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The sultanate of al-Mansūr Lāchīn (696–8/1296–9)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

P. M. Holt
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Extract

Al-Malik al-Mansūr Husām al-Dīn Lāchin al-Manṣsūrī was one of the succession of sultans whose brief reigns occupy the two decades from the death of al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn in 689/1290 to the third accession of his son, al-Nāsir Muhammad, 709/1310. Lāchīn himself reigned little more than two years; his sultanate ended as it had begun in conspiracy and it was distinguished by no outstanding successes. Nevertheless it has some features of significance for the history of the Mamlūk sultanate.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , October 1973 , pp. 521 - 532
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1973

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References

1 The bibliographical details of the sources used are as follows.

(a) ‘Imād al-Dīn Ismā'īl Abū 'I-Fida’, al-Mulchtasar fī akhbār al-bashār, [Cairo, 1325/1907], ivGoogle Scholar. Short reference, Abū ‘l-Fidā’.

(b) Abū Bakr, b. 'Abdallāh b. Aybak al-Dawādī, Kanz al-durar iva-jāmi' al-ghwrar, VIII: al-Durra al-zakiyya fī akhbār al-dawla al-Turkiyya (ed. Haarmann, Ulrich), Freiburg, 1971Google Scholar. Short reference, Ibn al-Dawādārī.

(c) Taqī al-Dīn Ahmad b. 'Alī al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-sulūk li-ma'rifat duwal al-mulūk, I, iii (ed. Ziyāda, Muhammad Mustafā), second ed., Cairo, 1970Google Scholar. Short reference, al-Maqrīzī.

(d) Jamāl al-Dīn Abū '1-Mahāsin Yūsuf b. Taghri Bardī al-Atābakī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira fī mulūk Misr wa 'l-Qāhira, VIII, [Cairo], n.dGoogle Scholar. Short reference, Ibn Taghrībirdī.

2 It appears from the evidence supplied by Ibn Taghrībirdī that a title of this type was normally held only by a reigning sultan, by whom it was assumed at the time of his accession: thus, when al-Mansūr ‘Alī succeeded his father, al-Mu'izz Aybak (655/1257), his brother, Nāsir al-Dīn Qāqān, had no Malik-title (Ibn Taghrībirdī, VII, 55; al-Maqrīzī, I, ii, 417). Before the Qalāwūnids, the only Mamlūk exception was al-Zāhir Baybars's third son, Khadir, who was never even nominally sultan, but was styled al-Malik al-Mas'ūd. This was a courtesy-title, probably inspired by Ayyūbid usage, conferred on him by al-Mansūr Qalāwūn in 678/1280 in respeot of his iqta' of al-Karak (Ibn Taghrībirdī, VII, 273). The sole exception shown by Ibn Taghrībirdī among the Qalāwūnids is Husayn b. al-Nāṣir Muhammad, who never reigned but is styled al-Malik al-Amjad. He was probably given the title retrospectively, since his son, al-Ashraf Sha'bān, became sultan (Ibn Taghrībirdī, XI, 6). There was a precedent for this during the transition from Ayyūbid to Mamlūk rule: Khalīl, the infant son of al-Sālih Ayyūb and Shajar al-Durr, was posthumously given the title of al-Malik al-Mansūr legitimizing his mother's status as queen regnant (al- Maqrīzī, I, ii, 362). When the chronicler lists the seven sons of al-Ashraf Sha'bān, he gives Malik-titles only to the two who actually reigned (Ibn Taghrībirdī, xi, 82). Ibn Taghrībirdī's evidence is not, however, entirely conclusive, since Ibn al-Dawādārī, a contemporary source, mentions the birth on 28 Rabi’ II 704/28 November 1304 to al-Nāsir Muhammad b. Qalāwūn of a son ' and he was given the title of al-Malik al-Muzaffar ‘(Ibn al-Dawādārī, IX, 126). This child is presumably to be identified with the later sultan, al-Muzaffar Hājjī (regn. 747–8/1346–7), but since Ibn alDawādārī completed his chronicle at the beginning of 736/summer 1335 (Ibn al-Dawādārī, IX, 402), he cannot here be anticipating a title assumed on accession. That the Malik-title was usually associated with accession to the sultanate is indicated by the act of pretenders to the sultanate (e.g. Sanjar al-Halabī in 658/1260, Sunqur al-Ashqar in 678/1279, and Baydarā in 693/1293), who signalized their claims by the assumption of a Malik-title (Ibn Taghrībirdī, VII, 104, 294; VIII, 19)-A very late instance, after the fall of the Mamlūk sultanate, is the assumption by Jānbardī alGhazālī, the governor of Damascus, of the title of al-Malik al-Ashraf during his rebellion against the Ottoman sultan, Süleymān, in 927/1521 (Mostafa, Mohamed (ed.), Die Chronik des Ibn Ijās, v, 422)Google Scholar.

