Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

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Mamlūks

(17,883 words)

Author(s): Behrens-Abouseif, Doris | Contadini, Anna | Darley-Doran, R.
(iii) Art and Architecture (a) Architecture Within the history of Islamic art, the architecture of the Mamlūk period (648-922/1250-1517) occupies an intermediary position between what might be termed the early period predating the Mongol invasion and the later imperial arts of the Tīmūrids, Ṣafawids, Ottomans and Mug̲h̲als. Unlike its Tīmūrid counterpart, with which it is partly contemporary, Mamlūk architecture did not substantially impact on the later history of Islamic art once Egypt and Syria had …

Mamlūks

(8,817 words)

Author(s): Holt, P.M.
, the Mamlūk sultanate, i.e. the régime established and maintained by (emancipated) mamlūks [see preceding article] in Egypt from 648/1250 to 922/1517, and in Syria from 658/1260 to 922/1516; and with the role of their successors, the neo-Mamlūks, in Ottoman Egypt. It surveys (i) political history, and (ii) institutional history. On military history, see the relevant sections by D. Ayalon of the articles baḥriyya (i.e. navy), bārūd , ḥarb , ḥiṣār ; on the bureaucracy, see dīwān , ii. Egypt (H. L. Gottschalk). (i) Political History (a) Origins of the Mamlūk sultanate The Mamlūk sultanat…

al-Ḳāhira

(22,495 words)

Author(s): Rogers, J.M. | J. M. Rogers | J. Jomier
, capital of Egypt and one of the most important centres of religious, cultural and political life in the Muslim world. The city is situated on both banks on the Nile, at 30°6′ Lat. N. and 31°26′ Long. E. respectively, at ca. 20 km. south of the delta where the Muḳaṭṭam Mountain almost comes down to the river. This strategical point dominating the access to Lower Egypt had been inhabited since early times, but became of primary importance during the arab invasion in 22/643, when ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ e…

D̲j̲ays̲h̲

(12,975 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl. | Cour, A. | Kedourie, E.
, one of the common Arabic terms (with d̲j̲und and ʿaskar ) for the army. ¶ i. — Classical . Except possibly in the Yaman, pre-Islamic Arabia, although living under permanent conditions of minor warfare, knew no armies in the proper meaning of the term apart from those of foreign occupation. Conflicts between tribes brought into action virtually all able-bodied men, but without any military organization, and combats were very often settled by individual feats of arms. The embryo of an army may be said to have appeared with Islam in the expeditions led or prepared by the Prophet, although the d̲…

Bārūd

(16,103 words)

Author(s): Colin, G.S. | Ayalon, D. | Parry, V.J. | Savory, R.M. | Khan, Yar Muhammad
i. — general In Arabic, the word nafṭ (Persian nafṭ) is applied to the purest form ( ṣafwa ) of Mesopotamian bitumen ( ḳīr —or ḳārbābilī ). Its natural colour is white. It occasionally occurs in a black form, but this can be rendered white by sublimation. Nafṭ is efficacious against cataract and leucoma; it has the property of attracting fire from a distance, without direct contact. Mixed with other products (fats, oil, sulphur etc.) which make it more combustible and more adhesive, it constituted the basic ingredient of “Greek fire”, a liquid incendiary compo…

al-Raydāniyya

(9 words)

[see mamlūks. i. e; selim i ].

Ṭabaḳa

(586 words)

Author(s): Levanoni, Amalia
(a., pls. ṭibāḳ or aṭbāḳ ), a term of Mamlūk military organisation. The ṭibāḳ were the barracks in the Cairo Citadel, Ḳalʿat al-Ḏj̲abal , where the Mamlūk sultans (648-922/1250-1517) had their Royal Mamlūks quartered and which also housed the military academies where newly-bought mamlūks received their training. We first learn of the ṭibāḳ during the reign of al-Ẓāhir Baybars who “established... barracks for the mamlūks which overlooked the great al-Dirka gate, and inside the al-Ḳarāfa gate he put up... a large building with small halls for the mamlūks’ quarters, and above them ba…

Mafṣūl

(57 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(a.), a term used to denote certain juridical categories of landed estates in Syria in the time of the Mamlūks. The word has no connection with the Arabic root f.-ṣ.-l ., but is derived, according to al-Nuwayrī, Nihāya , viii, 256, “from the Frankish” vassal . (Cl. Cahen) Bibliography Cl. Cahen, in JESHO, xviii (1975), 238.

