The Historiographical Trajectory and Legal Status of a Rebellion: Anti-Sultan Jakam (d. 809/1407) and his Literary Representation

Abstract

The ninth/fifteenth century in Egypt and Syria began with a period of internal warfare (fitnah) that substantially disturbed the sultanate of Cairo. The death of Sultan al-Ẓāhir Barqūq in 801/1399 brought to the throne an eleven-year-old child, his son al-Nāṣir Faraj (r. 801–15/1399–1412), who proved incapable of ensuring the domination of the sultanic household. His enthronement provoked a long series of political struggles in Egypt and then Syria between the main warlords of the realm, among whom were the amirs Jakam min ʿIwaḍ, Sūdūn Ṭāz, Yashbak al-Shaʿbānī, Shaykh al-Maḥmūdī, and Nawrūz al-Ḥāfiẓī. These conflicts (which even Tamerlane’s invasion in 803/1401 did not suspend) ended a few years after Faraj’s tragic death, during the reign of Sultan al-Muʾayyad Shaykh (r. 815–24/1412–21).