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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
In a section devoted to the letters of appointment (tawâqî') and the commendations (wasâyâ) for the leaders of the Dhimmîs in Egypt (Subh, vol. xi, PP- 385-405). Qalqashandî notes that these are written on quarto size paper (qat'ath-thulth), with the leaders' honorific titles and an opening tahmîd. The three subsections deal respectively with the Headship of the Jews, the Patriarchate of the Melkite Christians and the Patriarchate of the Jacobite, sc. the Coptic, Christians.
page 199 note 1 Tauqî' means basically ‘the act of adding a note, or affixing a signature, emblem or motto, at the foot of an official document’. As Stern notes, in Fātimid decrees, original documents from the Fātimid chancery (London, 1964), p. 527Google Scholar, the term ‘alâma for ‘emblem, signature’, was favoured in the Muslim west and in Fātimid Egypt, whereas tauqî' was used farther east. Gradually, the use of tauqî' became generalized, and amongst its meanings there developed that of ‘a general administrative decree emanating from the Sultan and requiring his signature and/or emblem’. Qalqashandî, Subh, vol. I, p. 52, says that tauqî' originally means the writing on a petition or on its back by the ruler or official to whom the petition has been addressed, but that in his own time, the masses of the people used tauqî' as a general term synonymous with inshâ’ ‘the inditing of official correspondence’.Google Scholar
page 199 note 2 Fattal, A., Le statut légal des non-musulmans en pays d'Islam (Beirut, 1958), pp. 256–18;Google ScholarGaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie à l' époque des Mamelouks, pp. 168–9.Google Scholar
page 200 note 1 In Subh, vol. VI, p. 220,Google Scholar Qalqashandî says that both in former times and in his own day, the basmala was written at the head of important correspondence such as that with external powers and at the head of documents delegating gubernatorial and similar powers (al-mukâtabât wa-l-wilâyât); but that it was omitted from less important royal grants and ordinances (at-tawâqî' wa-l-marâsim as-sighâr), like those written on the backs of petitions addressed to the sovereign ('alâ zuhûr al-qisas). (Those documents, whose extant texts are not acephalous, of the decrees issued to Dhimmî groups in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and described by Stern in his Fātimid decrees do, in fact, have the basmala.) Qalqashandî goes on to observe that what he has said follows, as it were, the guidance given on the subject by Abû Dâ'ûd and Ibn Mâja in their Sunan and by Abû 'Awâna in his collection of traditions from Abû Huraira, sc. that ‘Every important matter which does not begin with the formula “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate” is, so to speak, mutilated (aqta')’ (cf. also Stern, , ‘Petitions from the Mamlūk period (Notes on the Mamlūk documents from Sinai)’, BSOAS, vol. xxix (1966), p. 246).Google Scholar But some of the ulema of Qalqashandî's time disliked omitting the basmala from any official document; this was the attitude of the Qâdî ‘Alâ’ ad-Dîn 'Alî al-Karakî,Kâtib as-Sirr to Sultan az-Zâhir Saif ad-Dîn Barqûq from 793/1391 to 796/1394, although his example was not followed after his death.
