Sultan Of Egypt Research Articles

From the History of the Foreign Policy of Georgian Kings in the 1st Half of the 14th Century

The present paper focuses on the diplomatic relations between Georgia and the Sultan of Egypt. The Georgian envoys were sent to Egypt several times – in 1305/6, 1310/11, 1316/7, 1320. Their goal was restitution of the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem confiscated in 1270s by Baybars I, the Sultan of Mamluk Egypt. Considering the issue the author ofthe paper comes to the following conclusions: In all cases the envoys were sent by the king of the West Georgia, Constantine,son to David, who achieved the goal in negotiations with the Mamluk Sultan; Giorgi the Brilliant began his activities on the Holy Land after establishing peaceful relations between Ilkhans and Mamluk Sultan under the treaty concluded in 1323. The latter was carried out with the active parng Giorgi V. Giorgi the Brilliant got independence by the flexible diplomatic policy, alliance with Ilkhans in the confrontation between the Golden Horde and Ilkhans and determining his right function in that situation; “King of kings” David, who is mentioned is a renovator of the Monastery of the Holy Cross in the bead-roll of the Monastery, is not David VIII, as it was supposed in the scholarly literature, but David IX, son of Giorgi the Brilliant.

The occupation of Belvoir by the Hospitallers

What do we know about the occupation of the castle of Belvoir by the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem? This paper endeavors to draw up the state of the written documentation, consisting of a few chronicles, both Arabic and Latin, supplemented by charters from the Hospital’s collections. The history of the castle is put into perspective with the process of militarization of the Order and its growing involvement in the defense of the Latin states of the East. Acquired between 1165 and 1168, Belvoir quickly played a key role in the defense of Galilee, to the point of appearing as a major fortress of the Hospital. By January 1189, however, the place was taken over by the Ayyūbids. In 1241, following a treaty with al-Kâmil, Sultan of Egypt, the castle and its territory were returned to the Hospitallers. However, we do not know the circumstances under which the brothers moved back into a castle that had, in the meantime, suffered several destructions. In 1255, the Order strengthened its position by absorbing the possessions of the monastery of Mount Tabor. But, between 1263 and 1266, the campaigns of the Sultan Baybars resulted in the destruction of the Hospitaller settlement in eastern Galilee.

THE ROLE OF ISLAM IN THE POLICY OF THE ILKHANATE KHANS

The Ilkhanate included large territories in the Near and the Middle East, where a process of mutual influence of many peoples, tribes and cultures took place. When the Hulagu khan Ahmed Tekuder (1282-1284) converted to Islam, the Muslims of Azerbaijan, who constituted the absolute majority of the country's population, welcomed this move. After the assassination of Ahmed Tekuder, Arghun (1284-1291), Gaykhatu (1291-1295) and Baydu (1295) took the Hulagu throne by turn. This period went down in history as a time of violent internal conflict in the House of Hulagu, freedom of action for representatives of all religions, except Islam, persecution of Muslims, religious, financial and economic, administrative experiments of Hulagu khans. In 1295, Ghazan Khan took the Hulagu throne. He radically changed the attitude of official authority towards Islam. Even before his accession to the throne (June 16, 1295), Ghazan-khan converted to Islam and then was called by the Muslim name Mahmud. The conversion to Islam by Ghazan Khan ensured the prevailing position of the Ilkhanate in the system of international relations of the Near and Middle East. For manageable, strong, stable socio-economic and political life of a huge empire, the optimal choice of unifying state ideology was extremely important. Ghazan Khan successfully completed the way started by Ahmed Tekuder. Since the reign of Ghazan Khan (Mahmud), the Ilkhanate began to claim leadership in the Muslim world. The problem of the "legitimacy" of the Ilkhanate also found its solution. The Ilkhanate bordered the largest states of that time: with the state of nomadic Mongols, governed by the descendants of Juchi Khan, the eldest son of Genghis Khan (known in Russian historiography as the Golden Horde); with the state of the Mamluks sultans of Egypt; with the Mongolian nomadic tribes in Central Asia, descendants of Chaghatai - the son of Genghis Khan.

Politics and Religion in the Third Crusade: Examining the Rise of Political Motives on Crusade through the Plantagenet-Capetian Rivalry through 1190 to 1193

In 1095CE hundreds of Frankish warriors, filled with religious fervor, gathered at Clermont in France to hear a sermon by Pope Urban II. In it, the pontiff laid out a grand mission, to reclaim Jerusalem from the forces of Islam and restore it once again to the stewardship of Christianity. The expedition that followed would be known as the First Crusade and led to nearly two centuries of sustained military, economic, and societal presence by European Christians in the Levant. My research project focuses on the Third Crusade of 1190-1193CE, which was launched in response to the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, in 1187CE. My research asserts that the Third Crusade was a turning point in the development of crusading ideology. My work argues that this expedition began a process whereby crusading evolved into a tool for achieving the political goals of its secular leaders, as opposed to an act of religious penitence. This involves a close analysis of the principal leaders of the crusade, Richard I of England (r.1189-1199) and Philip II of France (r.1180-1223), and places their actions on crusade within the wider context of their rivalry to achieve political dominance in Western France. Given the integral part crusading played in the notion of medieval kingship, and taking into account growing monarchical participation in crusades, I also hope to connect the two concepts of royal power and crusading ideology as they were being solidified in the late twelfth century.

