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The Ideological Significance of the Dār al-Adl in the Medieval Islamic Orient

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Nasser O. Rabbat
Nasser O. Rabbat
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor in the History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture Program, Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 02139, U.S.A.
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Extract

Medieval Islamic architecture presents the scholar with a fascinating set of histo-riographical problems. Some are methodological; others are related to the nature of the sources, and they are shared by various other branches of research in medieval history such as urban history, topography, and the history of arts and crafts whose inquiries depend on the same sources. Still others are peculiar to the specific domain of architectural history. These last are the most challenging, for they require particular strategies that take into account the disparities in our knowledge of the two basic components needed to reconstruct the history of any architectural object: the physical remains and the contemporary documents related to them. There are three possible kinds of disparity: in the best cases, buildings that are still standing and in fairly good shape can be studied in light of relevant contemporary documents. In more difficult cases, the structures still exist, but supportive documents, written or otherwise, do not. Most difficult of all is when we have documents describing, or referring to, a structure or a group of structures for which we have no visible trace.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , February 1995 , pp. 3 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

NOTES

1 For the definition of maẓālim, see Nielsen, Jorgen, “Maẓālim,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 6:933–35;Google Scholar also idem, “Maẓālim and Dār al-ʿAdl under the Early Mamluks,” The Muslim World 66, 2 (04 1976): 114–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For the analysis of historical writing in medieval Egypt and Syria, see Haarmann, Ulrich, Quellenstudien zur frühen Mamlukenzeit (Freiburg, 1970);Google ScholarLittle, Donald, An Introduction to Mamluk Historiography: An Analysis of Arabic Annalistic and Biographical Sources for the Reign of al-Malik an-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun (Wiesbaden, 1970), especially pp. 94–99, 112–36;Google Scholar also Musṭafā, Shākir, al-Tārīkh al-ʿArabī wa-l-Muʾarrikhūn: Dirāsa fī Taṭawwur ʿIlm al-Tārīkh wa-Rijālihi fī-l-Islām, 4 vols. (Beirut, 1978–93), 2:139–304, all of vol. 3, 4:7–227.Google Scholar

3 This is the classical definition of al-Māwardī, Abū al-Ḥasan, al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyya, (Cairo, 1909), 64,Google Scholar copied almost verbatim by al-Farrāʾ, Abū Yaʿlā (990–1066), al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyya, ed. al-Fiqqī, M. H. (Cairo, 1966), 73–74Google Scholar, and translated somewhat differently in Nielsen, Jorgen, Secular Justice in an Islamic State: Mazalim under the Bahri Mamluks, 662/1264–789/1387 (Leiden, 1985), 20.Google Scholar

4 A representative text is al-Maqrīzī, Taqī al-Dīn (1364–1442), al Mawāʿiẓ wa-l-iʿtibār bi-Dhikr al- Khiṭaṭ wa-l-Āthār, 2 vols. (Bulaq, 1854), 2:207–8;Google Scholar for a review, see Tyan, Émile, Histoire de l'organisation judiciaire en pays d'Islam, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1960), 1:512–20.Google Scholar

5 al-Sayyed, Raḍwān, “Qaḍāʾ al-Maẓālim: Naẓra fī Wajh min Wujūh ʿAlāqat al-Dīn bi-1-Dawla fī-1-Tārīkh al-Islāmī,” Dirāsāt 14, 10 (1987): 157–64.Google Scholar

6 The development is outlined in Tyan, , Histoire, 1:87–98;Google ScholarNielsen, , Secular Justice, 2–3.Google Scholar

7 The political interpretation is adapted from Sayyed, “Qaḍāʿ 169–74. Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 4–7Google Scholar, traces the evolution of maẓālim as it alternated between the executive and judicial authority, but does not explain the reason behind keeping the office in the hands of the caliph or why powerful rulers tended to supervise maẓālim sessions personally.

8 Māwardī, , Aḥkām, 65;Google ScholarYaʿlā, Abū, Aḥkām, 59;Google Scholar Sayyed, “Qaḍāʿ” 172–73; Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 4–5.Google Scholar

9 Yūsuf, Abū, al-Kharāj (Beirut, 1979), 111–12.Google ScholarQāẓī al-quḍāt was a new position created by al-Rashid for Abu Yusuf.

10 Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:207.Google Scholar

11 Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 6, and references.Google Scholar

12 Māwardī, , Aḥkām, 64–82.Google Scholar

13 Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 18–19Google Scholar; Laoust, Henri, “La pensée et l'action politiques d'al-Māwardī,” Revue d'Éludes lslamiques, 36 (1968): 12–92.Google Scholar

14 al-Mulk, Niẓām, Siyāsat-Nāmah, trans. al-ʿIzzāwī, al-Sayyed (Cairo, 1976), 39, 70.Google Scholar

15 Sayyed, , “Qaḍāʾ” 172–74Google Scholar; Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 7Google Scholar, and references.

16 The Fatimid case is interesting because the place of maẓālim sessions depended on the background of the vizier. If he was a “man of the sword,” the ceremony took place in the Hall of Gold. If he was a “man of the pen,” then another official, the Master of the Gate, would preside over the session outside the Gate of Gold in the great palace. Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, 1:402, Qalqashandī, , Subḥ al-Aʿshā fī Sināʾat al-Inshā, 14 vols. (Cairo, 1913–1919), 3:491Google Scholar.

