D.S. Richards - Egypt and Syria in the Early Mamluk Period: An Extract from Ibn Faḍl Allāh Al-‘Umarīs Masālik Al-Abṣār Fī Mamālik Al-Amṣār

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p.i

Egypt and Syria in the Early Mamluk Period

Providing a modern English translation of a key selection of Ibn Fal Allh al-Umars Maslik al-absr, this book offers a rich description of Egypt and Syria under the Mamluks in the first half of the fourteenth-century A.D. It provides a fascinating snapshot of the physical and administrative geography of this crucial region as well as insights into its society and the organization and functioning of the Mamluk state.

D.S. Richards is an Emeritus Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford.

p.iii

Egypt and Syria in the Early
Mamluk Period

An extract from Ibn Fa Allh
al-Umars Maslik Al-Abr
F Mamlik Al-Amr

Translated by D.S. Richards

p.iv

First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2017 D.S. Richards

The right of D.S. Richards to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Ibn Fal Allh Al-Umar, Amad ibn Yay, 13011349, author. | Richards, D. S. (Donald Sidney), 1935- translator.

Title: Egypt and Syria in the Early Mamluk Period : an extract from Ibn Fal Allh Al-Umars Maslik Al-Abr F Mamlik Al-Amr / translated by D. S. Richards.

Description: New York ; London : Routledge, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016037486 (print) | LCCN 2016039947 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138208599 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315458816

Subjects: LCSH: Ibn Fal Allh Al-Umar, Amad ibn Yay, 13011349. | EgyptHistory1250-1517. | MamelukesHistory. | EgyptDescription and travel. | SyriaDescription and travel.

Classification: LCC DT96.4 .I25413 2017 (print) | LCC DT96.4 (ebook) | DDC 956.91/02dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037486

ISBN: 978-1-138-20859-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-45881-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

p.vi

Several decades ago I began to work on an edition of a chapter of Ibn Fal Allh al-Umars encyclopaedic work, Maslik al-abr f mamlik al-amr, that is the section in which he describes his own part of the world, Egypt and Syria. My work was fairly well advanced when two other editions appeared in quick succession. The first was that of Ayman Fuad Sayyid, published in 1985 by the Institut Franais dArchologie Orientale in Cairo; this edition also includes a re-edition of the much shorter chapter which deals with the Yemen. The other was prepared by Dorothea Krawulsky and was published by al-Markaz al-islm li-lbuth (the Islamic Research Centre) in Beirut in the following year, 1986.

In those circumstances I put my own unfinished edition aside. However, I had at the same time prepared a translation, partly as a check on my own understanding of what is not always a transparent text (and the critical reader with a knowledge of Arabic must judge how successfully the translation interprets the text), and partly with the thought that the work possesses an inherent interest and deserves to be better known and to be made more widely accessible. This translation has now been revised in the light of the editions prepared by the other two scholars.

This part of Ibn Fal Allh al-Umars great work was written during what one may consider to have been the zenith of the Mamluk Sultanate, the third and final reign of the Sultan al-Nir Muammad ibn Qalwn (died 741/1341). It presents a proud and confident picture of the core lands of the Sultanate. Without a doubt Ibn Fal Allhs description of Egypt and Syria served as a source, not always fully acknowledged, for several later writers, who attempted systematic presentations of the nature and organisation of the Mamluk state. Its central importance will justify this offering of an English version.

p.1

Our author, Shihb al-Dn Amad ibn Yay ibn Fal Allh, was born into a family that had already attained the highest ranks in the sphere in which both he himself and several other members of the family were to continue to shine, namely the insh or chancery branch of the Mamluk administration. It appears that the family, which claimed descent from the Caliph Umar I (hence the al-Umar in their full name), may at some time have had connections with Kerak. However, they came to prominence in Damascus, and although various members of the family went to the centre to serve in Cairo, they retained an important presence in Damascus.

The first generation, the three sons of Fal Allh, of whom himself little seems to have been recorded, were all senior officials. The least important was Badr al-Dn Muammad, whose career appears to have been confined to Damascus. In 699/12991300 he was one of the local officials appointed to serve the deputy of the Ilkhn Ghazn after the latters departure from Syria. How this is to be reconciled with the information that he was taken off into captivity and only returned from Ghazns territory in 704/13045) until his dismissal in 711/13112 and his return to his former position in Damascus, where he replaced the youngest of the three brothers, Muy al-Dn, and remained until his death in 717/1317. Muy al-Dn had first entered the service of the Chancery in Damascus under his brother in 661/12623. By 708/13089 we find him appointed in his turn to be head of the Bureau in Damascus until replaced by his returning brother, as has been said. The top position in Cairo was given him in 729/13289, and this he continued to hold until his death in 738/1338, although there had been a break in 7323/13313 when he had been sent back to Damascus and replaced by a grandson of al-Shihb Mamd, not because he was out of favour but owing to his hardness of hearing.

p.2

Of the next generation the three sons of Muy al-Dn alone need concern us here. The line continuing from Sharaf al-Dn seems to have concentrated more on the military career and produced an emir of forty at Damascus. One of Muy al-Dns sons, another Badr al-Dn Muammad, was the head of Chancery in Damascus from 744/1343 till his death in 746/1345. Another son, Shihb al-Dn Amad, our present author, had accompanied his father to Egypt and from the date of his fathers reinstatement as Ktib al-Sirr (Privy Secretary), as the head of the Chancery Bureau was called, in 733/13323, we find him fulfilling the functions of the office as his fathers deputy. Just before his fathers death (738/1338), Shihb al-Dn was replaced by his younger brother, Al al-Dn, as the acting head of the Bureau, and subsequently the latter was confirmed in the full position, which he held for upwards of thirty years and served eleven sultans with great prestige and authority.

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