G̲h̲ās̲h̲iya

(101 words)

, (a.), “the covering”, particularly, a “covering for a saddle”. Among the Sald̲j̲ūḳs, Mamlūks etc., the g̲h̲ās̲h̲iya was one of the insignia ¶ of royal rank and carried before the ruler in public processions (see C. H. Becker, La Ghâshiya comme emblême de la royauté , in Centenario M. Amari , ii, 148 ff.). G̲h̲ās̲h̲iya is also used metaphorically of a great misfortune that overwhelms someone; in this sense it is found in Sūra LXXXVIII, 1, for the day of the last judgement or for the fires of hell, and from this the Sūra has received the name al-G̲h̲ās̲h̲iya .

Amīr Āk̲h̲ūr

(97 words)

Author(s): Ayalon, D.
, in Persian mīr āk̲h̲ūr , “high equerry”, one of the highest officials in the court of Oriental princes. Under the Mamlūks the amīr āk̲h̲ūr was the supervisor of the royal stables. He was generally an amīr of a thousand and had under his orders three amīrs of fourty. In the Circassian period he occupied the fourth place among the grand amīrs, cf. A. N. Poliak, Feudalism in Egypt , Syria , etc ., London 1939, 30; D. Ayalon, Studies on the Structure of the Mamluk Army , BSOAS, 1954, 63, 68. (D. Ayalon)

Awlād al-Nās

(434 words)

Author(s): Ayalon, D.
The mamlūk upper class constituted an exclusive society. Only a person who himself was born an infidel and brought as a childslave ¶ from abroad, who was converted to Islam and set free after completing his military training and who usually bore a non-Arab name, could belong to that society. These rules implied that the mamlūk upper class should be a non-hereditary nobility, for the sons of the mamlūks and mamlūk amīrs were Muslims and free men by birth, were born and grew within the boundaries of the mamlūk sultanat…

Mamlūk

(8,527 words)

Author(s): Ayalon, D.
(a.), literally “thing possessed”, hence “slave” [for which in general see ʿabd , ḳayna and k̲h̲ādim ], especially used in the sense of military slave”; for these last in various parts of the Islamic world, with the exception of those under the Mamlūk sultanate of Egypt and Syria [see next article], see g̲h̲ulām . Although for many centuries the basis of several Islamic powers, the institution of military slavery can in many ways best be studied within the framework of the Mamlūk sultanate of Egypt and Syria (648-922/1250-151…

Yāsā

(1,357 words)

Author(s): Morgan, D.O. | C.E. Bosworth
(thus the usual orthography in Arabic script, Mongolian ǰasaq , ǰasaγ , see Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen , iv, 71-82 no. 1789 s.v. yāsāq ) may be translated variously, according to context, as “law” or, virtually synonymous with yarli̊g̲h̲ [ q.v.], as “decree” or “order”. Hence the sources for the Mongol period speak of what is generally called “the Great Yāsā of Čingiz K̲h̲ān”, in the sense of a comprehensive legal code laid down by the founder of the Mongol empire; but in many if not most instances of …

Wāfidiyya

(895 words)

Author(s): Ayalon, D.
(a.), a collective formation from wāfid “one who comes, makes his way, in a delegation or group”, in the Mamlūk Sultanate applied to troops of varying ethnic origins who came to Egypt and Syria to join the Sultanate’s military forces. There is no better proof for the superiority of the Mamlūk socio-military system over any other military form during a great part of Islamic history than the attitude of the Mamlūk Sultanate to the Mongol warriors and others, such as Kurds, K̲h̲wārazmians, etc. who, for this or that reason, sought and found refuge within its boundaries as Wāfidiyya . The mainly …

Sitr

(108 words)