17 Ibn ʿAsākir says in Nur al-Din's biography that the sultan built in most [cities] of his realm palaces of justices (banā fī akthar mamlakatihi ādur al-ʿadl) without specifying which cities. See, al-Ṭarhūnī, M., ed., Tārīkh Madīnat Dimashq wa Dhikr Faḍlihā wa-Tasmiyat man Ḥallahā min-al-Amāthil aw Ijtāza bi-Nawāḥīhā min Wāridihā wa-Ahlahā (reproduced from ms. in al-Zahiriyya in Damascus) (Damascus, 1980?), 16:294.Google Scholar The earliest to state that Nur al-Din built the first dār al-ʿadl in Damascus is the pro-Zankid Ibn al-Athīr (1160–1232) in his work al-Tārīkh al-Bāhir fī-l-Dawla al-Atābikiyya fī-l-Mūṣil, ed. Ṭulaymāt, A. Q. (Cairo, 1963), 168Google Scholar; also, idem., al-Kāmīl fī-l-Tārīkh, 13 vols. (Beirut, 1965–67), 11:404.Google Scholar He was followed by Shāma, Abū (1203–68), Kitāb al-Rawḍatayn fī-Akhbār al-Dawlatayn al-Nūriyya wa-l-Ṣalāḥiyya, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1870–71), 1:8Google Scholar; ibn-al-Jawzī, Sibṭ (d. 1256), Mirʾāt al-Zamān fī-Tārīkh al-Aʿyān, vol. 8, pt. 1 (Heydarabad, 1952), 309Google Scholar; Kathīr, Ibn (1301–73), al-Bidāya wa-l-Nihāya fi-l-Tārīkh, 16 vols. (Cairo, 1932–39), 12:280.Google Scholar

18 For extensive research on, and evaluation of, references to Dar al-ʿAdl and Dar al-Saʿada, see al-Rīḥāwī, ʿAbdal-Qādir, “Quṣūr al-Ḥukkām fī-Dimashq,” Les annales archéologiques arabes syriennes, 22(1972): 48–70.Google Scholar

19 Brinner, W. M., “Dār al-Saʿāda and Dār al-ʿAdl in Mamluk Damascus,” in Studies in Memory of Caston Wiet, ed. Myriam Rosen-Ayalon (Jerusalem, 1977), 243–44.Google Scholar For a conclusive rebuttal of Brinner's arguments, see Tabbaa, Yasser, “The Architectural Patronage of Nur al-Din (1146–174)” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1982), 222–25.Google Scholar

20 It is true that the accounts of the three historians, Abu Shama, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, and Ibn Kathir are apparently copied from Ibn al-Athir, but they all lived and worked in Damascus, and they would have noted the fabrication, had the report of Ibn al-Athir been dubious.

21 Tabbaa, “Architectural Patronage,” 222, and Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 49.Google Scholaral-Athīr, Ibn, Atābikiyya, 168Google Scholar, however, says that Nur al-Din built his Dar al-ʿAdl “after he had been living for a long time in Damascus,” (ṭāla maqāmuhu fī Dimashq).

22 On the problems of the period (1154–63) and Nur al-Din's constant moving, see Élisséeff, Nikita, Nurad-Din, un grand prince musulman de Syrie au temps des Croisades (511–569/1118–1174), 3 vols. (Damascus, 1967), 2:485–519.Google Scholaral-Qalānisī, Ibn, Dhayl Tārīkh Dimashq, ed.S. Dhakkār (Damascus, 1983)Google Scholar, who ends his chronicle in 1160 does not mention the building of Dar al-ʿAdl, but on p. 548, he records in his last entry the selection of Kamal al-Din al-Shahrazuri as the qadi of Damascus. Al-Shahrazuri appears in Ibn al-Athir's story relating the building of Dar al-ʿAdl as the qadi of Damascus, which means that it was constructed after the date of his appointment.

23 Kathīr, Ibn, Bidāya, 12:329Google Scholar; al-Bundārī, , Sanā al-Barq al-Shāmi (abridged from al-Kātib al-Iṣfaḥānī, al-Barq al-Shāmī), ed. al-Nabrāwī, Fatḥīa (Cairo, 1979), 278.Google Scholar

24 Kathīr, Ibn, Bidāya, 13:12Google Scholar, for the former, and Shāma, Abū, al-Dhayl ʿala-al-Rawḍatayn, ed. al-Kawtharī, M. Zāhed (Cairo, 1947), 16Google Scholar, for the latter.

