The emergence of Gaza as a provincial intellectual centre during the Mamluk period

Abstract

During the Mamluk period (1260–1516), Gaza developed from a minor town into an important city in southern Bilād al-Shām, the capital of an administrative province. This prosperity was the product of substantial and continuous Mamluk investment in the town, the security and stability maintained by this regime, and Gaza's strategic location as the bridge connecting Egypt and Bilād al-Shām. This article will trace the concomitant development of Gaza as a provincial intellectual centre within this context. Combining narrative sources with epigraphic and material evidence, it will show how the growth of Gaza as an administrative centre instigated a flourishing—albeit modest—scholarly scene in the town, which, while strongly connected to and integrated with wider social and intellectual networks within the Sultanate, retained its unique character.

During the twelfth and the first half of the thirteenth centuries, Gaza was a relatively minor settlement, which was affected negatively by its location between warring factions. The Mamluk takeover of the region brought a dramatic change of fortune for the coastal town. It was transformed into a provincial administrative centre (niyāba; mamlaka) and consequently enjoyed substantial investment by the new regime. Sources from the Mamluk period emphasise that, during the first half of the fourteenth century, Gaza's population grew, the necessary civilian infrastructure was founded in it, and it became a full-grown city (madīna).

The religious and intellectual history of Mamluk Gaza should be examined in this framework and its place within the wider political and religious circumstances of the Mamluk Sultanate considered. Due to the relative dearth of narrative sources that could shed light on those issues—we have almost no accounts of the religious life of Gazans and no local histories of the town were written during the medieval periods—the main aim of this article will be to construct, in broad lines, an account of the development of Gaza as a provincial intellectual centre within the Mamluk Sultanate.¹ This will be achieved by a thorough analysis of the written sources—biographical dictionaries, chronicles, geographical compendiums, and more—alongside the substantial epigraphic evidence that attests to the massive building activity in the town throughout the Mamluk era.² An emphasis will be placed on Gaza's regional networks—that is, within Palestine or south-west Bilād al-Shām; its growing importance during the Mamluk period as a bridgehead between Cairo and Damascus, or Egypt and Bilād al-Shām; as well as on Mamluk investment in it as a provincial capital. The article will focus on Gaza's place within the intellectual networks of the Mamluk Sultanate, the activities of the local ʽulamā', the learning institutions that facilitated their activities, and the direct relationship between the ascendance of the town as a political-administrative centre and the growth of its intellectual scene. While several studies have been conducted on Mamluk Gaza,³ none has dedicated a thorough investigation into the growth of the intellectual scene of the town during this formative period.

Gaza in pre-Mamluk times

Since the Muslim conquests of Palestine in the seventh century and until the Mamluk period, Gaza was a settlement of minor importance. While under Muslim rule Gaza lost its importance as a maritime port, it retained its significance as a crucial link on the road connecting Egypt and Syria, and even gained new importance as one of the Muslim frontier posts (thughūr, rubuṭ) on the shore of the Mediterranean. For that reason, it became known, along with Ascalon, as one of ‘the two brides [of al-Shām]’ (al-ʽarūsayn), so that whoever settled there was promised divine blessing, according to a hadith.⁴ This, along with its identification as the destination of one of the two annual Qurayshī trade expeditions, the burial site of the prophet Muḥammad's great-grandfather Hāshim,⁵ and the birthplace of the king/prophet Solomon and the great jurist Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʽī (150–204/767–820),⁶ gave Gaza a certain amount of Islamic prestige, despite its political marginality.⁷ Yet, very little information exists in the sources regarding the Muslim community of Gaza during the early Islamic period, and rarely do we read of any scholars who hailed from it, with the exception of the aforementioned al-Shāfiʽī—who migrated at an early age to the Hijaz—and the celebrated poet, Ibrāhīm al-Ashhabī al-Kalbī al-Ghazzī (d. 524/1129), who flourished mainly in Iran.⁸