page 200 note 2 This Latin terminology is effectively applied to Islamic documents by Stern in his Fātimid decrees, pp. 107 ff.Google Scholar
page 201 note 1 If this document dates back to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, the meaning of ath-thughûr might extend to the frontiers with the Crusader states of the Palestine littoral. But even after Sultan al-Ashraf Salâh ad-Dîn Khalîl had cleared the last of the Franks from their coastal footholds, the coastal regions of Egypt, Palestine and Syria were still regarded as thughûr, for the descent of the Franks by sea and their collusion with the Christian populations of the coastal cities was always a possibility during Mamlûk times. Hence in alqashandî's section on the investiture diplomas of the provincial governors in Egypt (Subh, vol. XI, pp. 405–26), the office of the governor of Alexandria is described as the niyâbat thaghr al-Iskandariyya. (Dr Latham tells me that the coasts of Morocco were similarly regarded as thughûr after occupation by the Portuguese; hence Ceuta was a thaghr.)Google Scholar
page 201 note 2 This phrase, and the comparison of the Jacobite Patriarch of Egypt's position over his community with that of the Pope of Rome over the Melkites (see below, p. 207), were adduced by Lammens as further evidences for the recognition of the Papal supremacy at this time by the non-Greek eastern churches, see IJMES, 3 (1972), p. 68, n. 2.Google Scholar
page 202 note 1 al-qalâlî, sing. al-qallâya < Latin cella via Greek and Syriac; see on this term, Dozy, , Supplément, vol. II, pp. 401–2.Google Scholar
page 202 note 2 That is, the Patriarch is not to accept the slightest offer or present brought by any agent from overseas, or from the world of secular affairs and politics, which lies outside the Patriarch's sphere of spiritual authority and interests. Such an outside agent is compared to the raven, the traditional Arabic harbinger of separation and disaster (cf. Fischer, A., ‘Das Omen des Namens bei den Arabern’, ZDMG, vol. LXV [1911], p. 54);Google Scholar for embarkation on such perilous courses will inevitably entail the Patriarch's separation from his rank and office. In this particular passage, al-bahr is given its literal translation of ‘ocean’, and it was taken thus by Lammens (see below, p. 207). But my colleague Dr M. A. Kafrawy, who has kindly elucidated for me this allusive and difficult passage and others in the documents dealt with here, suggests that one might take al-bahr in a figurative sense, meaning the dangerous expanse of secular and political affairs, in which Patriarch would meddle at his peril; the vague hints and threats at the end of the wasiyya would seem to convey a warning against compromising activities in the secular world. It is, of course, very probable that the writer of the wasiyya intended to indicate both the lafzî and majâzî senses of al-bahr.
page 203 note 1 Conceivably this is the Melkite Archbishop Mikhâ'îl of Damascus who, at some time in or before the thirteenth century, delivered a homily on the beginning of the Lenten fast, still extant; see Graf, G., Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur (Rome, 1944–1953), vol. II, p. 71.Google Scholar
page 203 note 2 These prohibitions are stressed in all the versions of 'Umar's covenant, cf. Tritton, op. cit. pp. 102 ff., and Fattal, op. cit. pp. 203 ff.Google Scholar A story recounted by Abû l-Faraj al-Isfahânî says that the Umayyad governor Khâlid b. ‘Abdallâh al-Qasrî built a church at Kûfa for his Christian mother, and the congregation of this church used deliberately to bang the nâqûs when the muezzin of the adjoining mosque gave the call to prayer, and began to chant loudly when the khatîb began his sermon (Kitâb al-aghânî, ed. Bûlâq, vol. XIX, p. 59).Google Scholar
page 203 note 3 La Syrie à l'époque des Mamelouks, pp. 168–9. Regarding the Patriarch Mikhâ'îl's diploma, Qalqashandî condemns certain expressions in it as ‘infelicitous’ and ‘worthy of reprehension’, e.g. the phrase ‘…making explicit what is hidden in their breasts’, because only God can know what is hidden in men's breasts; Gaudefroy-Demombynes suggests that this document, or the model on which it is based, may be the work of a Christian secretary.Google Scholar