25 Rīḥāwī, , “Quṣūr,” 51–52.Google Scholar Baybars apparently repaired the palace, Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk li-MaʿrifatDuwal al-Mulūk, 4 vols., ed. Ziyada, M. M. et al. (Cairo, 1934–73), 1:446.Google Scholar

26 Shāma, Abu, Dhayl, 220Google Scholar, for the year 1261; Kathīr, Ibn, Bidāya, 13:345Google Scholar, for 1295.

27 Early Mamluk sources alternate between the two terms, Riḥāwi, , “Quṣūr,” 48–52.Google Scholar The first one to state that Dar al-ʿAdl and Dar al-Saʿada were one and the same is al-Badari, Abu al-Baqaʾ (1438–89), Nuzhat al-Anām fi-Mahāsin al-Shām (Beirut, 1980), 18Google Scholar; also al-Ṣālihī, Ibn Ṭūlūn (1475–1546), al- Shamʿa al-Muḍiyya fi Akhbār al-Qalʿa al-Dimashqiyya (Damascus, 1929), 8Google Scholar, equates Dar al-Saʿada with Dar al-ʿAdl when reporting the founding of the latter.

28 For Farrukhshāh, see Shāma, Abū, Rawḍatayn, 2:19, 23, and 33Google Scholar; Sibṭ, , Mirʾāt, 366 and 372.Google Scholar Bahrāmshāh was assassinated in Dār Farrukhshāh, ibid., p. 667; Wāṣil, Ibn, Mufarrij al-Kurūb fi-Akhbār Banī Ayyūb, vol. 4, ed. Rabie, M. H. (Cairo, 1972), 284–85Google Scholar, explains that Dār Farrukhshāh became known in his time as Dar al-Saʿada, and that it became the official residence of the nāʾib.

29 Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 49–50, and 52–53Google Scholar, gives an incorrect interpretation of the transfer of the name Dar al-Saʿada to Dar al-ʿAdl and of al-Qasr al-Ablaq as the new vicegeral palace. Élisséeff, Nikita, “Les monuments de Nur al-Din: inventaire, notes archéologiques et bibliographiques,” Bulletin Éeludes Orientates, 13 (1951): 20–21Google Scholar constructs a history of Dar al-ʿAdl and attributes to Salah al-Din its merging with Dar al-Saʿada after 1187. This event does not appear in any of the sources I have consulted, including those listed by Éilisséeff.

30 Siḅt, , Mirʾat, 716Google Scholar (who calls the palace Dar al-Saʿada); Kathīr, Ibn, Bidāya, 13:147.Google Scholar

31 Ibn Kathīr, , Bidāya, 13:310Google Scholar; Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 1:735–36.Google Scholar

32 Ibn Kathīr, , Bidāya, 13:228Google Scholar, when Sultan al-Kamil was in Damascus, al-Ashraf moved to Dar al- Saʿada and left the citadel for him; Sibṭ, Mirʾāt, 719, speaks of al-Jawad Yunis moving to Dar al-Saʿada in 1237 as a sign of submission to al-Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub who stayed at the citadel.

33 It is very difficult to decide whether this plan took place under Qutuz or his successor Baybars, better known for his restructuring of the Mamluk state. Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 1:432Google Scholar, and Jurjus, al-Makīn ibn al-ʿAmīd, , “Akhbar al-Ayyubiyyin,” ed. Cahen, Claude, Bulletin d' Etudes Orientates, 15 (1955–57): 175–76Google Scholar, say that Qutuz stayed at the citadel and his nāʾib at Dar al-Saʿada when he was in Damascus after the battle of ʿAyn Jalut. When Baybars became a sultan a year later, Qutuz's nāʾib in Damascus, Sanjar al-Halabi, revolted against Baybars and declared himself an independent sultan. As a sign of his revolt, he moved his quarters to the citadel, which indicates that the residential protocol was already in place, Ibn Kathīr, , Bidāya, 13:223Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., 54–57.

35 Sauvaget, Jean, Les monuments ayyoubides de Damas, 2 vols. (Damascus, 1940), 2:57–63Google Scholar, established Dar al-Saʿada's location by identifying the ruins of an Ayyubid madrasa, al-ʿAdhrawiyya, known from the sources to have been adjacent to it.

36 Rīḥāwī, , “Quṣūr,” 58–61Google Scholar; Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 1:671Google Scholar, offers a description of the location.

37 Dar al-ʿAdl appears to have remained a distinct unit within Dar al-Saʿada until late in the Mamluk period. During an uprising in 1415, the dissident amir occupied Dar al-ʿAdl and bombarded the citadel from there which caused the burning of the gable roof (jamalūn) of Dar al-Saʿada. This indicates that the two were separate; see Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 4:321Google Scholar; Ibn Taghrī-Birdī, ; (d. 1469), al-Nujūm al-Zāhira fī- Mulūk Miṣr wa-l-Qāhira, 16 vols. (Cairo, 1930–56), 14:32–34Google Scholar.

38 Ibn al-Ṣālīḥī, Ṭūlūn, lʿlām al-Warā bi-man Wulliya Nāʾiban min-al-Atrāk bi-Dimashq al-Shām al- Kubrā, ed. Duhmān, M. A. (Damascus, 1984), 92Google Scholar, Ibn Kathīr, , Bidāaya, 14:317Google Scholar, for the qāʿca; Qalqashandī, , Subḥ, 4:194–97Google Scholar, offers the most elaborate description of the maẓālim ceremony in Damascus, probably as it was in the middle of the 14th century.

39 Ibrāhim, Laīlā and Amīn, M. M., al-Musṭalaḥāt al-Miʿmāriyya fī-l-Wathāʾq al-Mamlūkiyya (Cairo, 1990), 87–88Google Scholar.