During the long period during which Egypt and Syria were mostly under the rule of competing political entities, Gaza and its vicinities became a battleground on multiple occasions—detrimental conditions for sustaining a lively intellectual community.⁹ Nonetheless, epigraphic evidence shows a fair amount of Ayyubid investment in Gaza, including the foundation of a mosque and, perhaps, a madrasa.¹⁰ Moreover, we have information on at least one qāḍī of Gaza during the Ayyubid period¹¹ and it seems plausible to assume continuity in this position into the Mamluk period.¹² At least a certain amount of intellectual activity was going on in Gaza during the Ayyubid period, as we have some information, rare as it is, on hadith transmission in the town. As will be discussed below, evidence for this is usually related to Gaza's geographical position as a bridge between Egypt and Syria, which turned it into a mandatory stopping point for scholars who were moving between the two regions. While in Gaza, some would engage in hadith study with local scholars.¹³

Gaza under the Mamluks

Whatever scholarly activity, and even rulers' patronage thereof, was going on in Gaza during the Ayyubid era, there can be little doubt that Mamluk rule opened a new chapter in the history of the town. The epigraphic evidence, backed by descriptions in narrative sources, clearly shows that the Mamluks offered Gaza the two things needed for the growth of a sustainable and lively (if not thriving) scholarly scene: long-term security and institutional patronage. This was coupled with—and in many ways was the product of—Gaza's rise as an administrative centre and provincial capital, its relative economic prosperity, and its location on the main route connecting Egypt and Syria, or Cairo and Damascus, the two main political centres of the Sultanate.¹⁴ Indeed, in clear contradiction to the scant information on Gazan scholars during the preceding periods, during the Mamluk period, we can gather dozens of biographies of scholars who originated, grew up, learned, and flourished in Gaza.¹⁵

Mamluk patronage of religious and learning institutions in Gaza started early and reached its zenith during the prosperous third Sultanate of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad (709–741/1310–1341). It seems that Sultan Baybars (r. 658–676/1260–1277), even though he frequently passed through Gaza and camped there during his reign—part of his constant campaigning against the Franks—did not establish any significant religious institutions in the town¹⁶ and the assertion that he founded in Gaza a madrasa that contained an enormous library should be dismissed.¹⁷ Nor did Baybars's famous reform in the judiciary—the appointment of four chief qāḍīs—reach Gaza and, other than a Shāfiʽī qāḍī, representatives of the other three madhāhib appear for the first time only during Barqūq's reign, in the 780s/1380s, or even later (more on this below).¹⁸ Similarly, during the period of Sultan Qalāwūn (678–689/1279–1290) and the so-called ‘Manṣūriyya period’ (circa 1290–1310), we have no concrete evidence for the foundation of any madrasa in Gaza, although the epigraphy shows constant investment in the town, with several mosques being founded or repaired during the first five decades of Mamluk rule, through the patronage of either the Mamluk elite or local notables.¹⁹

While these establishments provided a certain number of paid positions for local ʽulamā' (such as khaṭīb, imām, etc.) and certainly would have served also as locations for scholarly gatherings, it was during the illustrious third reign of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad, and specifically under the energetic governor of Bilād al-Shām, Tankiz, and the capable governor of Gaza, Sanjar al-Jāwlī, that Gaza, through significant Mamluk building activity, made the leap from a small to medium-sized town to a real city (madīna) and provincial centre.²⁰ Among al-Jāwlī's foundations, we should especially mention his grand Friday Mosque—favourably mentioned by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa²¹—and the Shāfiʽī madrasa he established. Al-Jāwlī was himself an acknowledged Shāfiʽī scholar²² and so the madrasa he founded was surely a significant encouragement for Shāfiʽī scholarship in Gaza, providing both paid positions and a physical setting for learning.²³

Mamluk investment in Gaza continued uninterrupted until the very last years of their rule. Throughout this long period, several other madrasas were founded in town.²⁴ Mahamid lists nine madrasas that were founded during the Mamluk period, mostly through the patronage of the ruling elite.²⁵ This culminated with the foundation of Sultan Qā'itbāy's madrasa—an impressive establishment supported by numerous awqāf (endowments).²⁶ Inspection of its building was entrusted to a local scholar, ʽAbd al-Raḥmān al-Luddī, and his family—a notable Gazan family who originated from nearby Ludd and also held several key bureaucratic positions in town, such as nāẓir al-jaysh (overseer of army finance) and kātib al-sirr (confidential secretary).²⁷

Mamluk governors and local scholars

While some Mamluk patronage was carried out by the sultans,²⁸ or the ‘central government’ in Cairo, most was the product of initiatives carried out by emirs who were posted to Gaza, either as governors or in other positions.²⁹ This was motivated by personal reasons—aspirations to improve their image as pious Muslim rulers or to obtain blessing (baraka) in the hereafter;³⁰ and conforming to the sultan's policy or a sort of esprit de corps inspired by him.³¹ As Lapidus stated:

In either supporting or abusing communal institutions, the behavior of the Mamluks reflected their personal concerns and interests and not the policies of the Sultan. The governors' own funds, their willingness to help finance adjustments, and the intimacy of their relations with the ʽulamā' were crucial individual factors in the management of public affairs …. In a situation where responsibility for communal needs was not entrusted to regular governmental or communal agencies, public needs were left to the self-interest of the Mamluks, their sense of duty, and their desire for legitimation in the eyes of the ʽulamā' and the populace.³²

Later scholars, such as Kenney and Luz, saw the massive building surge during the third reign of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad as a reflection of the sultan's policy.³³ Arjomand, similarly, regarded the use of awqāf for philanthropic purposes by the local governors and high-ranking officials as representative of a state policy.³⁴ I would suggest that this also was to do with how those officers perceived their duties as rulers, governors, or senior officials and their sense of attachment to the localities to which they were posted, at times for substantial periods of time during which they developed intense and intimate connections with the locals, and especially the learned and administrative elites they worked with.

Naturally, it is impossible to ascertain what motivations drove individual Mamluk officers to invest in Gaza, or elsewhere, nor how strong their attachments to the towns and communities over which they governed were. This is especially problematic regarding Gaza, as we do not possess any descriptions of the relations between its governors and the local population. However, we can infer from the information that we have regarding other localities in the Sultanate. The best parallel is Safed, which experienced a very similar fortune to that of Gaza during the early Mamluk period. Like Gaza, it was a rather insignificant town prior to its seizure by the Mamluks—though a strategic military stronghold—but was turned into a provincial capital by Baybars and then, under Mamluk patronage, grew substantially until reaching a peak during the third reign of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad. In fact, if the long-time governor at that time, Sanjar al-Jāwlī, was responsible for ‘turning Gaza into a city’, then the contemporaneous governor of Safed, Ariqṭāy al-Manṣūrī (718–736/1318–1336), played a parallel role.³⁵

Luckily, we possess a local history of Safed—the Ta'rīkh Ṣafad, written by its qāḍī, Muḥammad al-ʽUthmānī, during the second half of the eighth/fourteenth century. This text, written from the point of view of a local notable, contains some revealing information about the relations between the Mamluk governors of Safed and its population. Mutatis mutandis, it could teach us something about the dynamics at Gaza: after all, the same Mamluk emirs moved from one position to the other in different localities. It is notable that the locals praised and cherished governors who invested in the infrastructure of their town, founded new religious establishments, and manifested a compassionate attitude to their subjects, and some of the Mamluk governors came to be considered part of the community.³⁶ Methodologically, when trying to piece together a more comprehensive history of Bilād al-Shām under Mamluk rule, and especially of southern Bilād al-Shām and its more provincial towns, the lacunae in primary sources can be somewhat compensated for by combining the evidence regarding Safed and Gaza, which is of varying natures: Safed provides us with a unique local history, representing the perspective of its local elite, while Gaza offers us an especially wide range of epigraphic evidence, incomparable to that of Safed. Indeed, the inscriptions preserved in Gaza show the scope of Mamluk investment in the town, and especially that of the local governors and other office holders.³⁷

Thus, intricate relations formed between the Mamluk governors and functionaries posted at Gaza and members of the religious and scholarly elite in the town. This reflects the conclusions of recent scholarship, which has moved away from the image of the Mamluks as a segregated caste of warlords who ruled from the citadel while keeping distance from their subjects to a more nuanced view that emphasises the intense personal relations between the Mamluks and the local elites.³⁸ For the ʽulamā', and especially in a rather provincial town like Gaza, forming close ties with Mamluk emirs was one of the best ways to attain paid positions, since the Mamluks were the patrons and endowers of a significantly large portion of religious and learning institutions. In this sense, the Mamluk emirs played a key role in the constant competition within the ʽulamā' over jobs (manṣabs)—a dynamic explored by Michael Chamberlain regarding Damascus, though surely also in play elsewhere in the Sultanate.³⁹ Furthermore, weaving close connections with local Mamluk representatives could serve as an exit card for a scholar with higher aspirations, assuming that his patron would climb up the Mamluk hierarchy, with an eye on the centres of Damascus and, especially, Cairo.⁴⁰

