Professional mobility in Ibn ʿArabshāh’s fifteenth-century panegyric dedicated to Sultan al-Ẓāhir Jaqmaq

The fifteenth-century rhetorician, litterateur, and belletrist-historian Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿArabshāh (791–854/1389–1450) is known as a biographer of the Central Asian warlord and conqueror, Amir Temür (r. 771–807/1370–1405), Tīmūr, or Tamerlane. Scholarly interest in Ibn ʿArabshāh concerns primarily his ʿAjāʾib al-maqdūr fī nawāʾib Tīmūr (The Wonders of destiny in the calamities wrought by Tīmūr) and his relationship to Timurid historiography. Seldom is Ibn ʿArabshāh himself approached as a participant in and product of the socio-political landscapes of fifteenth-century Syria (Bilād al-Shām) and Egypt in the context of the late medieval sultanate of Cairo. Through the cultural practice of historical writing Ibn ʿArabshāh, like many of his peers, sought to take advantage of new opportunities presented by the emerging political order during the successive sultanates of al-Ashraf Barsbāy (r. 825–41/1422–38) and al-Ẓāhir Jaqmaq (r. 842–57/1438–53) to acquire a patronage position either at the court of the new sultan or elsewhere in the religio-political networks of the time. This article, building on the previous life sketch of Ibn ʿArabshāh and his works established by Robert McChesney, adds a more nuanced layer to the picture by historicizing his panegyric for the sultan al-Ẓāhir Jaqmaq (d. 857/1453), Al-Taʾlīf al-ṭāhir fī shiyam al-Malik al-Ẓāhir al-qāʾim bi-nuṣrat al-ḥaqq Abī Saʿīd Jaqmaq (The Pure composition on the character of the King al-Ẓāhir the supporter of divine truth Abī Saʿīd Jaqmaq). Analysis of the latter text in relation to The Wonders of Destiny will demonstrate ways in which the author may have sought to instrumentalize the Pure Composition during a precise moment of political transformation. Examining the Pure Composition in the context of its creation helps identify and reconstruct some details of the social world in which Ibn ʿArabshāh operated and provides a window into the author’s attempts to expand and define his key relationships in the hope of securing a new patron or better position

Fifteenth-century Arabic historiography : introducing a new research agenda for authors, texts and contexts

The Arabo-Islamic world of the later medieval period (thirteenth–sixteenth centuries) witnessed substantial transformations in the writing and reading of Arabic literary texts. For a long time, the study of these texts and of their diversity and changes was determined by the model of a “post-classical” literary field in fossilizing decline. In the twenty-first century, however, new trends in literary and historical scholarship have been disengaging from these old, but still widespread, negative paradigms. They have managed to replace a condescending insistence on what Arabic literary texts no longer represented, or could no longer do, for more critical appreciations of what they really were, did, and meant for contemporaries. This special journal issue brings together five articles that were written in the context of a collaborative research project that aims to remedy this challenging situation in current understandings of late medieval Arabic history writing. This project, funded by the European Research Council and entitled “The Mamlukisation of the Mamluk Sultanate-II (MMS-II): Historiography, Political Order, and State Formation in Fifteenth-Century Egypt and Syria,” runs for five years (2017–21) at Ghent University (Belgium). MMS-II is aiming to tackle this challenge by arguing with and beyond, instead of against or irrespective of, this historiographical production’s vexed interests and related subjectivities. The MMS-II project studies more specifically how not just fifteenth-century historians’ truth but also the political order of their courtly surroundings were constructed in textual practice. This introduction seeks to explain in more theoretical, programmatic, and empirical detail why and how MMS-II considers this textual relationship between history writing and dynamics of power to be a valid and valuable—yes, even a necessary—research perspective in the study of fifteenth-century Arabic historiography. It furthermore aims to explain how MMS-II research is unfolding in practice, and how this journal issue’s five articles tie in with this approach as well as with their wider context of fifteenth-century history writing. This introduction pursues these goals by first explaining how MMS-II considers the construction of political order, within the wider framework of a revaluation of the concept and reality of state formation in fifteenth-century Syro-Egypt. It then presents the texts of history with which MMS-II engages, focusing especially on sketching the current state of scholarship on these texts. Third, this introduction explains in more detail how MMS-II research takes up a particular position within that scholarship and aims to connect the study of history writing with that of state formation. Finally, the fourth part summarizes not just how the five articles in this issue of MSR fit into this research program, but also what they contribute to it, both individually and collectively

