“Mubārakshāh the Logician”

Abstract

Abstract A scholar known as “Mubārakshāh” features in sources from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as a teacher of a number of prominent early Ottoman scholars, and of the influential Persian scholar al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413). According to these sources, Mubārakshāh taught in Cairo in the mid- to late fourteenth century. Yet, despite the large number of Mamluk historical works covering this period, the precise identity of this scholar has so far proven elusive. The present article reviews the evidence and makes an identification that, though circumstantial, may be more satisfying than those that have been offered so far. It suggests that “Mubārakshāh” was a nickname, and that he can plausibly be identified with Maḥmūd b. Quṭlūshāh al-Sarāʾī, who taught in Cairo from 1358 until his death in 1373.