40 A passing sentence in a 15th-century chronicle (Sibṭ ibn-al-ʿAjamī who died in 1479, Kunūz al- Dhahabfī Tārīkh Ḥalab) wrongly attributes Dar al-ʿAdl in Aleppo to Nur al-Din. Sauvaget, Jean, Alep, Essai sur le développement dune grande ville syrienne des origines au milieu du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1941), 126, n. 424Google Scholar, favored that reference to earlier sources which credited Ghazi with the structure; see also Tabbaa, “Architectural Patronage,” 221.

41 Shaddad, ʿlzz al-Din ibn (d. 1285) al-Aʿlāq al-Khaṭīra fī Dhikr Umarāʾ al-Shām wa-l-Jazira, vol. 1, pt. 1, ed. Sourdel, Dominique (Damascus, 1953), 17Google Scholar; al-Shiḥna, Muḥibb al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn (d. 1504 or 1510) al-Durr al-Muntakhab fī Tārīkh Mamlakat Ḥalab, ed. Joseph Elyān Sarkīs (Beirut, 1909), 33–34Google Scholar, repeats the text of Ibn Shaddād and brings the information on the city's topography up to date.

42 Sauvaget, , Alep, 146Google Scholar, for a concise description of Dar al-ʿAdl. Further details are collected from Ibn Shaddād, , Aʿlāq, 17, 21, 25Google Scholar; Ibn al-Shiḥna, , Durr, 34, 41–42, 51Google Scholar; al-Ghazzī, Kāmil, Nahr al-Dhahab fī Tārīkh Ḥalab (Aleppo, 1920), 2:4, 7, 8, 111Google Scholar. See also Tabbaa, Yasser, “Circles of Power: Palace, Citadel, and City in Ayyubid Aleppo,” Ars Orientalis, 23 (1993): 181–87Google Scholar.

43 On Ghazi's reign and policy, see al-ʿAdim, Ibn (1192–1261), Zubdat al-Ḥalab min Tārīkh Ḥalab,3 vols., ed. al-Dahhān, Sāmī (Damascus, 1951–68), 3:136–41Google Scholar; Wiet, Gaston, “Une inscription de Malik Zahir Ghazi à Lattakieh,” Bulletin de I'lnstilut français darchéologie orientate du Caire, 30 (1930–31): 273–92, esp. 282–86Google Scholar.

44 lbn Wāṣil, , Mufarrij al-Kurūb, vol. 3, ed. al-Shayyāl, G. D. (Cairo, 1960), 239Google Scholar.

45 Ibid., 248–49.

46 Ibn al-ʿAdīm, , Zubdat, 3:205, 267Google Scholar.

47 lbn Wāṣil, , Mufarrij, 3:180Google Scholar.

48 Sauvaget, , Alep, 169Google Scholar.

49 Qalqashandī, , Subḥ, 4:222–25Google Scholar, offers a description of the ma?ālim ceremony in Aleppo.

50 al-Nuwayrī, Shihāb al-Dīn (d. 1331), Nihāyat al-Arab fi Funūn al-Adab, ms. 549 maʿārifʿāmma, 32 vols., 30:fol. 63Google Scholar, and al-Manṣūrī, Baybars (d. 1325), al-Tuḥfa al-Mulūkiyya fi-l-Oawla al-Turkiyya, ed. ḥamdān, A. H. S. (Cairo, 1987), 224Google Scholar, say that Dar al-ʿAdl al-Kamiliyya overlooked the durkāh of the citadel (inside the Qulla Gate).

51 Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:204Google Scholar; idem, Sulūk, 1:202.

52 al-Muqaffaʿ, Sawīrus ibn, Siyar al-bayʿa al-Muqaddasa, eds. Khater, A. and Burmester, O. H. E. (Cairo, 1974), vol. 4, pt. 2, 107Google Scholar; Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij, 5:241–42, events of 1239.

53 Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:208Google Scholar, 374; idem, Sulūk, 1:373.

54 Nuwayrī, , Nihāyat, 31:fol. 99Google Scholar, the amir lived there in the year 1330.

55 Shaddād, ʿIzz al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn (d. 1285), Tārīkh al-Malik al-Ẓāhir, ed. Ḥuṭaīṭ, A. (Wiesbaden, 1983), 341–42Google Scholar.

56 al-Ẓāhir, Ibn ʿAbd (1223–92), al-Rawḍ al-Zāhir fi Tārīkh al-Malik al-Ẓāhir, ed. Khuwayṭer, A. (Riyadh, 1976), 182Google Scholar.

57 Casanova, Paul, Tārīkh wa-Waṣf Qalʿat al-Qāhira, trans. Darrāg, Aḥmad (Cairo, 1974), 103–4Google Scholar. Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 2:236, and Ibn Taghrī-Birdī, Nujūm, 9:74, corroborate the report of Shafiʿ ibn ʿAli, cited by Casanova, about the Dar al-ʿAdl having been a Fatimid mausoleum by recording the discovery of buried bodies under the structure when it was rebuilt as a ṭablakhāna in 1322.