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen's Australasian Cockatoo: Symbol of Detente between East and West and Evidence of the Ayyubids' Global Reach

Frederick II of Sicily made contact with the Kurdish al-Malik Muhammad al-Kamil in 1217—a year before al-Malik became sultan of Egypt. The two rulers communicated regularly over the following twenty years, exchanging letters, books and rare and exotic animals. The focus of this article is the Sulphur-crested or Yellow-crested Cockatoo the sultan sent Frederick. A written description and four sketches of this parrot survive in a mid thirteenth-century manuscript in the Vatican Library. This article reviews these images, revealing that Australasian cockatoos were present in the Middle East in the medieval period and exploring how and why one reached Europe in the mid thirteenth century.

Piracy and reprisal in Byzantine waters: resolving a maritime conflict between Byzantines and Genoese at the end of the twelfth century

In 1192, Genoese and Pisan pirates under the command of a Genoese corsair pillaged Venetian ships carrying merchandise and valuable gifts for the Byzantine emperor from the Sultan of Egypt. This paper examines the escalation and resolution of this maritime conflict between the Byzantines and the Genoese. Following Genoa’s failure to resolve the incident as requested, the emperor implemented measures against the Genoese residents of Constantinople. The solution chosen by the Byzantine emperor bears striking resemblance to the practice of ius represaliarum, a practice familiar in Western Europe that would later evolve and influence international law in medieval and early modern Europe. The case in focus demonstrates how a merchants’ custom linked to Western Europe was first ‘introduced’ into Byzantine practice.

Venetian Merchants in Thirteenth-Century Alexandria and the Sultans of Egypt: an Analysis of Treaties, Privileges and Intercultural Relations

ABSTRACT During the thirteenth century, competition among the Italian merchants in Alexandria increased and each community sought wider trading privileges. Access to Alexandria's markets was an important addition to Venetian economic power, complementing the contemporary Venetian presence in Aleppo, in Acre and other Frankish ports, and in Constantinople after the fourth crusade in 1204. Venice differed from Pisa and Genoa in the thirteenth century because it was the only Italian merchant city that had signed four trade agreements with the sultans of Egypt. The Venetian treaties with the sultans formed the base of developing the Venetian maritime trade with Alexandria. They obtained privileges that allowed them to exercise commercial supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike the other Italian communities settled in the sultan's lands, the Venetian merchants' privileges remained fixed and continued through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This article aims to study and analyse commercial and diplomatic relations between Venice and the sultans, the Venetian merchants' privileges and their political and juridical status in Egypt.

La Terrasanta nel quadro della politica orientale di Alfonso V d'Aragona

The propaganda promoted by the humanists of Alfonso d’Aragona’s court tends to present him as a perfect monarch, and moreover a champion of religiosity, in order to accredit him as ideal military leader of a future crusade the purpose of which would be to counter the advance of the Ottomans and to reconquer the Holy Land. Mostly during the 40s’ and 50s’ of XV century Alfonso builds a dense diplomatic network in all the Mediterranean area: he developes relations not only with the king of Cyprus and the knights of Rhodes but also with the caliph of Tunis, the sultan of Egypt, the king of Ethiopia and the Ottoman sultan. The life of his loyal subject Giovanni Filangieri, a cadet of a noble Sicilian family, in this regard is exemplary, and for this reason has been narrated in detail: he takes an active part in almost all the military initiative of his king in the Mediterranean

Visible and Invisible Bodies: The Architectural Patronage of Shajar Al-Durr

Whereas reliance on official texts such as chronicles often leads modern historians to overlook women, the built works of female patrons can provide a valuable historical source because they stand publicly for female patrons who were themselves unseen. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine Damascus and Cairo without the visually prominent tombs and pious foundations of the otherwise invisible Fatimid and Ayyubid women. Among the latter was Shajar al-Durr, a Turkic concubine who rose from slavery to become the legitimate sultan of Egypt in 1250. Her short reign and subsequent marriage ended violently with her death in 1257, but in that space of time she made architectural innovations that ultimately inspired lasting changes in Cairo’s urban fabric. Shajar al-Durr’s impact as architectural patron was as pivotal as her political role: the tomb that she added to her husband’s madrasa led to his permanent and highly visible presence in central Cairo, an innovation that was followed in the endowed complexes of the Mamluks. In her own more modest tomb, she chose not monumentality but iconography, representing herself pictorially in dazzling mosaic, a daring gesture in a world where female propriety meant invisibility.

