Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:48:27.337Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Craftsmen, upstarts and Sufis in the late Mamluk period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2011

Doris Behrens-Abouseif
Doris Behrens-Abouseif*
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the careers of craftsmen and other commoners, who succeeded in joining the bureaucratic system and occupying high positions in the Mamluk administrative establishment, eventually acquiring great power and even political authority. At the same time Sufi shaykhs, also men of common origin and beneficiaries of Mamluk philanthropy, emerged as mighty and authoritative figures, venerated equally by the aristocracy and the populace. The newly privileged groups also figure as founders of Friday mosques following a flexible new attitude on the part of the authorities. This social fluidity, often criticized by historians of the period, was the result of the pious patronage of the Mamluk aristocracy, which brought academic education to the reach of a large part of the populace. Towards the end of the Mamluk period, the structure of religious institutions had itself been levelled: the Friday mosque with Sufi service replaced the earlier madrasas and khanqāhs. The article also discusses how the visual arts of the period mirror the social changes with new aspects of artistic patronage.

Keywords

MamluksArtCraftsmenFriday mosqueSufi shaykhsSocial hierarchyReligious foundations
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , October 2011 , pp. 375 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Mortel, Richard T., “The decline of Mamlūk civil bureaucracy in the fifteenth century: the career of Abū l-Khayr al-Naḥḥās”, Journal of Islamic Studies 6/2, 1995, 173–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also de Galaretta, F. J. Apellániz Ruiz, Pouvoir et finance en Méditerranée pré-moderne. Le deuxième état Mamelouk et le commerce des épices (1382–1517) (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Institución Milá y Fontanals, Departamento de Estudios Medievales, 2009), 123.Google Scholar

2 al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-mawā'iẓ wa' l-Iʿtibār bi dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa'l-āthār, Bulāq, 1306/1889, II, 384. On Ḥujayj, see Kahil, Abdallah, “The architect of the Sultan Hasan complex in Cairo”, Artibus Asiae LXVI/2, 2006, 155–74.Google Scholar

3 Behrens-Abouseif, Doris, “The fire of 884/1479 at the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus and an account of its restoration”, Mamluk Studies Review VIII/1, 2004, 279–96.Google Scholar

4 Maḥmūd, ʿAlī al-Sayyid, al-Jawārī fī-mujtamaʿ al-qāhira ’l-mamlūkiyya (Cairo, 1988), 89 f.Google Scholar; al-Ṣayrafiī, al-Jawharī, Nuzhat al-nufūs wa'l-abdān fī tawārīkh al-zamān, 4 vols., ed. Cairo, Ḥasan Ḥabashī, 1970), I, 169Google Scholar; Iyās, Ibn, Badā'iʿ al-zuhūr fī waqā’iʿ al-duhūr, ed. Muṣṭafā, M. (Wiesbaden and Cairo, 1961–75), II, 346.Google Scholar

5 See also Rabbat, Nasser, “Perception of architecture in Mamluk sources”, Mamluk Studies Review, VI, 2000, 155–76.Google Scholar

6 al-Sakhāwī, , al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ li-ahl al-qarn al-tāsiʿ, 12 vols. (Cairo, 1896) (reprint), I, 243.Google Scholar

7 Behrens-Abouseif, D., “Muhandis, Shād, Muʿallim – note on the building craft in the Mamluk period”, Der Islam LXXII/2, 1995, 293–309Google Scholar; Rabbat, N., “Architects and artists in Mamluk society: the perspective of the sources”, Journal of Architectural Education 52, 1998, 30–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Mostafa, Saleh Lamei, Madrasa Ḫanqāh und Mausoleum des Barqūq in Kairo (Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Islamische Abteilung Kairo), Vol. IV (Glückstadt, 1982).Google Scholar

9 Taghrībirdī, Ibn, Ḥawādith al-duhūr fī madā ‘l-ayyām wa ‘l-shuhūr, ed. Popper, W., II (Berkeley, 1931), III, 456 f.Google Scholar

