Pre-Islamic Brigands in Mamluk Historiography

Abstract

Taqī al‑Dīn al‑Maqrīzī’s (d. 845/1442) universal history, titled al‑Ḫabar ʿan al‑basar, contains a chapter “On the Brigands Among the Arabs” (faṣl fī ḏikr luṣūṣ al‑ʿArab), in which the author gives accounts of the lives and exploits of ten pre-Islamic and early-Islamic brigands. While the chapter relies on earlier sources, its subject matter has no parallel in other Arabic works of universal history, contemporaneous or earlier. My paper is a study of this chapter, based on a holograph of al‑Maqrīzī’s work. A close reading of the chapter’s contents reveals that al‑Maqrīzī compiled and edited afresh ancient narratives with the intention of exemplifying the ideological opposition between ǧāhiliyya and Islam. I draw special attention to al‑Maqrīzī’s unique report concerning the death and burial of Taʾabbaṭa Sarran, which portrays him as an antithesis to the figure of the sahīd. Finally, I suggest that al‑Maqrīzī’s chapter is a scholarly response both to the socio-political climate of al‑Maqrīzī’s Egypt, depicted in some of al‑Maqrīzī’s other works as fraught with Bedouin rebellions, as well as to the prevailing cultural climate, marked with the rise of the popular Sīra.