The descendants of the Mamluks in the Arab sociocultural environment: Ibn Qurqmas (d. 1477)

Abstract

The awlād al-nās (the descendants of the Mamluks) were the only group outside the military class in the Circassian Sultanate that had access to the Mamluk world, otherwise closed to all who did not belong to it. In the spiritual culture, awlād al-nās constituted a link between the Mamluks and the local population. Nasir al-Din Muhammad Ibn Qurqmas (1400–1477), was a proliϐic Egyptian writer, poet, calligrapher and compiler of a Quranic commentary was a mamluk descender, one of awlād al-nās. The article comprises information from the “Zahr al-Rabīʿ ϔī Shawāhid al-Badīʿ” by Ibn Qurqmas and also some materials with regards to his biography as discovered in the writings by Abu al-Mahasin Yusuf Ibn Taghri Birdi (d. in 1469), ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sakhawi (d. in 1497) and Muhammad b. Ahmad Ibn Iyas al-Hanaϐi (d. in 1524). It aims to trace the avenues of incorporation of a Mamluk descendant into the local socio-cultural environment of medieval Egypt.