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The Īlkhān Aḥmad's embassies to Qalāwūn: two contemporary accounts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

P. M. Holt
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Extract

With the accession of Tegüder, alias Ahmad, on the death of his brother Abaqa in 681/1282, the Īlkhānate was for the first time ruled by a Muslim. Consequently the possibility appeared of the establishment of peaceful relations with the rival Mamlūk sultanate under al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn (regn. 678–89/1279–90). Two successive embassies were in fact sent to the sultan during Ahmad's short reign, and accounts of these as seen in Mamlūk court circles are extant in the writings of two contemporaries. The first appears in the largely unpublished biography of Qalāwūn, al-Fadl al-ma'thūr min sīrat al-Malik al-Mansūr by Shāf‚’ b. ‘Alī (649–730/1252–1330), and the second in the published but incomplete biography, Tashrīf al-ayyām wa'l-‘usūr fi sīrat al-Malik al-Mansūr by the maternal uncle of Shāfi'b. ‘Alī, Muhyī al-Dīn Ibn ‘Abd al-Zāhir (620–92/1223–92). Both writers served in the chancery of the sultan in Cairo.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , February 1986 , pp. 128 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1986

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References

1 Bodleian, MS Marsh 424. A portion was published with translation by Axel, Moberg, ‘Regierungspromemoria eines ägyptischen Sultans’, Festschrift Eduard Sachau, Berlin, 1915, 406–21.Google Scholar

2 ed. Murād Kāmil, [Cairo, 1961].

3 sic in MS, where two successive folios are numbered 39.

4 Shāfi’ modestly describes how he clinched negotiations with Tripoli in 669/1271 and discovered a casus belli with Acre in 689/1290; cf. Holt, P. M., ‘The treaties of the early Mamlūk sultans with the Frankish states’, BSOAS, XLII, 1, 1980, at pp. 70–1, 76Google Scholar; idem. ‘Some observations on Shāfi’ b. ‘Alī's biography of Baybars’, Journal of Semitic Studies, xxix, I, 1984, at pp. 127–9.

5 The letter and Qalāwūn's reply were printed from the then unpublished MS of Tashrif al-ayyām with a French translation by Quatremère, E., Histoire des sultans mamlouks de l'Égypte, Paris, 1845, II, 158–66, 185–201.Google Scholar

6 By a curious coincidence, a similar proposal was made in the same year (1282) by Charles of Anjou to Peter of Aragon, when disputing over Sicily; cf. Steven, Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, Cambridge, 1958, 236.Google Scholar