in enforcing imperial projects related to agriculture. The results were unpredictable. Walker shows that village
communities could modify imperial water programs in ways that had political
repercussions and could transform land use and settlement. This article investigates the complex relations between state and local society as reflected in struggles over control of local water resources—their harvesting, storage, and
use.
It highlights the evolving water politics in villages in two regions of southern Syria: the Jordan River Valley and the Madaba Plains of central Jordan. In
both cases, the Mamluk state intervened in local agriculture through an aggressive irrigation program which interfered with local cultures of resource
management. In the Jordan River Valley, this ultimately led to armed conflict,
and in the Madaba Plains to the revival of traditional water harvesting and
the physical restructuring of the village.
The article reviews narratives from
contemporary chronicles and revisits the results of archeological fieldwork
in these regions, in particular an ongoing interdisciplinary water systems research project at Tall Ḥisbān, where state-sponsored renewal of ancient qanāts
has created new agricultural regimes and markets.
Élise Franssen, in her article “What was there in a Mamluk Amīr’s Library?
Evidence from a Fifteenth-Century Manuscript,” the last paper in this section, examines a poorly known Arabic manuscript housed in the University
of Liège, a religious work entitled Manāfiʿ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā wa-manāfiʿ
al-ism al-aʿẓam wa-kalām aṣ-ṣaḥāba … wa-manāfiʿ al-Qurʾān that was copied
upon the request of the Mamluk amīr Taghribarmish. The article addresses
the question of the intellectual training of the mamlūks, and more specifically
their religious education.
In addition, it touches on the issue of biographical dictionaries and provides the full codicological analysis of the volume,
which enhances our knowledge of book production in the Mamluk period.
In the last section in this collection, Regional and Local Politics, Reuven
Amitai, in his article “Post-Crusader Acre in Light of a Mamluk Inscription
and a Fatwā Document from Damascus,” examines the role of Acre after the
Mamluk conquest in 1291. In spite of the widespread willful destruction of
the coastal area by the Mamluks in the aftermath of their conquests, there
is some evidence of economic activity in Acre’s environs and some minimal
Mamluk presence in the city.
The topic also serves as a valuable opportunity to
revisit David Ayalon’s thesis on the Syrian coast, as well as conclusions drawn
by other prominent scholars, such as Aziz Suryal Atiya and Eliyahu Ashtor.
In the second article in this section, Joseph Drory in his article “Favored by
the Sultan, Disfavored by his Son: Some Glimpses into the Career of Ṭashtamur
Ḥummuṣ Akhḍar,” examines the rise of one senior amīr in the Mamluk
Sultanate during the fifth decade of the fourteenth century, to better understand the main machineries of power in Egypt during that period. The political history of the Mamluk Sultanate during the period following al-Nāṣir
Muḥammad’s reign (died in 741/1341) has been more widely discussed by historians in recent years. The political vicissitudes of the next four decades of
the fourteenth century (1340–80), although defined, perhaps rightly, as devoid of outstanding sultans, do not lack interest and sometimes even tension.
The
dominant impression of a generation led by potentates who did little more
than drain each other’s resources by endless strife and violent struggles may
not alter this view, but still provides a better window on Mamluk polity, especially in eras undistinguished by famous names. It is often stated that the
overly autocratic Sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad left his inheritors too feeble for a
sultanate, or for effective governing. Not only were non-Mamluk political personalities ill-equipped regardless of their formal high credentials because of
the unique structure of the Mamluk state, but first-generation Mamluks who
usually proved far better capable of guiding the reins of power failed to survive
the cruel struggles of leadership. A concise depiction of Ṭashtamur’s activities
can thus help understand the main power mechanism in Egypt at that time,
and thus corroborate the conventional model where powerful amīrs replaced
petty, weakly authoritative rulers. It also provides a glimpse into the political
arguments and motives exploited by the ruling classes.
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