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The treaties of the early Mamluk sultans with the Frankish states

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

P. M. Holt
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Extract

Arabic sources have preserved the texts of seven treaties concluded in the second half of the seventh/thirteenth century between the Mamluk sultans al-Ẓāhir Baybars and al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn on the one hand, and various authorities in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem and in Antioch-Tripoli on the other. Four are given by the Egyptian chancery clerk al-Qalqashandī in his encyclopaedic compilation, Ṣubḥ al-a'shā. This was completed in 814/1412, over 120 years after the extinction of the Frankish states, but the treaties were transcribed (as al-Qalqashandī tells us) from an earlier work by a clerk in Qalāwūn's chancery, Muḥammad b. al-Mukarram. Two of Qalāwūn's other treaties are found in his biography, written by the contemporary chancery clerk, Muḥyi al-Dīn ibn 'Abd al-Ẓāhir (d. 692/1292). Yet another of Qalāwūn's treaties was preserved by the contemporary chronicler, Baybars al-Manṣurī (d. 725/1325).

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , February 1980 , pp. 67 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1980

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References

1 The treaties referred to are the following:

(a) Baybars and the Hospitallers: 4 Ramaḍān 665/29 May 1267. Al-Qalqashandī, , Ṣubḥ al-a'shā, Cairo n.d., xiv, 31–9Google Scholar.

(b) Baybars and the Lady Isabel of Beirut: 6 Ramaḍān 667/9 May 1269. Ṣubḥ, xiv, 39–42.

(c) Baybars and the Hospitallers: I Ramaḍṣan 669/13 April 1271. Ṣubḥ, xiv, 42–51.

(d) Qalāwūn and Bohemond VII of Tripoli: 17 Rabī' 1680/6 July 1281. Baybars al-Manṣūri, Zubdat al-fikra, excerpted in al-Maqrīzī, , Kitāb al-sulūk (ed. Ziada, M. M.), I/3, Cairo, 1970, 975–7Google Scholar. Ibn al-Furāt, Ta'rīkh, excerpted in al-Ẓāhir, Ibn 'Abd, Tashrlf al-ayyām (ed. Kāmil, Murād), Cairo, 1961, 210–11Google Scholar.

(e) Qalāwūn and the Templars: 5 Muḥarram 681/16 April 1282. al-Ẓāhir, Ibn 'Abd, Tashrīf, 20–2Google Scholar. Arabic text and French translation in Quatremère, E., Histoire des sultans mamlouks, Paris, 1837–1845, I/l, 177–8, 221–3Google Scholar. English translation (through Italian) in Gabrieli, Francesco, Arab historians of the Crusades, London, 1969, 323–6Google Scholar.

(f) Qalāwūn and the authorities in Acre: 5 Rabī' I 682/3 June 1283. Ṣubḥ, XIV, 51–63. al-Ẓāhir, Ibn 'Abd, Tashrīf, 34–43Google Scholar. Zurayq, Qusṭanṭīn (ed.), Ta'rīkh Ibn al-Furāt, VII, Beirut, 1942, 262–70Google Scholar. Quatremère, , Histoire, I/l, 179–85, 224–30Google Scholar. Gabrieli, , Arab historians, 326–31Google Scholar.

(g) Qalāwūn and the Lady Margaret of Tyre: 14 Jumādā I 684/18 July 1285. al-Ẓāhir, Ibn 'Abd, Tashrīf, 103–10Google Scholar. Quatremère, , Histoire, I/l, 172–6, 212–21Google Scholar.

2 Ṣubḥ, XIV, 8.

3 al-Ṣāhir, Ibn 'Abd, al-Rawḍ al-zāhir (ed. 'al-Khuwayṭir, Abd al-'Azīz), al-Riyāḍ 1396/1976, 118Google Scholar. The lord of Jaffa and the ruler of Beirut were respectively John of Ibelin, count of Jaffa (1250–66) and his namesake the lord of Beirut (1247–64).

4 Ṣubḥ, XIV, 70–1.

5 Tashrīf, 34, 43.

6 Ṣubḥ, XIII, 311–14.

7 'Alī, Shäfi' b., al-Faḍl al-ma'thūr min sīrat al-sulṭān al-Malik al-Manṣūr, Bodleian MS Marsh 424, fols. 106b–107bGoogle Scholar. Shāfi', gives another account of the incident in Ḥusn al-manāqib al-sirriyya al-muntaza'a min al-sīra al-Ẓāhiriyya (ed. al-Khuwayṭir, 'Abd al-'Azīz), al-Riyāḍ 1396/ 1976, 127–8Google Scholar.

8 al-Faḍl al-ma'thūr, fols. 107b–109a; Ḥusn ad-manāqib, 132–4.

9 Prawer, J., Histoire du royaume latin de Jérusalem (second ed.), Paris, 1975, II, 523Google Scholar.

10 Ṣubḥ, XIV, 60; Tashrīf, 43.

11 Tashrīf, 109.

12 Tashrīf, 108.

13 The Arabic is wāli tilka al-wilāya/-jiha, wāli aī-makān. Wāli is probably here synonymous with ra'īs; cf. below (p. 73), where the ru'asá' of the locality act in the event of robbery or homicide. Clauses in Baybars's first treaty with the Hospitallers dealing with procedure in cases of missing property are introduced with the phrase ‘the discharge [iṭlāq] of the ru'asā'’. The term ra'īs (in the form rays) was specifically used of a village headman in the Latin kingdom; cf. Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The feudal nobility of the kingdom of Jerusalem 1174–1277, [London, 1973], 47–9Google Scholar.

14 Ṣubḥ, XIV, 57.

15 Tashrīf, 108.

16 Ṣubḥ, XIV, 48.

17 Ṣubḥ, XIV, 38.

18 Ṣubḥ, XIV, 61. This clause is not given in Tashrīf.

19 Such clauses derive their validity from the Islamic legal concept of amān (safe-conduct), which was sometimes embodied in specific instruments: cf. Wansbrough, J., ‘The safe-conduct in Muslim chancery practice’, BSO AS, XXXIV/1, 1971, 20–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Ṣubḥ, XIV, 41.

21 Tafel, G. L. F. and Thomas, G. M. (ed.), Urhunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, III, Vienna, 1857, 336Google Scholar.

22 Ṣubḥ, XIV, 47.

23 Specimens of the decrees of Mamluk sultans, which were the instrument s embodying the final results of commercial negotiations, have been published and examined by Wansbrough, J., ‘A Mamlūk commercial treat y concluded with the Eepublic of Florence 894/1489’, in Stern, S. M. (ed.), Documents from Islamic chanceries, Oxford [1965], 39–79Google Scholar; idem, ‘Venice and Florence in the Mamluk commercial privileges’, BS0 AS, XXVIII/3, 1965, 483–523.

24 Tashrīf, 108.

25 al-Ẓāhir, Ibn 'Abd, Rawḍ, 266, 283Google Scholar.

26 'Alī, Shāfi' b., al-Faḍl al-ma'thūr, ff. 127a–128bGoogle Scholar; Ḥusn al-manāqib, 138–40.