3 Al-futūḥāt al-sāḥiliyya, i.e. the Syro-Palestinian littoral conquered from the Crusader states.

4 The ‘Abbāsid Abū’l-'Abbās Ahmad had been installed as caliph by al-Zāhir Baybars on 9 Muharram 661/24 November 1262 with the title of al-Hākim bi-amr Allāh, after his predecessor, al-Mustansir, had been lost in a fight with Mongols a year previously. Al-Ḥākim held office until his death on 18 Jumādā I 701/19 January 1302. The participation of the caliph in the deposition or accession of a sultan was presumably necessary to the procedure, although the fact that the chroniclers do not always mention this indicates that the caliph's role had become an archaic formality.

5 After the sultanate had been seized by Lāchin, , Kitbughā, told the amīrs of Damascus, ‘Al-Malik al-Manṣūr Lāchīn is my khushdāsh’(Ibn Taghrībirdī, VIII, 65)Google Scholar. Here the term signifies ‘servants of a common master’(since they had both belonged to the household of Qalāwūn), rather than the more specific ‘comrade in servitude and emancipation’, for which see Ayalon, David, L'esclavage du Mamelouk, Jerusalem, 1951, 29–31Google Scholar.

6 On the Oirat immigration, see further Ayalon, David, ‘The Wafidiya in the Mamluk kingdom’, Islamic Culture, XXV, 1951, 91–3Google Scholar.

7 Here as elsewhere there are minor variations in the dates as given in different sources.

8 The sources differ as to the place in Palestine where the coup took place. Abū '1-Fidā' (iv, 34) says that Kitbughā had reached the river al-'Awjā; Ibn al-Dawādārī (VIII, 366) that he had reached Budda'arsh (unidentified). Al-Maqrīzī (i, iii, 819) places the event at al-‘Awjā’ near to al-Ramla, but briefly mentions al-Lajjūn as an alternative (822). Ibn Taghrībirdī (VIII, 63) says that the sultan was at al-Lajjūn near to Wādī Fahma.

9 ‘He was at first one of the company of Mamlūks, of al-Mansūr, al-Malik ‘Alī b. al-Malik al-Mu'izz Aybak, and when he ['Alī] was deposed, the amir Sayf al-Dīn Qalāwūn bought him’(al-Maqrīzī, I, iii, 820)Google Scholar.

10 Abū 'l-Fidā' and Ibn al-Dawādārī give only brief lists. Identical (but not all-inclusive) lists are given by al-Maqrīzī (i, iii, 821–2) and Ibn Taghrībirdī (VIII, 99), the latter citing from Baybars al-Dawādār.

11 Al-Maqrīzī (i, iii, 822) places the scene of the accession-compact at al-Yāzūr, glossed as a village on the coast near al-Ramla by the editor.

12 Abū '1-Fidā', IV, 34: an lā yanfarid 'anhum, bi-ra'i. Al-Maqrīzī and Baybars al-Dawādār (in Ibn Taghrībirdī) use almost identical phraseology. The compact is not mentioned by Ibn al-Dawādārī. The sentence quoted implies a recognition that while the sultan, as a Muslim under the Sharī'a and as technically the delegate of the caliph, could not wield absolute power, he could unless limIVed by compact, exercise absolute discretion.