10 al-ʿAsqalānī, Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’ al-ghumr bi-abnā' al-ʿumr, 9 vols. (Beirut, 1986), V, 291.Google Scholar

11 Ibn Ḥajar, Inba’, V, 347 f.; Sakhāwī, Ḍaw, X, 59–62.

12 Ibn Ḥajar, Inba', VI, 242.

13 Taghrībirdī, Ibn, al-Nujūm al-zāhira fi mulūk miṣr wa'l-qāhira, 16 vols. (Cairo, 1963–71), XIV, 42, XVI, 74 f.Google Scholar

14 Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, XVI, 278.

15 Ibn Taghrībirdī, Ḥawādith, III, 512 f., IV, 771, 780 ff.

16 Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, XV, 388, 397.

17 Ibn Taghrībirdī, Ḥawādith, 35, 49, 54, 68, 76 f., 80 f., 84, 326–7, 329, 392, 658; idem, Nujūm, XV, 375–8, 382, 395–401, 418–22, 429, 441–2, XVI, 131, 132, 133, 210–11; idem, al-Manhal al-ṣāfī wa 'l-mustawfā baʿd al-wāfī (Cairo, 1956–2005), XII, 322–35Google Scholar; al-Sakhāwī, al-Tibr al-masbūk fī dhayl al-sulūk (Cairo n.d.), 110, 141 f., 201–3, 305; 314–17; 389–90; idem, Ḍawʾ, VII, 63–6; idem, al-Dhayl ʿalā rafʾ al-aṣr, ed. Hilāl, Jawda and Ṣubḥ, Muḥammad M. (Cairo, 2000), 248, 250Google Scholar; Ibn Iyās, II, 260, 262–3, 274–15, 278–79, 279 f., 281, 285, 296, 318, 352.

18 Ibn Ḥajar, Inba’, IX, 246.

19 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw’, III, 680.

20 Ibn Iyās, II, 260, 262, 274 f., 278 ff., 280 f., 285, 296, 318, 352, 354, 357, 379.

21 al-Sakhāwī, Ḍaw‘, IX, 141.

22 Berkey, Jonathan, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo (Princeton, 1992), 31 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw', IV, 161 f.; Ibn Iyās, II, 232

24 Berchem, M. van, Matériaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum. (Mémoires publiés par les Membres de la Mission Archéologique Française au Caire), XIX/1–4, Cairo 1894–1903, 277 f.Google Scholar This mausoleum was pulled down in 1977 for the construction of a new street.

25 Ibn Taghrībirdī, Manhal, XII, 329.

26 Ibn Iyās, IV, 376 f.

27 Ibn Iyās, IV, 44 f.

28 Ibn Iyās, III, 192, 209, 212, 382, 446.

29 Ibn Iyās, III, 336.

30 Ibn Iyās, III, 307.

31 Ibn Iyās, IV, 376 f.

32 Ibn Iyās, III, 306, 431; Sakhāwī, Ḍaw’, X, 160.

33 Ibn Iyās, III, 145, 170, 293; Sakhāwī, Ḍaw', VIII, 260 f.

34 Ibn Iyās, V, 928, 493.

35 Bauer, Thomas, “Ibrahim al-Miʿmar: ein dichtender Handwerker aus Ägyptens Mamlukenzeit”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 152, 2002, 63–93Google Scholar.

36 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw’, V, 217–9; Ibn Iyas, III, 309.

37 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw’, VIII, 123 ff.

38 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw’, VIII, 220.

39 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw', X, 107.

40 Ibn Ḥajar, Inba’, VIII, 115 f.

41 Geoffroy, Eric, Le Soufisme en Egypte et en Syrie sous les derniers Mamelouks et les premiers Ottomans (Damascus, 1995), 147Google Scholar; Martel-Thoumian, Bernadette, Les Civils et l'administration dans l'État Militaire Mamlūk (IXe/XVe Siècle) (Damascus, 1991), 381.Google Scholar

42 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw', VIII, 252.