58 Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 1:501Google Scholar; al-Zahir, Ibn ʿAbd, Rawd, 210Google Scholar, say that Baybars sat under the awning (sujfa) in the mastaba next to Dar al-ʿAdl to review the parades in the maydān.

59 Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:205Google Scholar; Shaddād, Ibn, Tārīkh, 277–82Google Scholar. For a list of cases reviewed by Baybars in dūr al-ʿadl in Cairo and Damascus, see Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 144–47Google Scholar.

60 al-Furāt, Ibn, Tārīkh, vol. 7, ed. Zurayk, K. (Beirut, 1942), 259Google Scholar, and Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 1:712, report that the assessment of the poll-tax (Jawālī) from non-Muslims in 1283 took place in the Dar al-ʿAdl under the citadel, and was supervised by the vizier. Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, 2:206, says that Dar al-ʿAdl al-Zahiriyya was used for maẓālim sessions presided over by the nāʿib until the reign of Qalawun.

61 Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:205, 213Google Scholar, and idem, Sulūk, 2:236; Taghrī-Birdiī, Ibn, Nujūm, 9:74Google Scholar.

62 Casanova, , Tārīkh, 105–6Google Scholar.

63 ”The zāiya stands below (sift) the ṭablakhāna of the Citadel,” awqaf 1079, waqf of Ḥasan b. Ilyās al-Rūmī, dated 8 Shawwal 941 (1535), line 21. Reference from al-Dīn, M. Ḥusāmal-Fattāḥ, ʿAbd, “Manṭiqat al-Darb al-Aḥmar (the district of al-Darb al-Ahar)" (Master's thesis, Asyut University, 1986),311, lines 34–5Google Scholar.

64 al-āhir, Ibn ʿAbd, Rawḍ, 141Google Scholar; al-Dawādāri, Ibn, Kanz al-Durar wa-Jāmiʿal-Ghurar, vol. 8, Al-Durra al-Dhakiyya fi Akhbā al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, ed. Haarmann, U. (Cairo, 1971), 63; Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 1:438Google Scholar.

65 ʿIbn-Shaddād, , Tarīkh, 339–40Google Scholar; Al-Kutubī, (d. 1363) Fawāt al-Wafayāt wa-l-Dhayl ʿAlayhā, 4 vols., ed. ʿAbbās, I. (Beirut, 1973), 1:242Google Scholar; Taghrī-Birdī, Ibn, Nujūm, 7:190Google Scholar.

66 al-Furāt, Ibn, Tārīkh, vol. 8, ed. Zurayk, K. and Izzedine, N. (Beirut, 1939), 38Google Scholar; al-Ẓāhir, Ibn-ʿAbd, Tashrīf al-Ayyām wa-l-ʿUṣūr fi Sīrat al-Malik al-Manṣūr, ed. Kāmil, M. (Cairo, 1961), 139Google Scholar.

67 Chroniclers are not unanimous in ascribing the construction of an īwān to Khalil, . al-Dāwadārī, Ibn, al-Durra al-Zakiyya, 345Google Scholar, states that “al-Iwan al-Ashrafl was completed by Amir ʿAlam al-Din al- Shujaʿi.” In Zetterstéen, K. V., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Mamlukensultane in den Jahren 690–741 (Leiden, 1919), 156Google Scholar, the unknown chronicler who lived during that period refers to the īwān as al-Ashrafi when al-Nasir ordered its destruction in 1311; Nuwayrī, , Nihayāt, 30:fol. 66Google Scholar, however, calls the same structure the Iwan al-Mansuri when he reports that event.

68 Description de 1'Égypte, élal moderne, planches, 21 vols. (Paris, 1809), l:plate 26Google Scholar for the map of Cairo with the citadel, plates 70–72 for views, sections, and elevations of the Great Iwan.

69 Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 1:734Google Scholar, and al-Furat, Ibn, Tarikh, 8:49Google Scholar and 58, report an incident in 1287 which indicates that the four qudat al-qudat sat in the Dar al-ʿAdl in some order, but they do not mention the location of this structure nor whether sultan Qalawun attended the service. Maqrizi, , Suliik, 1:772Google Scholar, says that Khalil sat in the Dar al-ʿAdl but does not say where that structure was. Ibid., 1:83O, also reports that Sultan Lajin (1297–99) decided to sit in the Dar al-ʿAdl twice a week, but, again, no mention of where it was.

70 Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 1:756Google Scholar.

71 al-Dawādāri, Ibn, Kanz al-Durar, vol. 9, al-Durr al-Fākhir fi Sirat al-Malik al-Nāsir, ed. Roemer, H. R. (Cairo, 1960), 238Google Scholar; Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 2:107Google Scholar; Taghrī-Birdī, Ibn, Nujūm, 9:51Google Scholar.

72 al-ʿUmarī, Ibn Faḍl-Allah, Masālik al-Abṣār fi-Mamālik al-Amṣar, Dawlat al-Mamālik al-Ulā, ed. Krawulsky, D. (Beirut, 1986), 116–17Google Scholar; Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:215Google Scholar; Qalqashandī, , Subḥ, 4:16–17Google Scholar. Both copied al-ʿUmarī with a few additions.