The Byzantines and Saladin: Some Further Arguments

abstractThis is the second of two articles by the same author arguing against the thesis that there was a conspiracy between the Byzantine emperors and Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria, against the crusader states and the Third Crusade in the 1180s. While the focus of the first article was primarily on the Latin sources, the present study shifts the focus to the Arabic primary material, hitherto largely neglected or inadequately treated by modern historians. Through a critical re-examination and re-interpretation of the Arabic sources, backed by the introduction and discussion of new Latin material when necessary, this article presents expanded arguments on the relations between the Byzantine Empire, the Sultanate of Konya and Saladin in the 1180s. The conclusions lend further support to the view that the Byzantine rulers and Saladin never concluded an alliance against the Latin settlers of Outremer and the Third Crusade.

Recent Work on the Monetary and Metrological History of Egypt, 868–1517 C.E.

It is a truism in the fields of Islamic history that those who study the course of Islam in Egypt are blessed with a relative abundance of surviving primary sources, whether they be literary, documentary, archaeological, or material. This is also the case for numismatic evidence. In fact, the coinages of Muslim Egypt (and of the Syrian areas controlled by dynasties based in Egypt) are the subject of one of the deepest historiographies in Islamic numismatics. From the early catalogues of the British Museum and Khedival collections edited by Stanley Lane-Poole in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the 1982 catalogue of the Egyptian National Collection prepared by an Egyptian–American team and published by the American Research Center in Egypt, to subsections of numerous other catalogues, many specimens of Egyptian coinage have been made available for study. Using this numismatic evidence, from 1956 to 1980 the coinages of three Egyptian dynasties were analyzed in separate and significant monographs: Oleg Grabar’s The Coinage of the Tulunids (New York: American Numismatic Society, 1957); Paul Balog’s Coinage of the Mamlūk Sultans of Egypt and Syria (New York: American Numismatic Society, 1964); and Balog’s The Coinage of the Ayyūbids (London: Royal Numismatic Society, 1980). While these three works did not and do not represent the final word about these coinages, in bringing the numismatic evidence to a wider audience of scholars interested in related topics they in turn stimulated further numismatic scholarship. Until recently, however, the numismatic developments of the Ikhshīdid period (935–969) and the Fāṭimid period (969–1171) lacked focused studies aiming for comprehensive treatment of those eras. The appearance of three works published over 2006–2007 have filled this lacuna. 1 (This leaves only the Ottoman period of Egypt without its own monographic treatment. Coins minted in Egypt prior to the rise of the Ṭūlūnids are best approached as subsections of Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid numismatics.) Moreover, the recent posting of a digital resource presenting the entire holding of Islamic glass weights preserved in the Gayer-Anderson Museum provides a useful resource for those interested in the small-scale metrology of Islamic Egypt. As a result, students and scholars now have at their fingertips a chronologically comprehensive set of references to aid in their study of numismatics and wider monetary history for Islamic Egypt. Moreover, these works solidify the important roles played by Jere L. Bacharach and Norman D. Nicol, who along with Paul Balog (d. 1982) have done so much to advance the field.

St Francis of Assisi and Islam: A Theological Perspective on a Christian-Muslim Encounter

In 1219 an encounter took place between a Christian from Italy, Francis of Assisi, and the Muslim Sultan of Egypt, al-Malik al-Kāmil. This meeting took place at Damietta in northern Egypt during the progress of the Fifth Crusade. Over a period of perhaps three weeks, religious dialogue took place between Francis and al-Kāmil, after which time the Sultan had Francis escorted safely back to the Christian camp. It is possible to discern from the writings of Francis after his return from Egypt that the meeting had had a deep religious impact upon him, realised in the latter years of his life. It can be said that both Francis and al-Kāmil experienced through their encounter what the Christian theologian Bernard Lonergan has spoken of as a conversion into a new horizon. The historical encounter between Francis and the Sultan witnesses to the fact that through religious conversion, it is possible for members of different religious faiths to arrive at a common vision of universal peace and reconciliation.

Frederick II's crusade: an example of Christian–Muslim diplomacy

Frederick II's crusade is unique in the bloody history of crusades for its success in recapturing Jerusalem through negotiations with the sultan of Egypt without any battles. Here Frederick II's diplomatic relations with Muslim rulers, particularly al-Kāmil, sultan of Egypt are reconstructed, by examining available sources in order to understand this crusade in terms of his long relationship with Muslim rulers.