page 203 note 4 For a discussion of these stipulations, on the exact nature of which there was often some variation of opinion among the fuqahâ', see Tritton, op. cit. pp. 5–16, and Fattal, op. cit. pp. 60–7, 72–81.Google Scholar In fact, the oldest integral texts of these stipulations only date from the time of such authors as Turtûshî (d. 520/1126) in his Sirâj al-mulûk, and Ibn 'Asâkir (d. 571/1176) in his Ta'rîkh Dimashq, and it is now generally agreed that this alleged covenant is a piecemeal construction of post-'Umar times. The particular question of distinctive dress (ghiyâr, shi'âr), demands for the strict enforcement of which were always amongst the first expressions of the periodic outbursts of Muslim rigorism, is examined in detail by Lichtenstaedter, I. in her article ‘The distinctive dress of non- Muslims in Islamic countries’, Historia Judaica, vol. v (New York, 1943), pp. 33–52,Google Scholar see also Tritton, op. cit. pp. 115–26, and Fattal, op. cit. pp. 96–110.Google Scholar Again, the institution patently post-dates the Caliphate of 'Umar. The earliest instance of the requirement seems to come from the time of Hârûn ar-Rashîd, cf. Tabarî, Vol. III, p. 712, year 191/807.Google Scholar
page 204 note 1 This section of the Subh al-a'shâ seems never to have been written, or else to have been lost.Google Scholar
page 204 note 2 The Jacobite Church is, of course, named after Jacob Baradaeus, the indefatigable consolidator in the sixth century of the organization of the Eastern Monophysite Church, rather than after his precursor, the Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria, who may nevertheless be regarded as the founding father of the Monophysite Church in Egypt.Google Scholar
page 204 note 3 Is this man identical with the author al-Mufaddal b. Abî l-Fadâ'il, who wrote a history of the Mamlûk Sultans 1260–1341, with notices carrying it down to 1348, the whole work being completed in 1358? This history, called an-Najh as-sadîd wa-d-durr al-farîd, was edited and translated by Blochet, E. in Patrologia orientalis, vols. XII (1919), XIV (1920) and XX (1929),Google Scholarcf. Graf, , GCAL, vol. II, p. 450,Google Scholar and Brockelmann, , GAL2, vol. I, p. 426, Suppl. vol. I, p. 590.Google Scholar
page 204 note 4 Popper, W., Egypt and Syria under the Circassian Sultans 1382–1468 A.D. Systematic notes to Ibn Taghrî Birdî's Chronicles of Egypt (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1955), p. 109.Google Scholar The Kitâb al-maqsad ar-rafî' of Bahâ' ad-Dîn Muhammad b. Lutfallâh al-'Umarî al-Khâlidî, which apparently dates from after Qalqashandî's time and is known only in the Paris manuscript B.N. 4439, nevertheless mentions a Jacobite Patriarch of Syria who is the subordinate (nâ'ib) of the Cairo Patriarch; it states further that the letters of appointment for him are only issued after written approval of the Cairo Patriarch has been procured (cited in Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie à l'époque des Mamelouks, p. 168, n. 2, cf. pp. v–vi).Google Scholar Bahâ' ad-Dîn Muhammad's work does not seem to be mentioned by Brockelmann in GAL, possibly because the nineteenth century orientalists who made use of the manuscript, from Quatremère onwards, regarded its authorship as unknown, and Brockelmann often disregards anonyma, cf. my review of Sezgin's Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Band I, in JSS, vol. xv (1970), p. 132.Google Scholar
page 205 note 1 Every, G., S.S.M., The Byzantine Patriarchate (London, 1947), pp. 68, 157–8.Google Scholar
page 205 note 2 Subh, vol. XI, p. 396.Google Scholar
page 205 note 3 Loc. cit.Google Scholar
page 205 note 4 ad-Dayyân. The meaning here is not, as one might expect, something like ‘zealously pious’ (= al-mutadayyin), but that of ‘exercising authority or the power of judicature’; Lisân al-'Arab 1, vol. XVII, p. 24, states that it is one of the names of God, with the meaning of al-hakam, al-qâdî and al-qahhâr, and that 'Alî b. Abî Tâlib was called ‘the Dayyân of the religious community after its prophet’.Google Scholar
page 205 note 5 Subh, vol. XI, p. 399.Google Scholar
page 206 note 1 Qummus, p1. qamâmisa < γούμενος, ‘Hegumen’, according to Graf, Verzeichnis arabischer kirchlicher Termini, p. 93.Google Scholar
