The Arts Of The Mamluks In Egypt And Syria

Based on the conference "The Arts of the Mamluks in Egypt and Syria" held at SOAS in 2009.

This volume is dedicated to the circulation of the book as a commodity in the Mamluk sultanate. It discusses the impact of princely patronage on the production of books, the formation and management of libraries in religious institutions, their size and their physical setting.

They discuss, for example, how the universal caliphs of the first six centuries gave way to regional rulers and how, in this new world order, Iranian forms, techniques, and motifs played a dominant role in the artistic life of most of the Muslim world; the one exception was the Maghrib, an area protected from the full brunt of the Mongol invasions, where traditional models continued to inspire artists and patrons. By the sixteenth century, say the authors, the eastern Mediterranean under the Ottomans and the area of northern India under the Mughals had become more powerful, and the Iranian models of early Ottoman and Mughal art gradually gave way to distinct regional and imperial styles.

This volume consists of 19 studies by leading historians of the Mamluks. Drawing on primary Arabic sources, the studies discuss central political, military, urban, social, administrative, economic, financial and religious aspects of the Mamluk Empire that was established in 1250 by Mamluks (manumitted military slaves, mostly Turks and Circassians). It was a Sunni orthodox state that had a formidable military, a developed and sophisticated economy, a centralized Arab bureaucracy and prestigious religious and educational institutions. There are special articles about Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Safed and Acre. The last part of the volume describes the Mamluk military class that survived in Egypt (although in a transformed form) under the Ottoman suzerainty after the Empire annexed Egypt and Syria in 1517. With contributions by Reuven Aharoni, Reuven Amitai, Frederic Bauden, Jonathan Berkey, Daniel Crecelius, Joseph Drory, Jane Hathaway, Robert Irwin, Donald Little, Nimrod Luz, Carl Petry, Thomas Philipp, Yossef Rapoport, André Raymond, Donald S. Richards, Warren Schultz and Hannah Taragan.

This volume is dedicated to the circulation of the book as a commodity in the Mamluk sultanate. It discusses the impact of princely patronage on the production of books, the formation and management of libraries in religious institutions, their size and their physical setting.

In this book, distinguished scholars provide an accessible introduction to the structure of political power under the Mamluks and its economic foundations.