Some Notes on the Feudal System of the Mamlūks

Abstract

The feudal system of the Mamlūks is of great interest not only because it existed for 267 years in the leading state of the Arab world and left some permanent marks on the subsequent social and economical development of Egypt, Syria and Palestine, but also from the sociological point of view, being the result of an intermixture of three various feudal systems which corresponded to peculiar cultural worlds: the Mongol, the Islamic, and the West European. The fundamental principles were borrowed from the Mongol Empire and consequently all the lawsuits relating to the fiefs were settled not by the qāḍīs and according to the Islamic Law, but by the military judges (ḥujjāb) and according to the laws based upon the rules of Chingiz Khān. The technical terms used in the official Arabic-written documents and in the Arabic literary sources were partly borrowed from the terminology of the Islamic Law, but their sense was considerably removed from their ancient meanings—which may signify that they were now used only as more or less faithful translations of the terms employed in the Turkish dialect of the Mamlūks. The Western feudalism, brought to Syria by the Crusaders, influenced the Mamluk system chiefly through the medium of the native tribal chieftains, who after having been vassals of the kingdom of Jerusalem were gradually becoming feudatories of the Sultan of Cairo, and sometimes received the feudal charters from both powers at the same time. In the charters granted by the Latin rulers of Sidon (in 1256) and Beirut (in 1280) to two chieftains of the Buḥturide family the term “fief” is translated by the word shahāra, which means “a land given in reward for a service”, but the word mulk is also used, as well as the verbs a'ṭā and wahaba which usually refer to the unconditional transfers of the right of possession.