An illustrative example is that of the Ḥanafī faqīh, ʽAlī b. Aḥmad al-Baghdādī al-Ghazzī (d. 867/1463)—a native of Gaza who was educated by some of the notable scholars in town. During the emir Īnāl al-ʽAlā'ī's tenure as governor of Gaza (831–836/1428–1433), ʽAlī entered his retinue and educated his children.⁴¹ In time, ʽAlī earned Īnāl's trust and the two became close associates. When Īnāl became sultan, ʽAlī was brought to Cairo, appointed as one of the sultan's imāms, and then given the lucrative position of Inspector of Endowments (nāẓir al-awqāf). During Īnāl's reign, ʽAlī's reputation grew, and he achieved significant influence and property.⁴² A more modest example is that of the qāḍī Muḥammad Ibn Manṣūr, who served in Gaza for a long period as a scribe (muwaqqiʽ) and administrator (kātib al-jaysh). He was later assigned to a position in Safed in 726/1326 but was unhappy there and asked to be reassigned to Gaza.⁴³ Later on, he was dismissed by the governor of Bilād al-Shām, Tankiz, and remained unemployed. At this unfortunate stage of his career, a former acquaintance from Gaza came to his rescue: the emir Sayf al-Dīn Ṭaynāl al-Ashrafī (d. 743/1342), who was the governor of Gaza for a short period in 733/1332–1333, before happily accepting a relocation to Tripoli for a second term as governor there.⁴⁴ It was during Ṭaynāl's short rule in Gaza that he worked with Ibn Manṣūr, who was his scribe. When Ibn Manṣūr found himself unemployed, Ṭaynāl appointed him as junior secretary (kātib al-darj) in Tripoli.⁴⁵ Thus, through the relations he formed with the governor of Gaza, Ibn Manṣūr was able to attain a new job when needed.⁴⁶

This story is characteristic of the social dynamics of the Mamluk Sultanate and reveals something about the day-to-day human interactions between rulers and the learned elites they employed and associated with.⁴⁷ It is also indicative of Gaza's place within the political, social, and intellectual networks of the Sultanate, being more closely entwined with the networks of Bilād al-Shām than those of Egypt. Indeed, both Ṭaynāl and Ibn Manṣūr moved between appointments within Bilād al-Shām—namely, Gaza, Safed, Jerusalem,⁴⁸ Tripoli, Baalbek, and Damascus.⁴⁹ This is not a coincidence, but characteristic of the careers of dozens of other emirs, and especially bureaucrats and scholars.⁵⁰

Gaza within the intellectual hierarchies of the Sultanate

Gaza's learned elite, be it members of the ʽulamā' or bureaucrats, was thus well integrated into the hierarchical scholarly and administrative networks of the Mamluk Sultanate. While it might be obvious for a Mamluk emir to move only between positions within the Sultanate, this is far from taken for granted when dealing with the ʽulamā', who, for centuries, moved throughout the Muslim world irrespective of political boundaries—part of their personal quest in the search for knowledge and patronage. During the Mamluk period, the mobility of scholars never ceased, even in times of continuous hostilities on the north-eastern borders of the Sultanate. However, local scholars generally moved within the networks of scholarly relations and patronage that stretched from Cairo to the Euphrates. While the career of a typical Gazan ʽālim usually took him on the mandatory journey ‘in search of knowledge’, this rarely went beyond Bilād al-Shām, and only on extremely rare occasions beyond the borders of the Sultanate.⁵¹ Cairo had the strongest appeal, with Damascus coming second, though the latter was apparently more accessible and much more frequented by scholars from Gaza. Perhaps the most illustrious example of a Gazan scholar who ‘made it’ in Damascus is that of Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʽAbdallāh al-ʽĀmirī al-Ghazzī (d. 822/1419). Born and raised in Gaza, he attained his primary education there before moving to Damascus, where he not only became a renowned scholar, but also established a scholarly dynasty that flourished for generations and from which hailed such illustrious scholars as his son Raḍī al-Dīn (d. 864/1460), his great-grandson Badr al-Dīn (d. 984/1576), and the latter's son Najm al-Dīn (d. 1061/1651).⁵²