page 206 note 2 At first I thought that the idea was of distinguishing between the genuinely pious (the holy men and the monks) and those whose ecclesiastical rank is merely an office or a source of profit (the priests and the deacons) by using the verb rajjaha ‘to make one side of a scale weigh down’, except that if one accepts this sense, the use of the preposition baina in the phrase murajjihan baina is awkward. However, Dr Latham has pointed out to me what seems the more probable meaning, that rajjaha baina means here, as is not infrequent in post-classical usage, ‘to be pre-eminent among, have supreme authority over’ (cf. Fagnan, Additions aux dictionnaires arabes, p. 61: mirjâh; ‘chef, préposé’), and this is the meaning which I have accordingly adopted.Google Scholar
page 206 note 3 Subh, vol. XI, p. 404.Google Scholar
page 206 note 4 Loc. cit.Google Scholar
page 206 note 5 Subh vol. XI, p. 400.Google Scholar
page 206 note 6 Ibid., vol. XI, pp. 401–2. The requirement of lodging Muslim travellers in Christian churches and the provisions of hospitality to them for three days appears in the early versions of the covenant of 'Umar, see Tritton, op. cit. pp. 5, 7, 9, 11, and Fattal, op. cit. pp. 61, 63, 64, 65.Google Scholar
page 206 note 7 Subh vol. XI, p. 401. Again, the harbouring of spies in Christian churches or houses is expressly forbidden in the early versions of the covenant of 'Umar, cf. Tritton and Fattal, loc. cit.Google Scholar
page 207 note 1 See above, p. 201.Google Scholar
page 207 note 2 See above, p. 202.Google Scholar
page 207 note 3 Cf. Qur'ân, XVII, 13/12.Google Scholar
page 207 note 4 Subh, vol. XI, pp. 404–5.Google Scholar
page 207 note 5 ROC, vol. VIII (1903), p. 104, n. 4.Google Scholar
page 208 note 1 Atiya, A. S., The Crusade in the later Middle Ages (London, 1938), pp. 365–7.Google Scholar
page 208 note 2 Cf. idem, A History of Eastern Christianity, p. 98, and Jugie, M. in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris, 1902–1950), vol. x/ii, Art. ‘Monophysite (Église Copte)’.Google Scholar
page 208 note 3 Cf. Atiya, The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, passim.Google Scholar
page 208 note 4 Idem, Egypt and Aragon. Embassies and Diplomatic Correspondence between 1300 and 1330 A.D., in Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vol. XXIII/7 (Leipzig, 1938), pp. 20–5, 44–52.
page 209 note 1 See Canard, M., ‘Une lettre du Sultan Malik Nâsir Hasan à Jean VI Cantacuzène (750/1349)’, Annales de l'Institut d'Études Orientales, Faculté des Lettres de l'Université d'Alger, vol. III (1937), pp. 27–52.Google Scholar
page 209 note 2 Cf. Trimingham, J. S., Islam in the Sudan (Oxford, 1946), pp. 67 ff.;Google ScholarHillelson, S., EI 1 Art. ‘Nūba’;Google ScholarHolt, P. M., EI 2 Art. ‘Dongola’;Google ScholarHasan, Y. F., The Arabs and the Sudan, from the Seventh to the Early Sixteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1967), pp. 124–34.Google Scholar
page 209 note 3 Poole, S. Lane, A History of Egypt in the Middle Ages (London, 1901), pp.143–4;Google ScholarHasan, op. cit., pp. 92–3.Google Scholar
page 210 note 1 Ullendorff, E., The Ethiopians, an Introduction to the Country and People (London, 1960), pp. 55 ff., 97 ff.Google Scholar
page 210 note 2 ibid. pp. 66–70; idem, EI 2 Art. ‘Habash, Habasha’; Trimingham, , Islam in Ethiopia (Oxford, 1952), pp. 70 ff.Google Scholar
page 210 note 3 Popper, W., Egypt and Syria under the Circassian Sultans, 1382–1468 A.D. Systematic notes to Ibn Taghrî Birdî's Chronicles of Egypt (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1955), pp. 102, 109.Google Scholar
page 211 note 1 Mann, , The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fâtimid Caliphs, vol. I, pp. 251 ff.;Google ScholarStrauss, , Tôledôt ha-Yehûdîm, vol. II, pp. 239–40.Google Scholar
page 211 note 2 Goitein, ‘The title and office of the Nagid: a re-examination’, passim.Google Scholar
page 211 note 3 The abstract negîdût is a modernism, not found in contemporary Mamlûk Hebrew usage.Google Scholar
page 211 note 4 ‘An eleventh-century document concerning a Cairo synagogue’, JQR, vol. XIX (1907), pp. 467–539, with the Arabic texts printed in Appendix III, pp. 527 ff.Google Scholar
page 211 note 5 On this work, see above, p. 204.Google Scholar
page 212 note 1 Referring to the seventy men chosen by Moses from those of the Children of Israel who had not worshipped the Golden Calf, Qur'ân, VII, 154.Google Scholar
page 212 note 2 al-Ill wa-dh-dhimma, echoing Qur'ân, ix, 10.Google Scholar
page 212 note 3 'Alâ ghaiz man ghussa minhâ, a quotation which I have been unable to trace.Google Scholar