73 For a concise summary of al-Nasir's reign, see Irwin, Robert, The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamluk Sultanate 1250–1382 (Carbondale, III., 1986), 85–124Google Scholar; also, Holt, P. M., The Age of the Crusades: The Near East From the Eleventh Century to 1517 (London, 1986), 107–20Google Scholar.

74 The chroniclers offer many examples of the ʿāmma, who were generally believed to be indifferent to government changes, helping al-Nasir. For an instance in 1307, Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 2:34–35Google Scholar; for another one in 1310, ibid., 2:68, and al-Manṣūrī, Baybars, Tuḥfa, 204Google Scholar; For reactions to his opponent Jashankir, Baybars al-, Taghrī-Birdī, Ibn, Nujūm, 8:244Google Scholar; Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 2:71Google Scholar, al-Manṣūrī, Baybars, Tuḥfa, 199Google Scholar.

75 al-Ḥajjī, Ḥayāt, The Internal Affairs in Egypt during the Third Reign of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad B. Qalawun (Kuwait, 1978), 78–79Google Scholar, noted the political importance of al-Nasir's decision to attend maẓālim sessions, but went on to advance an improbable and historically unverified reaction of the amirs to this decision.

76 ʿUmarī, , Masālik, 141–42Google Scholar offers the most complete description of the Great Iwan's layout. His text was copied in Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:210Google Scholar.

77 Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:206Google Scholar; al-Ẓāhirī, Ibn Shāhīn, Zubdat Kashf al-Mamālik wa-Bayān al-Ṭuruq wa-l- Masālik, ed. Ravaisse, Paul (Paris, 1894), 26Google Scholar; Iyās, Ibn, Badāʾiʿ al-Zuhūr fi Waqāʾiʿ al-Duhūr, 5 vols., ed. Mustafa, M. (Cairo, 1982), 5:441Google Scholar.

78 Casanova, , Tārīkh, 127Google Scholar, was the first to read the remainder of the inscription correctly. A similar inscription runs around the drum of the Nasiri Mosque's dome today. The two inscriptions were possibly done at the same time.

79 ʿUmarī, , Masālik, 100–102Google Scholar, who was an eyewitness; Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:208–9Google Scholar, and Qalqashandī, , Subḥ, 4:44–45Google Scholar, and 62, copy ʿUmarī and add new information pertaining to the custom in their period but confuse it with the original report. al-Manṣūrī, Baybars, Tuḥfa, 231Google Scholar, and 233–34, gives an elaborate description of the event and lists the names of the amirs who were required to sit around the sultan. An English translation of Maqrizi's report is in Holt, , Crusades, 144–45Google Scholar; Stowasser, Karl, “Manners and Customs at the Mamluk Court,” Muqarnas, 2 (1984): 17Google Scholar; Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 54–59Google Scholar.

80 Jomard, Edmé Francois, “Déscription de la ville et de la citadelle du Kaire,” Déscription de I'Égypte, état moderne (Paris, 1809) 18:354–55Google Scholar, thought it was a mihrab and concluded that the Great Iwan might have been a mosque.

81 By asserting that the sultan's throne was on a level higher than his officials, Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 56Google Scholar, missed the point about the symbolic humility implied in the sultan's consciously abandoning the higher throne on dār al-ʿadl days in favor of the lower dast.

82 See the references to ʿUmarī's tenure as the kātib al-sirr in Nielsen, , Secular Justice, 160Google Scholar.

83 A number of architectural precedents to the Great Iwan have been proposed; see Abouseif, Doris Behrens-, “The Citadel of Cairo: Stage for Mamluk Ceremonial,” Annales islamologiques 24 (1988): 77–78Google Scholar; Lezine, Alexandre, “Les salles nobles des palais Mamelouks,” Annales islamologiques 10 (1972): 65, 71Google Scholar.

84 The Florentine traveler Brancacci, who reported on the audience he attended there during the reign of Barsbay, says that the sultan was seated on a raised platform and was perfectly visible from all sides; see Behrens-Abouseif, , “Citadel of Cairo,” 42–43Google Scholar.

85 Lavin, Irving, “The House of the Lord,” Art Bulletin 44 (1962): 16–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar, begins to chart the survival of basilicas in royal Islamic architecture. For a fuller discussion of the Great Iwan, see Rabbat, Nasser, “Mamluk Throne Halls: Qubba or Iwan,” Ars Orientalis 23 (1993): 201–9Google Scholar.

86 al-ShujāʿI, Shams al-DIn, Tārīkh al-Malik al-Nāṣīr Muḥammad b. Qalāwun al-Ṣāliḥī wa-Awlādahu, ed. Schäfer, Barbara (Wiesbaden, 1977), 1:235Google Scholar; Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:214–15Google Scholar; Taghrī-Birdī, Ibn, Nujūm, 10:32Google Scholar.

87 Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:207, 241Google Scholar; idem, Sulūk, 3:566; al-Furāt, Ibn, Tārikh, 9:17Google Scholar; lyās, Ibn, Badāʾiʿ, vol. 1, pt. 2, 388Google Scholar.