Author(s): Halm, H.
“veil”, a curtain behind which the Fāṭimid caliph was concealed at the opening of the audience session ( mad̲j̲lis ) and which was then removed by a special servant ( ṣāḥib/muṭawallī al-sitr ) in order to unveil the enthroned ruler. The sitr corresponded to the velum of the Roman and Byzantine emperors. The holder of the function of ṣāḥib al-sitr, who also served as bearer of the caliph’s sword ( ṣāḥib al-sitr wa ’l-sayf), chamberlain and master of ceremonies, was mostly ¶ chosen from the Slav mamlūks ( ṣaḳāliba [ q.v.]); al-Maḳrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ al-ḥunafāʾ , ii, ed. M.Ḥ.M. Aḥmad, 30, 72, 106, 127. (H…

Čās̲h̲na-Gīr

(135 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, in Persian, ‘taster’, title of an official, generally an amīr , at the court of the Muslim sovereigns (including the Mamlūks) from the time of the Sald̲j̲ūkids. It is not always clear in what way he is connected with the overseer of the food, k̲h̲ w ānsalār ; perhaps the two are often confused. The title does not appear to be found, even in Iran, under previous dynasties, although caliphs and princes did undoubtedly have overseers for their food, and even had it tasted before they eat, as the dishes were always suspected of being poisoned. The term čās̲h̲na-gīr is also…

Aṭfīḥ

(332 words)

Author(s): Becker, C.H.
, town in Middle Egypt. Aṭfīḥ (also written with t instead of ) is a small town of 4,300 inhabitants on the east bank of the Nile at the latitude of Fayyūm. The name of the town in old Egyptian was Tep-yeh or Per Hathor nebt Tepyeh, i.e., "house of Hathor, lady of Tepyeh". The Copts changed this name to Petpeh, the Arabs to Aṭfīḥ. The Greeks, identifying Hathor with Aphrodite, called the town Aphroditopolis, abbreviated to Aphrodito. The town must still have possessed importance in th…

Baybars II

(325 words)

Author(s): Wiet, G.
, al-malik al-muẓaffar rukn al-dīn manṣūrī d̲j̲ās̲h̲nikīr , Mamlūk sultan of Egypt. Perhaps of Circassian origin, Baybars belonged to the Mamlūks of Sulṭān Kalāwūn. Appointed major domo, ustādār , during the first reign of Muḥammad b. Ḳalāwūn (693-94/1293-94), he was promoted to commander of a thousand by Sulṭān Katbug̲h̲ā, and his power increased, at the same time as that of his rival, Salār. Both were equally ready to assume power upon the assassination of Sulṭān Lād̲j̲īn in 698/1299. They put on the throne for the second time the young Muḥammad b. Ḳalāwūn. The two men …

Ṭulb

(336 words)

Author(s): Amitai, R.
(pl. aṭlāb ), a term applied to a squadron or battalion of cavalrymen, used mainly in the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk periods. The word appears to be unconnected to the Arabic root ṭ-l-b , and may be of Turkish origin. Al-Maḳrīzī, the only contemporary writer to attempt a definition, states ( K̲h̲iṭaṭ , ed. Bulāḳ, i, 86, ll. 26-7): “A ṭulb in the language of the Og̲h̲uz/G̲h̲uzz ( bi-lug̲h̲at al-g̲h̲uzz ) is a commanding amīr who has a standard attached [to a lance], a trumpet which is sounded, and the number of 200, 100 or 70 horsemen” (cf. the tr. in Dozy, Suppl., ii, 51, following Quatremère: “dans la…

Ḥimṣ

(988 words)

Author(s): Ayalon, D.
(The battle of). The first great trial of strength between the Mamlūks and the Mongols took place more than twenty years after the battle of ʿAyn Ḏj̲ālūt [ q.v.] at Ḥimṣ in 680/1281. Though this battle was won by Ḳalāwūn, the real architect of the victory was undoubtedly Sultan Baybars [ q.v.], who, in the seventeen years of his rule (658/1260-676/1277), built a war-machine which, in spite of the decline it underwent during the four years following his death, proved to be strong enough to break one of the mightiest armies which the Mongol Īlk̲h̲āns ever put into the field. In the battle of ʿAy…
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