13 Al-Maqrīzī, i, iii, 822. Baybars al-Dawādār in Ibn Taghrībirdī, VIII, 99, gives a more artificial version of Qabjaq's speech, couched in saj'. The version in al-Maqrīzī contains the interesting locution, wa-tukhaunvil mamlūkaka Mankūtamur ['alaynā], literally, ‘you will set up your Mamlūk Mankūtamur as a maternal uncle(khāl) over us’. The sentence is presumably a literal rendering into Arabic of a Turkish idiomatic use of dayι. In the version of Baybars al-Dawādār, the sentence is paraphrased wa-tufawwid li-mamlūkika Mankūtamur fī 'l-taḥkīm wa 'l-tadbīr ‘you will commit plenary judicial and executive powers to your Mamlūk Mankūtamur’.

14 The fullest account of al-rawk al-Husāmī is by al-Maqrīzī in Sulūk, I, iii, 841–6, to which some details of importance are added by the same author in Kitāb al-mawā'iẓ wa 'l-i'tibār [Khiṭaṭ], [Būlāq, 1270/1853; repr. Beirut, n.d.], I, 88.

15 Wa-yṣīr dhālika 'l-iqṭā' fī dawāwīn al-umarā' wa-yaḥtami bi-hā quṭṭā' al-ṭariq. Khiṭaṭ, I, 88.

16 Thus in al-Maqrīzī, I, iii, 843–4. In his main account Ibn Taghrībirdī (VIII, 90–1) gives 6 Jumādā I for the starting date but has the same finishing date. He also gives an unnamed source (VIII, 92) which says that the sultan decided on the rawk in Ḥijja 697. If this is disregarded, IV appears that the cadastral survey took 52 (or perhaps 62) days.

17 Thus al-Maqrīzī, I, iii, 843, and also al-Yūnīnī cited in Ibn Taghrībirdī, VIII, 92. The un-named source cited in Ibn Taghrībirdī (VIII, 93) gives the proportions differently: ‘Fourteen qirāṭs were appropriated to the guard('askar) as a whole and four to the sultan. Twoqirāṭs were held as compensation for any of the amirs or troopers(jund) who might sustain damage and complain of the smallness of the product. This completed 20 qirāts. Al-Malik al-Manṣūr Lāchīn was killed before he had taken anyone into his service, and four qirāṭs had been set aside for the purpose of recruiting a new guard’.

18 The three excepted categories were: (i) al-jawālī, the poll-tax on non-Muslims; (ii) almawārīth al-ḥashriyya, the estates of heirless persons; (iii) al-rizaq al-aḥbāsiyya, revenues arising from property held in waqf and devoted to pious purposes. The first two categories were assigned to the sultan's privy purse, not to the state treasury.

19 Abū '1-Fidā' states explicitly, ‘A company of the young Mamlūks whom he had selected for himself attacked Lājīn'. Obedience to their immediate commander (in this case Kurjī) rather than loyalty to their master and ruler was characteristic of Mamlūk troops from a very early period.

20 Ibn al-Dawādārī, VIII, p. 377,1. 19.

21 Ib n al-Dawādārī (VIII, 381) says that Baktāsh was a confidant of Lāchīn, and had been recalled by the sultan to give him advice about the amirs.

22 Ibn al-Dawādārī (VIII, 382) and al-Maqrīzī (i, iii, 869) list Kurt al-Ḥājib. In Ibn Taghrībirdī (vra, 105) he is listed as Sayf al-Dīn Kurt. He is almost certainly to be identified with Sayf al-Dīn Kurd, mentioned at the time of Lāchīn's accession (al-Maqrīzī, i, iii, 821). The form ‘Kurd’has been corrected by the editor of Ibn Taghrībirdī (VIII, p. 99, n. 1) to ‘Kurt’, following al-Manhal al-ṣāfī.

23 Fa-ajābahum Lājīn ilā dhālika wa-ḥalafa la-hum 'alayhi fa-'inda dhālika ḥalafū la-hu wa-bāya'ūhu bi 'l-salṭana (Abū '1-Fidā', iv, 34).

24 See Tyan, É., s.v. bay'a, EI, second ed., I, 113–14Google Scholar.

25 Ibn Taghrībirdī, x, 78, 117, 149.

26 On the Nāṣirī rawk, see Rabie, Hassanein, The financial system of Egypt A.H. 564–741/ A.D. 1169–1341, London, 1972, 53–6Google Scholar.