88 For Barsbay see Taghrī-Birdī, Ibn, Nujum, 14:318Google Scholar; al-Ṣayrafī, al-Jawharī, Nuzhat al-Nufūs wa-l- Abdān fī Tawārīkh al-Azmān, 3 vols., ed. Ḥabashī, H. (Cairo, 1970), 3:238–39Google Scholar; for Qaytbay see al-Ṣayrafī, al- Jawharī, Inbā1 al-Haṣr bi-Abnāʾ al-ʿAṣr, ed. Habashī, H. (Cairo, 1970), 294, 327, 339Google Scholar; lyas, Ibn, Badāʾiʿ, 3:60–61, 329Google Scholar.

88 For a collection of eyewitness reports on the destruction of the Great Iwan by Muhammad ʿAli, see Wiet, Gaston, Mohammed Ali et les beaux-arts (Cairo, 1949), 265–88Google Scholar.

90 See the general remarks on the “Turkish” penetration of Syria, Anatolia, and Jezira, in, Cahen, Claude, “La première pénétration turque en Asie-Mineure,” Byzantion, 18 (1946–1948): 61–66Google Scholar; Musṭafā, Shākir, “Dukhul al-Turk al-Ghuzz ila al-Shām,” in Al-Muʾtamar al-Dawlī li Tārīkh Bilād al-Shām, ed. Garaybeh, K. and Duri, A. A. (Amman, 1974), 303–4Google Scholar.

91 Sivan, Emmanuel, L'Islam et la Croisade, Idéologie et Propagande dans les Réactions Musulmanes aux Croisades (Paris, 1968)Google Scholar, is the most complete study to date on this important yet neglected topic. For a general discussion of ideology and propaganda, see Humphreys, R. Stephen, “Ideology and Propaganda: Religion and State Under the Early Seljukids,” in his Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (Minneapolis, 1988), 138–56Google Scholar.

92 Examples abound especially from the periods of Nur al-Din and Salah al-Din, as samples, see the letter Nur al-Din sent to al-Mustadiʾin 1173, Shāma, Abū, Rawḍatayn, 1:215Google Scholar; al-Athīr, Ibn, Kāmil, 11:395Google Scholar, for a description of the content. For a series of letters composed by al-Qadi al-Fadil for Salah al-Din and sent to the caliphs in Baghdad, see Qalqashandī, , Subḥ, 6:496–516Google Scholar, 7:126–30. For the Arabic text and an English translation of the letter Salah al-Din sent after the conquest of Tiberias in 1187, see Melville, C. P. and Lyons, M. C., “Saladin's Hattin Letter,” in The Horns of Hattin, ed. Kedar, B. Z. (Jerusalem, 1992), 208–12Google Scholar.

93 For the khuṭba's text, see al-Ẓāhir, Ibn ṭAbd, Rawḍ, 102–10Google Scholar; al-Dawādārt, Ibn, al-Durra al-Zakiyya, 73–79Google Scholar; Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 1:453–57Google Scholar; Qalqashandī, , Subḥ, 10:111–16Google Scholar. For the khuṭba of the second caliph, al-Hakim, installed by Baybars in 1262 after the death of al-Mustansir in his ill-fated campaign against the Mongols, see al-Ẓāhir, Ibn ʿAbd, Rawḍ, 141–47Google Scholar. The same khuṭba was delivered by the same caliph, more than thirty years later when al-Ashraf Khalil released him from house arrest in 1291 and ordered him to praise his conquests publicly, Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 1:771–72Google Scholar; al-Furāt, Ibn, Tārīkh, 8:128–29, 135Google Scholar. See also, Holt, P. M., “Some Observations on the Abbasid Caliphate of Cairo,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 47 (1984): 501–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Shāhīn, Ibn, Zubdat, 89–90Google Scholar, lists the Muslim rulers who sought investitures from the caliph in Cairo, and adds that the title sultan should be given only to the ruler of Egypt because of his direct investiture by the legitimate caliph. Qalqashandī, , Subḥ, 10:129–34Google Scholar, reproduces a letter of investiture written in 1410 in the name of the Caliph al-Mustaʿin bi-llah (r. 1406–14) to Shams al-Din Muzaffar Shah, king of Delhi (probably Zafar Khan Muzaffar Shah [1391–1411], the last Tughluqid governor and founder of the sultanate of Gujarat), but asserts that this was the only diploma for a sultan other than the Mamluks.

95 Allouche, Adel, “Tegüder's Ultimatum to Qalawun,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 22 (1990): 437–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, noticed a pertinent discrepancy between the Mamluk and Ilkhanid versions of Qalawun's reply to Tegüder, whereby the two Ilkhanid sources include Qalawun's praise for Caliph al-Hakim, whom he in fact put under house arrest, at the beginning of the text. The Mamluk chroniclers, with one exception, omit that reference, probably to mitigate any possible angry reaction of the sultan. Allouche accurately explains this political stratagem on the part of the Mamluk sultans to underscore their Islamic legitimacy and seniority vis-à-vis the Ilkhanids.