Book Review: The Mamluk Sultanate: A History by Carl F. Petry

A review of The Mamluk Sultanate: A History (2022), by Carl F. Petr

Squeezing Juice from the 'Fruits of the Caliphs:' Tastes, Contexts, and Textual Transplantation at a Fifteenth-Century Egyptian Court

This article concerns themes of translation, movement, and context in its examination of the intentions behind the composition of Ahmad ibn ʿArabshah's (1389–1450) mid-fifteenth-century opus of animal fables and anecdotal advice literature, the Fakihat al-khulafaʾ wa mufakahat al-zurafaʾ (Fruits of the Caliphs and Witty Banter of the Stylish Folk). With some alterations, including the introduction of a substantial amount of historical material in its ultimate and penultimate chapters, Ibn ʿArabshah's Fruits of the Caliphs is primarily an expanded reworking of an earlier work, the thirteenth-century Marzban-nama (Book of Marzban) attributed to Saʿd al-Din al-Warawini. Like the Book of Marzban, the Fruits of the Caliphs is largely a collection of moralistic animal fables and anecdotes of wisdom, bound together within several smaller stories which comprise a larger framework story. The ten chapters of the Fruits of the Caliphs share much in common with the Book of Marzban although Ibn ʿArabshah completed significant re-writing of the original tales with historical asides, changed names, and observations unique to his own mid-fifteenth-century interpretation of the book. Because the work is primarily an Arabic translation of an earlier Persianate mirror, it proves challenging to analyze as an "original" work. Nevertheless, Ibn ʿArabshah attempted to modernize the book and in its Arabic form, update it for what we may assume must be a late medieval Cairene courtly audience. In addition to engaging with the curious title of the work and its latent meanings, this article contextualizes and explains the author's creation of the work in relation to his later career trajectory and rising reputation in the fifteenth-century Syro-Egyptian cultural milieu

'Sulṭān awlād al-nās' or 'Amīr ibn Mamlūk'? Re-framing Khalīl ibn Shāhīn’s Zubdat Kashf al-Mamālik wa-Bayān al-Ṭuruq wa-l-Masālik

Mustafa Banister’s analysis of the Zubdat al-kashf of Khalil b. Shahin takes us to exactly the period we have already identified as a time of conceptual change and the emergence of a possible group identity of the Mamluk descendants, i. e. the 15th century. His analysis—which includes a consideration of the author’s historical-social context as well as a contentual and narratological analysis of the text, which can be seen as a kind of universal chronicle of the 15th century—leads Banister to the conclusion that Khalil b. Shahin saw himself less as a descendant of a Mamluk elite. Rather, he located himself in his writing as a member of this elite, that is, within the Mamluk power elite of his time and not on its verges or in a subordinate position

The Abbasid Caliphate of Cairo (1261-1517): History and Tradition in the Mamluk Court

This dissertation investigates the two-and-a-half century evolution of Islam’s most prominent leadership institution, the Abbasid caliphate, after its restoration in Cairo following the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258. Kept under the supervision of the Mamluk sultans of Egypt and Syria (1250-1517), modern scholars tend to conclude that this so-called Abbasid “shadow” caliphate merely legitimized Mamluk rulers and little else within their society. Despite having shed much of its original power by the Mamluk period, the Abbasid caliphate of Cairo retained a definite measure of religious authority and enjoyed the reverence of significant sectors of the Cairene population including religious scholars, chroniclers, chancery scribes, poets, travelers, and, it seems, enjoyed even wider resonance among the masses of the local Muslim citizenry. A dynastic study of the Cairo Abbasids combined with analysis of contemporary opinions of the caliphate and its Mamluk sponsors rendered from juristic writing, advice literature, historiography, bureaucratic literature, and administrative documents allows the present study to move toward a comprehensive delineation of the significance of the revived office to the society in which it functioned. Although the caliphs as individuals were largely disposable and powerless, the office they held retained importance throughout the Mamluk period and contributed to larger civilizational understandings of “Caliphate” that allowed the inclusion of the Mamluk regime and its various administrative subdivisions.Ph.D.2018-02-05 00:00:0

Princesses born to concubines : a first visit to the women of the Abbasid household in late medieval Cairo