The Gaza scholarly scene generally seems to have been on a par with such provincial towns in Bilād al-Shām as Safed, Tripoli, and Hebron, and somewhat below that of Jerusalem. Thus, the Holy City was usually the first stop for a Gazan scholar who was looking to further his education, which is very reasonable considering that Jerusalem was the closest intellectual centre to Gaza, as well as its long appeal for Muslim scholars through the ages (due to its sanctity) and the close economic ties between the two towns.⁵³ There are a number of cases of individuals who moved frequently between Gaza and Jerusalem. Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Māzin/Mārib (d. 900/1495), an inhabitant of Gaza, first served as the Shāfiʽī qāḍī there and then as the Mālikī qāḍī, after shifting to the Mālikī school. After losing his position in Gaza, he was appointed as Mālikī qāḍī of Jerusalem—a position he held for three years throughout which he continued living in Gaza while making frequent visits to Jerusalem.⁵⁴ Conversely, we hear of a low-ranking Mamluk emir, Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Jīllī, who held an emirate of 10 in Gaza but lived in Jerusalem, where he invested his capital and ended up being buried.⁵⁵

While Gaza may be considered a mid-tier chain in the hierarchy of learning centres within the Mamluk Sultanate, it was also important as a regional centre that catered to the needs of the villages in its province (mamlaka). As such, Gaza was not just the regional economic hub, well connected to the various settlements in its hinterland through a network of roads and bridges established by the Mamluk regime,⁵⁶ but also the first destination for starting scholars from those localities looking to further their education. Thus, we learn through the career of Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Kinānī al-Majdalī (d. 870/1466), a native of Majdal (a town located next to Ascalon), that a modest scholarly scene existed in this locality. Al-Sakhāwī provides a detailed list of Shihāb al-Dīn's teachers in Majdal and the curriculum he learned with them, and, while doing so, names three of his teachers who were active in Majdal during the first half of the ninth/fifteenth century.⁵⁷ Following that, Shihāb al-Dīn naturally made his way to Gaza—‘his first stop after leaving his hometown’. He then continued to Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, and Mecca.⁵⁸ This career route well illustrates Gaza's position in the hierarchy of scholarly centres in the Mamluk Sultanate. Along the way, we also learn that Majdal had a qāḍī—probably a deputy of the qāḍī of Gaza—as did other small settlements in the province, such as Qaratayyā, in the vicinity of Bayt Jibrīn.⁵⁹

Another product of Gaza's geographic position as the bridge between Egypt and Syria was that it was frequently visited not only by military units—with the positive and negative implications of such visits—but also by travellers, pilgrims, merchants, and scholars moving back and forth. Some notable scholars, whose reputation preceded them, at times stayed in Gaza for several days, during which they might have studied hadith or other religious sciences with local scholars. By doing so, they gave local scholars the opportunity to learn from such authorities who rarely stayed at a provincial centre such as Gaza. Among the scholars who passed through Gaza during the Mamluk period, we should mention Ibn Taymiyya, who, on his route from Damascus to his infamous trial in Cairo, stopped at Gaza and held a public scholarly gathering (majlis) at the Friday Mosque.⁶⁰ Other notable scholars who passed through Gaza and interacted with their local peers include Ibn Ḥajar al-ʽAsqalānī (d. 852/1449), Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370), al-Birzālī (d. 739/1339), al-Sakhāwī (902/1497), Shams al-Dīn Ibn al-Jazarī (d. 833/1429), al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442), and Ibn Fahd of Mecca (885/1480).⁶¹ There is even one Shirazi scholar, Ḥusayn al-Shīrāzī (d. 895/1489), who went from Cairo to visit Jerusalem and, while passing through Gaza, recorded a sermon (khuṭba) that he heard at the mosque of al-Jāwlī.⁶²

The learned elite of Gaza

Aside from its place in the local and regional intellectual networks of the Sultanate, Gaza also continuously hosted a lively scholarly community. Some students were natives, while others spent extended portions of their careers there and came to be associated with the town. Especially since the mid-eighth/fourteenth century, in every generation, Gaza was home to several reputable scholars, considered as the highest local authorities and responsible for educating the next generations of local scholars. Thus, we can track a distinctively ‘Gazan silsila’ in which every distinguished scholar left a successor, who in turn filled his place as Gaza's leading authority in the next generation.