96 See the analysis of Dorothea Krawulsky concerning the roles of the intellectuals, the resurrected caliphate, and the leadership of jihad in providing the legitimization for the Mamluk state in her introductory study to ʿUmarī, , Masālik, 15–37Google Scholar, text of Waṣṣāf, , 33–34Google Scholar; reprinted in her collection of articles, al-ʿArab wa Irān, Dirāsāt fi al-Tārīkh wa al-Adab min al-Manzūr al-Aydīūlūgī (Beirut, 1993), 94–116Google Scholar.

97 Examples in Sivan, , L'Islam et la Croisade, 67–70, 102–8, 133–34, 178–80Google Scholar.

98 The witty observer Jubair, Ibn (1144-1217), al-Riḥla (Beirut, 1980), 216Google Scholar, comments on the profusion of elaborate titles that many of these princes do not deserve the honors they attribute to themselves, but excludes Salah al-Din from his general judgment.

99 Nikita Élisséeff, , “La titulature de Nur al-Din d'après ses inscriptions”, Bulletin d'Études Orientales 14 (Damascus, 1952—1954): 155–96Google Scholar.

100 Tabbaa, Yasser, “Monuments with a Message: Propagation of Jihad under Nur Ad-Din (1146–1174)”, in The Meeting of Two Worlds: Cultural Exchange between East and West during the Period of the Crusades, ed. Goss, V. P. and Bornstein, C. V. (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1986), 223–40, analyzes the development of Nur al-Din's titulatureGoogle Scholar.

101 At the end of the 13th century, one of the leading legists placed the dispensing of justice second only to the pursuit of jihad; Jamāʿa, Badr al-Dīn ibn (1241–1333), Taḥrīr al-Aḥkām fi Tadbīr Ahl al-lslām, ed. Kofler, Hans, Islamica, vols. 6–7 (1933–1935), 6:353–414, 7:1 64, esp. chaps. 2 and 5Google Scholar.

102 Regardless of his known favoritism toward the Zankids, al-Athīr, Ibn, Kāmil, 11:403Google Scholar, was clearly expressing a true feeling when he stated that he “had read the biographies of the sovereigns of old, and other than among the first [Rashidi] caliphs had not found a man as virtuous and just as Nur al-Din”.

103 The most glaring example is the Sīrat Baybars (Roman de Baībars) translated by Georges Bohas and Jean-Patrick Guillaume from an Aleppine manuscript written in the early 19th century, of which eight volumes have been published since 1985. It is too early to conduct any full-scale study on the relationship between the real-life Baybars and the epic's hero, but for a preliminary discussion see Guillaume, J. P., “Présentation”, in Les enfances de Baîbars (Paris, 1985), 20–35.Google Scholar Unfortunately, the Islamic epic literature of the Crusades and of the post-Crusades period is a subject that has barely been touched in a scholarly fashion; see Sivan, , L'Islam et la Croisade, 195–206Google Scholar.

104 Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 2:536–37Google Scholar; Taghrī-Birdī, Ibn, Nujūm, 9:176Google Scholar.

105 This change of mentality is not well charted, but a passage in Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, 2:213–14Google Scholar, bewails the Mamluk character during the Qalawunid period and outlines the changes that took place with the advent of the Burji age.

106 This was a clever tactic by which al-Nasir effectively prevented the usurpation of the throne from his designated heir by appointing Qawsun and Bashtak as regents, when they had no right to become sultans themselves, because neither of them was a real mamluk nor a son of a sultan. As apparent from a dialogue reported in Taghrī-Birdī, Ibn, Nujūm, 10:19–20Google Scholar, they realized that they were limited in their scheming to manipulating the sultan.

107 On the Mamluk training system, see Ayalon, David, “L'esclavage du Mamelouk”, Oriental Notes and Studies I (1951): 1–66Google Scholar, reprinted in The Mamluk Military Society (London, 1979)Google Scholar; also, idem, “Mamlukiyyat: (B) Ibn Khaldūn's View of the Mamluk Phenomenon”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980): 340–49Google Scholar, reprinted in Outsiders in the Lands of Islam: Mamluks, Mongols and Eunuchs (London, 1988)Google Scholar, for a translation of Ibn Khaldūn's passage on the education of mamluks.

108 These are the words of Maqrīzī, the bitter critic of his age, who went on to satirize the mamluks of his time as “more lustful than monkeys, more ravenous than rats, and more harmful than wolves”, Khiṭaṭ, 2:214Google Scholar.

109 On the campaigns against Cyprus and the jihad propaganda initiated by the sultan, see Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 4:721–26, 738–43Google Scholar; Taghrī-Birdī, Ibn, Nujūm, 14:287–90, 292–304Google Scholar; Ṣayrafī, , Nuzhat al-Nufūs, 3:76–95Google Scholar; Ibn Iyās, , Badāʾiʿ, 2:97–100, 106–10Google Scholar; also, Darrāg, Aḥmad, L'Égypte sous le règne de Barsbay 825–841/1422–1438 (Damascus, 1961), 239–61.Google Scholar For Barsbay sitting in the Great Iwan for maẓālim sessions on Tuesdays and Saturdays, see Maqrīzī, , Sulūk, 4:871Google Scholar; Taghrī-Birdī, Ibn, Nujūm, 14:361–62Google Scholar; Iyās, Ibn, Badāʾiʿ, 2:173–74Google Scholar.