The Mamlūk Sultanate and Its Periphery
Infos
Cover image: Representation of the world in a copy of Ibn al-Wardī’s (d. after 822/1419)
Kharīdat al-ʿajāʾib (copy of the tenth/sixteenth c., private collection)
This volume is the result of a selection of papers presented at the second conference of the School of Mamluk Studies (Liège, 2015) whose theme was The Mamluk Sultanate and Its Periphery. It is well known that Mamluk studies suffer from a deficit of interest for the peripheral areas because of the centripetal effect played by the main cities of the sultanate, i.e. the political centers (Cairo and Damascus), where most of the historians whose works constitute the lion’s share of modern studies lived. Nevertheless, it is still possible to study aspects related to regions, cities, villages by resorting to these classical sources but also and above all to other types of sources (documents, archaeological excavations). Obviously, the concept of periphery can be interpreted in various ways. Above all, it is understood in geographic, political, or economic terms: the periphery is defined in relation to the center of power, whether central or local. It can also be interpreted in sociological and religious terms. In this case, the concept can be applied to practices or parts of the society considered borderline. The eight essays collected in this volume seek to explore this question of the periphery from these various angles.
Acknowledgments............... XI
Abbreviations............... XIII
List of Contributors............... XV
List of Figures, Tables, and Charts............... XVII
Frédéric Bauden — The Mamluk Sultanate and Its Periphery: An Introduction............... XXI
Or Amir — Forming a New Local Elite: The ʿUthmānī Family of Ṣafad............... 1
Hani Hamza — Periphery in the Middle: Qaṭiyya and al-Ṭīna, the Gateway to Mamluk Egypt............... 23
Takao Ito — A Collection of Histories of the Mamluk Sultanate’s Syrian Borderlands: Some Notes on MS Ahmet III 3057 (TSMK, Istanbul)............... 65
Shivan Mahendrarajah — The ‘Guardian of the Two Holy Places’ and the Hajj: The Iranian Challenge to Mamluk Control of the Hijaz, 871–82/1467–78............... 83
Ignacio Sánchez — The Jawāmiʿ al-Tawba: Vice and Repentance in the Margins of the Mamluk Society............... 113
Warren Schultz — Coins Where There Were No Mints: Mamluk Coins from Jordanian Archaeological Sites............... 141
Anne Troadec — Governing the Periphery: Early Mamluk Strategies of Domination in Syria: The Case of the Ayyubid Principality of Hama............... 163
Frédéric Bauden — Yemeni-Egyptian Diplomatic Exchanges about the Meccan Sharifate: A Reconstructed Rasulid Letter Addressed to al-Muʾayyad Shaykh in 817/1415............... 185
Index............... 267