A few notable examples will demonstrate this continuity.⁶³ ʽAlā' al-Dīn ʽAlī b. Khalaf b. Kāmil al-Ghazzī (709–792/1309–1390) and his brother Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad (716–770/1316–1369) were born in Gaza and attained their primary education there before moving to Damascus. ʽAlī, the elder, distinguished himself primarily in his authoritative knowledge of hadith.⁶⁴ He settled back in Gaza, where he was appointed as qāḍī—a position he held for several years before being dismissed and devoting the rest of his life to teaching. According to Ibn Ḥijjī, ʽAlī took pride in teaching his younger brother Muḥammad and ʽImād al-Dīn al-Ḥisbānī but, at some point, his younger brother advanced in his scholarly career while ʽAlī lagged behind at Gaza.⁶⁵ One of ʽAlī b. Khalaf's students, Muḥammad al-Ghazzī al-Jaʽfarī, known as Ibn al-Aʽsar (763–846/1361–1442), another native of Gaza, ultimately succeeded his master as the Shāfiʽī qāḍī of the town. Interestingly, despite being a Shāfiʽī, he initially served as the Ḥanafī qāḍī, apparently after receiving Ibn Khalaf's advice to switch to the Ḥanafī madhhab (more on this below). He was later appointed deputy to the Shāfiʽī qāḍī and is reported to have orchestrated a spontaneous popular defence of the town before a rebel Mamluk emir.⁶⁶ In the wake of these events, he had to flee to Cairo but later returned to Gaza, this time as chief Shāfiʽī qāḍī—a position he seems to have held on and off until his death.⁶⁷

Ibn al-Aʽsar's student and successor as Shāfiʽī qāḍī of Gaza was Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ghazzī, known as Ibn al-Ḥimṣī (812–881/1409–1476). Also a native of Gaza, he studied in Cairo and Damascus, where he attended the lectures of Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba. Having returned to Gaza, he was appointed as Shāfiʽī qāḍī after Ibn al-Aʽsar's death and filled the position—with some interruptions—until 857/1453. He then spent two terms as qāḍī of Hamah before retiring from public office because of his disappointment with the corrupt habit of buying positions through bribery. He returned to Gaza and spent the remainder of his life devoted to learning and teaching, in addition to delivering sermons and exhortations (al-waʽẓ wa'l-khiṭāba). According to al-Sakhāwī, ‘he became the definitive shaykh of his town’ and, when he passed away, ‘never had been seen such a great sight in these areas as his funeral procession, nor a greater grief. He left no equal among his peers’.⁶⁸ Nonetheless, not long passed before one of his brightest students, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ḥijāzī (840–885/1436–1480), having returned to Gaza from his own tour in search of knowledge that had included stops at Damascus, Aleppo, and Cairo, ‘revived the discipline of his shaykh, Ibn al-Ḥimṣī’. To the great grief of the Gazans, al-Ḥijāzī died young, only four years after his master.⁶⁹

Last, another notable Gazan scholar who should be mentioned is Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yūsuf b. Bahādur al-Iyāsī (758–852/1357–1448). He was closely related to the preceding scholars—he was from the generation of Ibn al-Aʽsar, a fellow student of ʽAlī b. Khalaf and fellow teacher of Ibn al-Ḥimṣī.⁷⁰ However, al-Iyāsī was a Ḥanafī and, although a fellow native of Gaza, he was the grandson of a mamlūk—his nisba relates to his grandfather's master, Iyās.⁷¹ Indeed, his Turkish origins and Ḥanafī affiliation were decisive factors in his career, and his identity was in between the local, predominantly Shāfiʽī scholarly milieu of which he was an important member, the Ḥanafī scholarly milieu centred in Cairo, and the Mamluk elite. Al-Sakhāwī writes that al-Iyāsī excelled in furūsiyya and was deeply respected by the Mamluk governors of Gaza.⁷² Even his dress exemplifies this combination: al-Iyāsī was also a Sufi and al-Sakhāwī writes that, while ‘he kept to the Turkish manner in dressing, [that is] having narrow sleeves and clothes, his turban was wrapped with a mi'zar and had fringes (ʽadhaba) in accordance with the Sufi custom’.⁷³ As a Ḥanafī, al-Iyāsī became the disciple of the first Ḥanafī qāḍī of Gaza, Muwaffaq al-Dīn al-Rūmī (d. 809/1406–1407), himself a disciple of Akmal al-Dīn al-Bābartī (d. 786/1384). The latter was a leading Ḥanafī authority in Cairo and an influential member of the court of Sultan Barqūq, who is said to have been responsible for the appointment of a Ḥanafī qāḍī in Gaza for the first time, in 784/1382.⁷⁴ Al-Iyāsī also learned from the Ḥanafī qāḍī of Jerusalem, Khayr al-Dīn Khalīl al-Rūmī (d. 801/1398), who was appointed to the position at the same time.⁷⁵ A renunciant Sufi, al-Iyāsī is said to have led an ascetic lifestyle and, while receiving an income, he left it entirely to his wife to deal with such material concerns. Al-Iyāsī spent his entire life in Gaza, where he evidently taught numerous students. Al-Sakhāwī calls him ‘the mudarris and mufti of Gaza’ and the shaykh of the Ḥanafī madhhab in town.⁷⁶