The Crusades

Less than a year after one textbook on the crusades, Routledge have produced another. The earlier volume, by John France (rev. ante, cxxi (2006), 829) was a substantial and detailed work. Nikolas Jaspert's synthesis is, by contrast, a sketch. Both are designed for the student market, although Professor Jaspert's study is more clearly aimed at a market primarily in North America. Translated from the original German edition of 2003, it contains features accessible to students in a hurry to receive a general picture of the subject. Each chapter begins with a relevant list of dates, unfortunately not always accurate: the Damietta crusade was in 1218, not 1219–21 (p. 35), an error repeated on page 57; and Baibars was not Sultan of Egypt at the battle of Ain Jalut (p. 36), only after it. There are a number of other factual slips and typos in the text as well: for example,...

The Armenian Episcopacy in Mamluk Jerusalem in the Aftermath of the Council of Sis (1307)

From the earliest days of Christianity in Armenia, Jerusalem was an important centre of pilgrimage, culture, and faith. An Armenian hierarchy free from the authority of the Imperial Greek church had existed in Jerusalem possibly from the time of Justinian and an Armenian episcopacy from the time of the Arab conquests. According to Armenian tradition, first recorded in M. Č‘amč‘ian's History of the Armenians, in 1311 Bishop Sargis of Jerusalem (sed. 1281–1313) dramatically changed the nature of that office, when he declared himself and his entire charge independent of both the spiritual overlordship of the Catholicossate of Sis and the political protection of the Armenian kingdom founded in Cilicia. The catalyst for the rupture was the Cilician Church's decision in favour of union with Rome taken with the encouragement of the Armenian monarchy at the Council of Sis in 1307. According to Č‘amč‘ian, Bishop Sargis, rejecting the Armenian kingdom's demands of obedience, turned to the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt and received from him an edict declaring that henceforth the Armenian bishop of Jerusalem would be able to exercise full Patriarchal rights, namely, the ability to appoint bishops and to use the red patriarchal seal to ratify documents.

The Mamlūk institution in early Muslim India

When Muslim forces under the Ghurid sultan, Mu'izz al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Sām, made their first major breakthrough into Hindūstān in the 1190s, they brought with them two institutions that had long since taken root in the Islamic world. One was the iqṭā' or assignment of land or its revenue, in some cases in return for military service (sometimes misrepresented as “fief” on the Western European model). The other was the mamlūk, or military slave. Mamlūk status, it should be stressed, bore none of the degrading connotations associated with other types of slavery: mamlūks – generally Turks from the Eurasian steppelands – were highly prized by their masters, receiving both instruction in the Islamic faith and a rigorous training in the martial arts, and were not employed in any menial capacity. The mamlūk institution, whose origins go back to the first century of Islam, came into vogue from the first half of the third/ninth century, as the ‘Abbasid Caliphs built up a corps of Turkish mamlūk guards and their example was followed, with the disintegration of their empire, by the various autonomous dynasties that sprang up in the provinces. Turkish slave officers themselves went on to found dynasties, as in the case of the Tulunids and the Ikhshidids in Egypt and the Ghaznawids in the eastern Iranian world. The institution surely entered upon its heyday in the seventh/thirteenth century, with the military coup of 648/1250 in Cairo: a group of mamlūk officers overthrew the last Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and inaugurated a regime in which slave status was the essential qualification for high military and administrative office.

A History of the Ayyubid Sultans of Egypt

A History of the Ayyubid Sultans of Egypt

Mamlūk sultanic heraldry and the numismatic evidence: A reinterpretation

A few years ago Professor Balog, in the introduction to his book Coinage of the Mamlūk sultans of Egypt and Syria, suggested, on the basis of the numismatic evidence, a number of modifications to the principles of Mamlūk heraldry proposed earlier by Mayer in his book Saracenic heraldry, particularly with regard to the use of composite blazons by the sultans, and their design. Balog's main conclusions may be briefly summarized as follows:(a) The Mamlūk sultans engraved their coats-of-arms on many of their coins. (b) Besides simple charges true composite blazons occur on fulūs, showing that not only the nobility but the sultans also had composite blazons. (c) All simple charges occurring on issues of one and the same sultan are parts of his composite blazon. (d) Coins sometimes confirm the evidence for a sultan's blazon provided by other objects, and sometimes contradict it; in the latter case, the coin evidence should prevail, (e) Coins, in that they can be definitely attributed and the ownership of the blazons they carry can be proved without question, confirm Mayer's theory that the Mamlūk blazon was hereditary.

The Coinage of the Mamūlk Sultans of Egypt and Syria

The Coinage of the Mamūlk Sultans of Egypt and Syria

The Coinage of the Mamlūk Sultans of Egypt and Syria. Paul Balog

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook Reviews The Coinage of the Mamlūk Sultans of Egypt and Syria . Paul Balog Wilferd MadelungWilferd Madelung Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 25, Number 2Apr., 1966 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/371863 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1966 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.