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A petition for an iqtā‘ addressed to Saladin or al-‘ādil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

D. S. Richards
D. S. Richards
Affiliation:
The Oriental Institute, Oxford
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Extract

Many years ago the late Dr. Samuel Stern brought to my attention an item preserved among the Geniza documents in the Cambridge University Library. I remember that we used it as part of the illustrative material for a joint course of lectures on medieval Islamic administration, during which I, very much the junior partner, benefited greatly from his experience and store of knowledge. Stern himself intended to publish this piece, but had also brought it to the notice of Dr. Hassanein Rabie who used it, not entirely accurately, in his The financial system of Egypt, A.H. 564–741/A.D. 1169–1341 Rabie did not publish the text and, as far as I know, no one else ever has, although Geoffrey Khan has briefly referred to the titulature of the addressee. It seems worthwhile to do so now, after such a long interval, because of the intrinsic interest of this document.

Type
Notes and Communications
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , February 1992 , pp. 98 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1992

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References

1 Published by the Oxford University Press, 1972; see p. 57 and n. 2.

2 In ‘The historical development of the structure of medieval Arabic petitions’, BSOAS, LIII, 1, 1990, 26–7, 29Google Scholar.

3 I thank the Syndics of Cambridge University Library for permission to publish this document.

4 Abū, Shāma, Rawḍatayṅ, Bulaq ed., II, 144, 179Google Scholar: Shaddād, Ibn, al-Nawādir al-sulṭāniyya, (ed.) Shayyal, (Cairo, 1964), p. 173Google Scholar, line 5 (Ḥusām al-Dīn Ḥusain b. Bārīk al-Mihrānī); p. 199, line 17 (Ayāz al-Mihrānī); p. 225, line 15 (Dirbās al-Mihrānī).

5 Mufarrij, III, 47. There was a Balbān al-Mihrānī with Baybars in Palestine in 657 (1259), see Maqrīzī, Sulūk, I, p. 415, line 4. A Sayf al-Dīn ‘Alī b. Mihrān (sic) is to be found in Mufarrij, III (see index). Al-Sam'ānī traces the nisba back to individuals from Nishapur, with no mention of the Kurdish groupingGoogle Scholar, see Kitāb al-Ansāb (Hyderabad, 1981), XII, 490–2Google Scholar.

6 Richards, D. S., ‘A Fatimid petition and “small decree” from Sinai’, Israel Oriental Studies, III, 1973, 150–1Google Scholar, and G. Khan, ‘The historical development of medieval Arabic petitions’.

7 Stern, S. M., ‘Petitions from the Ayyubid period’, BSOAS, XXVII, 1, 1964, p. 21 and plate IV(a)Google Scholar.

8 The financial system of Egypt, 57Google Scholar.

9 Kitāb al-Intiṣār (Cairo, 1893), V, 99Google Scholar. For the 'ibra the edition actually has 6,400 ‘feddans’, which is obviously an error. The area is calculated on the basis that a feddān was 400 square qaṣabas (al-Maqrīzī, Khiṭaṭ, Bulaq ed., I, p. 103, lines 16–20) and a qaṣaba was 3.99 mGoogle Scholar. (Hinz, W., Islamische Mässe und Gewichte, Leiden, 1970, 63)Google Scholar.

10 al-Tuhfa al-saniyya (Bulaq, 1898), 111Google Scholar.

11 Imād, al-Dīn in al-Bundárās, version, Sanā' al-Barq al-Shāmī (Cairo, 1979), 191Google Scholar, says: ‘In this year [577] it was agreed with Sayf al-Islām... Tughtegīn ⃛ that he should go to Yemen ⃛ He set out after our departure to Syria, and his rule there followed a most excellent course. That was in the year [5]78.’ Ibn Jubayr witnessed Sayf al-Islām's entry into Mecca on Wednesday, 3 Ramadān 578 (Wednesday, 20 December 1183), see Riḥla, (ed.) W., Wright (London, 1907), 146Google Scholar. In The Ayyubids and Early Rasulids in the Yemen, that is Simṭ al-Ghālī, (ed.) Smith, G. R. (London, 1974), I, 24Google Scholar, the year 579 is given for his arrival in Yemen. Al-Khazrajī, is more specific. In al-'Uqūd al-Lu'lu'iyya (London, 1913), IV, 29Google Scholar, he gives the date of Tughtegīn's entry into Yemen as Saturday, 13 Shawwāl 579 (Saturday = 28 January 1184).

12 Sanā' al-Barq al-Shāmī, p. 233, lines 3 ffGoogle Scholar.

13 For a discussion of al-'Ādil's, titles, see Stern, S. M., ‘Two Ayyubid decrees from Sinai’, in Documents from Islamic Chanceries, (ed.) Stem, S. M. (Oxford, Cassirer, 1965), 18–24Google Scholar.

14 Ṣubḥ, XIII, p. 154. lines 7 ff.; and e.g. Nuwairī, Nihāya, VIII, 208Google Scholar.

15 Nuwairī, Nihāya, VIII, 208–9Google Scholar.