43 Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā', III, 46 f.

44 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw’, VI, 226.

45 Behrens-Abouseif, D., “Une polémique anti-Ottomane par un artisan au Caire du XVIIe siècle”, in Marino, Brigitte (ed.), Etudes sur les villes du Proche-Orient: XVIe–XIXe siècle: hommage à André Raymond (Damascus, 2001), 55–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Leder, S., “Postklassisch und vormodern: Beobachtungen zum Kulturwandel in der Mamlūkenzeit”, in Conermann, S. and Pistor-Hatam, A. (eds), Die Mamlūken. Studien zu ihrer Geschichte und Kultur. Zum Gedenken an Ulrich Haarmann (1942–1999) (Hamburg, 2003), 289–312Google Scholar; Berkey, Transmission, 185 ff.; idem, “Culture and society during the late middle ages”, in The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol I: Islamic Egypt (Cambridge, 1998), 375–411Google Scholar; Shoshan, Boaz, Popular Culture in Medieval Cairo (Cambridge, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā', VII, 392, IX, 157 ff.; al-Sakhāwī, Tibr, 9–11.

48 Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā', I, 39 f.

49 Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, II, 331; see also annotations by Sayyid, Azman Fu'ād in his edition of the Khiṭaṭ, IV/1 (London, 2003), 354–60Google Scholar; Fernandes, Leonor, “Mamluk architecture and the case of patronage”, Mamluk Studies Review I, 1997, 107–20.Google Scholar

50 Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, II, 326; Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā', VII, 229 f.; Ibn Shaʿrānī, II, 81 ff.

51 Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, II, 326; Shaʿrānī, II, 88–101; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Ḥawādith, 140.

52 Maqrizi, Khiṭaṭ, II, 325. I could not find the meaning of kīmakht, but it may be equivalent to kamkhā, a type of silk embroidered fabric. Jawharī mentioned that it was spread before the sultan's horse in processions; al-Ṣayrafī, al-Jawharī, Dāwūd, ʿAlī Ibn, Nuzhat al-nufūs wa ’l-abdān fī tawārīkh al-zamān, 3 vols. (ed.) Ḥabashī, Ḥasan (Cairo, 1970), I, 295, II, 73.Google Scholar

53 Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, II, 331.

54 Its waqf document has not come to light.

55 Dār al-Wathā’iq al-Qawmiyya, no 187, d. 884/1479; Mayer, L. A., The Buildings of Qaytbay as Described in His Endowment Deeds (London, 1938).Google Scholar

56 Behrens-Abouseif, D., “Change in function and form of Mamluk religious institutions”, Annales Islamologiques XXI, 1985, 73–93.Google Scholar

57 Ibid., 89–9, 92; Max van Berchem, Matériaux, 536–7.

58 Fernandes, Leonor, The Evolution of a Sufi Institution in Mamluk Egypt: The Khanqah (Berlin, 1988), 33 f., 101 f.Google Scholar; idem, “Some aspects of the zāwiya in Egypt at the eve of the Ottoman conquest”, Annales Islamologiques XIX, 1983, 9–17Google Scholar; Shoshan Boaz, Popular Culture, ch. 1. On the ideological aspect of Egyptian Sufism see Geoffroy, Le Soufisme en Egypte, esp. 90 ff., 98 f., 150 ff., also ch. XX.

59 Shoshan, B., “High culture and popular culture in medieval Islam”, Studia Islamica LXXIII, 1991, 67–107, esp. 105CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 Jawharī, Inbā', 465 f.; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Ḥawādith, 379; idem, Nujūm, XVI, 191; Sakhāwī, Ḍaw', X, 150 f.; al-Shaʿrānī, , al-Anṣārī, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, al-Ṭabaqaāt al-kubrā al-musammāh bi-lawāqiḥ al-anwār fīṭabāqat al-akhyār, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1954), II, 101 ff.Google Scholar; Garcin, J.-C., “L'Insertion sociale de Shaʿrani dans le milieu Cairote”, in Colloque international sur l'histoire du Caire (Cairo, 1972), 159–68.Google Scholar