Al-Sakhāwī adds that al-Iyāsī founded a madrasa adjacent to his house in Gaza.⁷⁷ Indeed, while the emphasis here has been on Mamluk patronage, the local elites—wealthy merchants as well as scholars—also participated in the foundation of religious and learning institutions. The sources are ambiguous regarding these dynamics, but combining narrative descriptions, endowment documents, and epigraphic evidence suggests that sometimes rulers and local scholars cooperated in initiating and constructing religious and learning institutions. For example, al-Ṭabbāʽ suggests that al-Iyāsī's madrasa might be the one later named al-Birdibakiyya,⁷⁸ though the inscription located above the entrance to the building today states that the madrasa al-Birdibakiyya was founded in 859/1455, a good seven years after al-Iyāsī had passed away. Sharon lists the inscription as a ‘construction or restoration’ text, so perhaps the patron, Birdibak al-Ashrafī, restored or expanded al-Iyāsī's, probably modest, madrasa.⁷⁹ Be that as it may, we do have evidence from the Ottoman registry of awqāf that al-Iyāsī had some real estate at his possession, as he endowed some market stalls as waqf, setting his own family as benefactors.⁸⁰

Another Gazan scholar who founded a mosque in his town was Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn ʽUthmān al-Khalīlī (733–805/1333–1402).⁸¹ Though he endowed his mosque with a substantial waqf, the mosque also features several inscriptions that bear witness to Mamluk investment, already during Ibn ʽUthmān's lifetime and for several decades after his decease.⁸² Possibly what we witness here is a dynamic in which scholars established humble religious institutions, later enlarged through Mamluk patronage.⁸³

Be that as it may, at least some scholars and merchants were wealthy enough to establish such institutions, as well as other charitable endowments, control over which was normally entrusted to the founder and his family, thus ensuring their long-term financial security and providing them with social capital.⁸⁴ For example, Burhān al-Dīn Ibrāhīm al-Awzā‘ī (b. 860/1456) was a native of Gaza and student of some of its leading authorities in his day.⁸⁵ He was also the son of a wealthy Gazan merchant and, after inheriting his father's fortune, he used it to renovate mosques and build other unspecified institutions. He was later appointed as the qāḍī of Gaza.⁸⁶ Al-Awzā‘ī's case illustrates that, while local scholars benefitted from Mamluk investment in new religious establishments and the paid positions attached to them, which enabled additional students to pursue a scholarly career and more senior scholars to devote their time to teaching and learning, many ʽulamā' still practised other professions alongside their scholarly career, especially as merchants, as is evident from several references in the sources.⁸⁷ The combination of intellectual activity with conducting trade was characteristic of the ʽulamā' throughout Islamic history, and certainly continued during the period of ‘professionalisation’ of the ʽulamā' class,⁸⁸ as is attested in Mamluk Gaza as well.