page 213 note 1 Literally, ‘the appetitive soul’, a term of Muslim ethics and psychology going back to the words of Joseph in Sûra XII, 53, where he declares in regard to Zulaikhâ's attempt to seduce him, that there is inevitably some element of blame within himself, ‘since the self habitually urges towards evil (an-nafs la-ammâra), except in so far as my Lord shows compassion’.Google Scholar
page 213 note 2 These two characterizations of the Karaites both refer to the dispute between the Rabbanites and Karaites over the calendar and the computation of important dates in the religious year. Whilst the Rabbanites had a pre-calculated calendar and relied on mathematical and astronomical calculations, the Karaites insisted that the fixing of the festivals should be based on actual observation of the new moon. Further, they called themselves ‘the adherents of signs’ on the basis of Genesis i. 14, which they translated as ‘… And let them be for sign for festivals, and for days, and for years’ (I am grateful to my colleague Dr M. Wallenstein for this and for other information utilized here on Jewish lore and practice).Google Scholar
page 213 note 3 The Arabic here employs jinâs tâmm or paronomasia with complete correspondence in a very neat fashion: ‘[Appoint over their affairs] man lam yatawallah(u) hîna yatawallahu’, meaning ‘one who will not be appointed leader over it [sc. the community] when he shows agitation and anxiety’, i.e. in his greed to secure the office. The sentiment here conveyed is akin to the well-known Islamic one that the wise ruler does not appoint as his officials, judges, etc., those who show themselves over-eager to acquire these positions of influence and potential profit.Google Scholar
page 213 note 4 In the Qur'ân, the mysterious as-Sâmirî is considered to be the founder of the Samaritan community, and the Samaritans' compulsive avoidance of those not of their own faith as being impure is explained as a divine punishment for as-Sâmirî's incitement of the Jews to cast their golden ornaments into the fire, this being the origin of the golden calf. It was surmised by Goldziher that Muhammad knew about the Samaritan taboos via a Jewish source, and projected them back to an earlier time, the episode of the golden calf being then confused with King Jeroboam's establishment of golden calf worship in Samaria (I Kings xii. 28 ff.); cf. his article ‘La Mis¯asa’, Revue Africaine, vol. LII [=no. 268] (Algiers 1908), pp. 23–8,Google Scholar and also Heller, B., EI 1 Art. ‘al-Sāmirī’.Google Scholar
page 214 note 1 Where two verse references are given, the first refers to Flügel's text of the Qur'ân, the second to that of the Egyptian so-called ‘royal’ Qur'ân.Google Scholar
page 214 note 2 Or perhaps a yellow turban itself, as was certainly enjoined specifically in Mamlûk times, see Tritton, The Caliphs and Their non-Muslim Subjects, p. 122.Google Scholar
page 214 note 3 In the Qur'ânic story (xx, 90), the calf made by as-Sâmirî has the faculty of utterance.Google Scholar
page 214 note 4 Goitein observes in his discussion of the Nagîd's duty to enforce the discriminatory laws, if needs be by excommunicating any non-compliants within his community, that this requirement reflects a later and more fanatical time, and is not found in the Geniza documents of the classical period, i.e. the eleventh and twelfth- centuries (‘The title and office of the Nagid: a re-examination’, p. 113).Google Scholar
page 215 note 1 Ibn Nubâta (d. 768/1366) was the authority for several administrative documents cited by Qalqashandî; cf. Brockelmann, , GAL2, vol. I, pp. 11–12,Google Scholar and Rikabi, J., EI 2 Art. s.v.Google Scholar
page 215 note 2 Referring metaphorically to the base of the camel's neck, which frequently becomes sore from its burdens and requires treatment.Google Scholar
page 216 note 1 Rukûb al-maidâu. The custom of the Sultan's riding to the, training grounds in Cairo is described by Ibn Taghrîbirdî as one the ‘good customs’ (mahâsin) of the Bahrî Sultans which were allowed to fall into desuetude by az-Zâhir Barqûq and the Circassians; cf. Ayalon, D., ‘Notes on the Furûsiyya exercises and games in the Mamluk Sultanate’, in Studies in Islamic History and Civilization, ed. Heyd, U., Scripta Hierosolymitana, vol. IX (Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 42–3.Google Scholar
page 216 note 2 Contemporary with Ibn Shîth or with Qalqashandî himself?Google Scholar
page 216 note 3 Sc. for those dealing with more important topics.Google Scholar