This article presents a study of the women of the Abbasid household in 8th-/14th- and 9th-/15th-century Cairo.1 Following a discussion of the size and growth of the Abbasid family, the article juxtaposes a late fourteenth-century marriage document, which extolls the virtues of unions made with the caliph’s family, against the historical record of marriages made by Abbasid and non-Abbasid spouses in search of social capital. The study seeks to understand the meaning attached to marriages made with Abbasid family members, and the social advantages the caliphal family hoped to gain in return. By thus reconsidering the role of Abbasid concubines and princesses, we challenge preconceived notions about the agency and mobility of Abbasid family members in late medieval Cairo and demonstrate their freedom of movement in pursuing valuable marriage connections. The article is thus a contribution to broader understandings of notable women in premodern Islamicate societies

The Abbasid Caliphate of Cairo (1261-1517): History and Tradition in the Mamluk Court

This dissertation investigates the two-and-a-half century evolution of Islam’s most prominent leadership institution, the Abbasid caliphate, after its restoration in Cairo following the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258. Kept under the supervision of the Mamluk sultans of Egypt and Syria (1250-1517), modern scholars tend to conclude that this so-called Abbasid “shadow” caliphate merely legitimized Mamluk rulers and little else within their society. Despite having shed much of its original power by the Mamluk period, the Abbasid caliphate of Cairo retained a definite measure of religious authority and enjoyed the reverence of significant sectors of the Cairene population including religious scholars, chroniclers, chancery scribes, poets, travelers, and, it seems, enjoyed even wider resonance among the masses of the local Muslim citizenry. A dynastic study of the Cairo Abbasids combined with analysis of contemporary opinions of the caliphate and its Mamluk sponsors rendered from juristic writing, advice literature, historiography, bureaucratic literature, and administrative documents allows the present study to move toward a comprehensive delineation of the significance of the revived office to the society in which it functioned. Although the caliphs as individuals were largely disposable and powerless, the office they held retained importance throughout the Mamluk period and contributed to larger civilizational understandings of “Caliphate” that allowed the inclusion of the Mamluk regime and its various administrative subdivisions.Ph.D.2018-02-05 00:00:0

Fifteenth-Century Arabic Historiography: Introducing a New Research Agenda for Authors, Texts and Contexts

The Arabo-Islamic world of the later medieval period (thirteenth–sixteenth centuries) witnessed substantial transformations in the writing and reading of Arabic literary texts. For a long time, the study of these texts and of their diversity and changes was determined by the model of a “post-classical” literary field in fossilizing decline. In the twenty-first century, however, new trends in literary and historical scholarship have been disengaging from these old, but still widespread, negative paradigms. They have managed to replace a condescending insistence on what Arabic literary texts no longer represented, or could no longer do, for more critical appreciations of what they really were, did, and meant for contemporaries. This special journal issue brings together five articles that were written in the context of a collaborative research project that aims to remedy this challenging situation in current understandings of late medieval Arabic history writing. This project, funded by the European Research Council and entitled “The Mamlukisation of the Mamluk Sultanate-II (MMS-II): Historiography, Political Order, and State Formation in Fifteenth-Century Egypt and Syria,” runs for five years (2017–21) at Ghent University (Belgium). MMS-II is aiming to tackle this challenge by arguing with and beyond, instead of against or irrespective of, this historiographical production’s vexed interests and related subjectivities. The MMS-II project studies more specifically how not just fifteenth-century historians’ truth but also the political order of their courtly surroundings were constructed in textual practice. This introduction seeks to explain in more theoretical, programmatic, and empirical detail why and how MMS-II considers this textual relationship between history writing and dynamics of power to be a valid and valuable—yes, even a necessary—research perspective in the study of fifteenth-century Arabic historiography. It furthermore aims to explain how MMS-II research is unfolding in practice, and how this journal issue’s five articles tie in with this approach as well as with their wider context of fifteenth-century history writing. This introduction pursues these goals by first explaining how MMS-II considers the construction of political order, within the wider framework of a revaluation of the concept and reality of state formation in fifteenth-century Syro-Egypt. It then presents the texts of history with which MMS-II engages, focusing especially on sketching the current state of scholarship on these texts. Third, this introduction explains in more detail how MMS-II research takes up a particular position within that scholarship and aims to connect the study of history writing with that of state formation. Finally, the fourth part summarizes not just how the five articles in this issue of MSR fit into this research program, but also what they contribute to it, both individually and collectively