Returning to al-Iyāsī, his biography also demonstrates how a Ḥanafī presence was established in a provincial town such as Gaza—where it seems that the local population and the scholarly elite were overwhelmingly Shāfiʽī—with the active encouragement and patronage of the Mamluk elite. This process is noticeable throughout the Mamluk Sultanate, especially from the second half of the eighth/fourteenth century, when Mamluk patronage of distinctively Ḥanafī institutions grew significantly.⁸⁹ While this is especially evident in Cairo, and to a lesser extent in Damascus, we may see here how a Ḥanafī presence percolated to lesser intellectual centres, such as Gaza and Jerusalem. This does not suggest that any significant portion of the population converted to the Ḥanafī madhhab but, among scholars, we do notice a certain drift towards Ḥanafīsm. This was clearly motivated by the pursuit of employment: with more patronage designated specifically for Ḥanafī scholars (be it in the madrasas or as qāḍīs and otherwise)⁹⁰ and with the relatively minor presence of Ḥanafī scholars throughout Egypt and Syria, it became increasingly tempting to switch madhhab.⁹¹ Indeed, the accusation of taḥannuf (outwardly pretending to be a Ḥanafī), which became a common trope in ninth/fifteenth-century biographies dedicated to ʽulamā', also applied to several Gazan scholars.⁹² Another aspect of this Ḥanafī-Shāfiʽī tension was linguistic and ethnic. While the Shāfiʽīs were predominantly Arab and saw themselves as the traditional local elite, or ‘the salt of the earth’, the Ḥanafīs were mainly of foreign origins—namely Turkish or Persian—and their rise during the Mamluk period was clearly related to the foreign origins, and Ḥanafī tendency, of the Mamluk ruling elite.⁹³ Al-Iyāsī represents this dynamic very clearly, both since he was himself a Turk and since his Ḥanafī teachers were from the Anatolian and Persian-speaking milieux which attained growing influence in the capital, Cairo. On the other hand, al-Iyāsī was a native of Gaza, closely associated with the local Shāfiʽī and Arabic-speaking elite, and in time he groomed a significant number of local Ḥanafī scholars.⁹⁴ Thus, he might be regarded as an important middleman who contributed to the growth of a Ḥanafī presence in Gaza.

Conclusions

Gaza's religious and intellectual climate was a natural part of contemporary southern Bilād al-Shām and was integrated into the social and intellectual networks and hierarchies of the Mamluk Sultanate. Gaza's location, directly on the highway connecting Cairo and Damascus, in many ways shaped its development and facilitated its integration into those wider networks. Through their massive investments and patronage, the Mamluks left their mark on the history of the region in general, and Gaza in particular, be it through the private, ad hoc endeavours of local governors and office holders or wider policies directed by the Cairo court. Under Mamluk rule, Gaza made the leap from minor town to full-grown city and provincial centre. This turn of events was accompanied by the growth of a thriving scholarly community, continuously attested especially from the early eighth/fourteenth century and throughout the Mamluk period. The foundation of religious and learning institutions provided the infrastructure for maintaining such a vital intellectual climate and this long era witnessed a succession of distinctly Gazan scholars. Many of those were born and raised in Gaza, while others spent substantial periods of time there and became part of the learned community of the town. Their careers clearly illustrate Gaza's place within the political and intellectual hierarchies of the Sultanate as a mid-tier provincial centre, below the cultural centres of Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo, and roughly on a par with other towns of Bilād al-Shām, such as Safed, Tripoli, Hamah, and even Jerusalem. While the Mamluks seldom directly interfered in religious learning and theological controversies,⁹⁵ the ʽulamā''s reliance on their patronage ensured that they had an impact on the religious and intellectual milieu, as is evident, for example, in the ‘Hanafī turn’ noticeable in Gaza as elsewhere in the Sultanate since the mid-eighth/fourteenth century.

The case of Gaza under the Mamluks is also indicative of centre–periphery relations within the Sultanate. In this regard, Gaza—and Palestine in general—stood at a somewhat peculiar position, since it could be seen as peripheral in its political, military, and economic importance, but central in its geographical location, which stood just at the heart of the Sultanate.⁹⁶ Surely, from a Cairene perspective, Gaza's importance laid firstly in its location on the Cairo–Damascus ‘highway’ and, beyond securing a swift passage of the Egyptian army northward, investing in the town served to solidify Cairo's hold over the coastal plains of Palestine. In this sense, like Safed or Tripoli to the north or alternatively a town like Qūṣ in Upper Egypt,⁹⁷ Gaza served as a regional centre that was meant to project and uphold Cairo's authority over its provinces, as well as to facilitate its economic interests. But, perhaps as a side effect, Mamluk investment in those provincial capitals also created a stable, if not thriving, cultural and intellectual climate, promoted by the Mamluk officials, in close collaboration with the local civilian elites. Just like the newly founded centres of Safed and Tripoli, by the time of the Ottoman conquest, Gaza had been shaped and developed as a distinctly ‘Mamluk town’.