61 Behrens-Abouseif, D., The Minarets of Cairo (London and Cairo, 2010), p. 234 and fig. 182.Google Scholar

62 Maqrizi, Khiṭaṭ, II, 331; Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, IX, 244; Sakhāwī, Ḍaw', VIII, 238 ff.; Shaʿrānī, II, 87 f.; Mubārak, V, 60 f.; Van Berchem, Matériaux, 581 f.; Garcin, “L'insertion”, 163; Meinecke, M., Mamlukische Architektur in Ägypten und Syrien, 2 vols. (Mainz, 1993), II, 359.Google Scholar

63 al-Wahhāb, Ḥasan ʿAbd, Tārīkh al-masājid al-athariyya (Cairo, 1946), 227 f.Google Scholar

64 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw', II, 59.

65 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw', IX, 9.

66 Sakhāwī, Ḍaw’, II, 161 f; Shaʿrānī, II, 121 f.; Ibn al-ʿImād, VIII, 25 f.

67 Shaʿrānī, II, 138; ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, 276–80.

68 Ibn Iyās, III, 392, IV, 97, V, 267 f.; Shaʿrānī, II, 138; al-Ghazzī, , al-Kawākib al-sā’ira bi aʿyān al-mi'a ‘l-ʿāshira, 3 vols. (Beirut, 1979), I, 246–50, 298Google Scholar; Sakhāwī, Ḍaw’, 300f.; Mubārak, ‘Alī, al-Khiṭaṭ al-jadīda al-tawfīqiyya li-Miṣr wa'l-Qāhira, 20 vols. (Cairo, 1306/1888–9), IV, 300 f.Google Scholar; Garcin, Jean-Claude, “Deux saints populaires du Caire au début du XVIe siècle”, Bulletin d’Études Orientales, 1977, 131–43.Google Scholar

69 Van Berchem, Matériaux, 557 f.

70 Index 12 (formerly). Today the mosque is no longer listed as a historic monument; Bulletin du Comité de Conservation des Monuments Arabes du Caire, 1888, 14, 1896, 58, 139; 1898, 75, 133; 1899, 63; 1907, 98; 1914, 86, 128, 141.

71 Behrens-Abouseif, Doris, “The northeastern extension of Cairo under the Mamluks”, Annales Islamologiques XVII, 1981, 157–89Google Scholar; idem, Azbakiyya and Its Environs from Azbak to Ismāʿīl 1476–1871 (Cairo, 1985), 9 ff., 19 ff.Google Scholar

72 Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l'Art Arabe, Bulletin 1907, p. 98, also online at Islamic Art Network and Cresswell Archive at the Ashmolean Museum neg. EA.CA 4107A.CA.4107.

73 Inv. no: MW-96-99HU. The poem is included in anthology, al-Nawājī's, Ḥulbat al-kumayt fī ’l-adab wa 'l-nawādir al-mutaʿalliqa bi l-khamriyyāt (Cairo, 1299/1881–22), 171Google Scholar. On Ibn Ḥijja see Ibn Taghrībirdī, Manhal, XII, 291–5.

74 Auction catalogue of Sotheby's, Arts of the Islamic World, London, 8 October 2008, no. 122.

75 idem, no 121. The published reading is “al-Tarkhi” instead of al-Ṭūkhī, a common nisba referring to the town of Ṭūkh.

76 One exception is the mihrāb of the mosque of Qāḍī Yaḥyā at Būlāq, which refers to the patron and his master Sultan Jaqmaq. al-Wahhāb, Ḥasan ʿAbd, Tārīkh al-masājid al-athariyya (Cairo, 1946), 240Google Scholar

77 For example, Mortel's conclusion in his article on Abū'l-Khayr al-Naḥḥās.

78 See on this subject Ames-Lewis, Francis, The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist (New Haven and London, 2000).Google Scholar