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The Influence of Chingiz-Khān's Yāsa upon the General Organization of the Mamlūk State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

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IN an article published several years ago we have collected evidence corroborating al-Maqrīzī's statement (mistrusted by Quatremère in Histoire des Mongols) that siyāsa, the legal code of the Mamlūks, was founded upon the Great Yāsa of Chingiz-Khān. The Great Yāsa was not merely a code of criminal and civil law but a system of rules governing the entire political, social, military, and economic life of the community which adopted it. The expansion of this system outside the Mongol nation was due to the belief that it was responsible for the extraordinary military success of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, and that it might be regarded as a talisman ensuring victories on the battle-field. The Yāsa rules concerning communal organization were even more important from this point of view than the laws treating of the behaviour of individuals. It is natural, therefore, to suppose that not only the Mamlūk criminal, civil, and commercial law but also the general organization of the Mamlūk state was based upon the Yāsa. The present article, inspired by the attempts made in modern times to collect and systematize the fragmentary evidence concerning the contents of the Yāsa, is intended to show that this organization is indeed comprehensible only in the light of such evidence. Some preliminary remarks are necessary.

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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1942

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References

page 862 note 1 Revue des Études Islamiqv.es, 1935, pp. 235–6. Cf. also our Feudalism in Egypt Syria, Palestine, and the Lebanon, p. 15, n. 1.Google Scholar

page 862 note 2 Cf., e.g., al-Maqrīzī, , Khiṭaṭ, ed. A.H. 1270, ii, p. 221.Google Scholar

page 862 note 3 The long series begins with Pétis de la Croix, The History of Genghizcan the Great (French, 1710, English, 1722). To cite only his latest followers: Vladimirtsov, Social Organization of the Mongols, Russian, 1934Google Scholar; Alinge, , Mongolische Gesetze, 1934Google Scholar; Riasanovsky, , Fundamental Principles of Mongol Law, 1937Google Scholar; Vernadsky, with Minorsky's collaboration, On the Contents of the Great Yasa, Russian, Brussels, 1939.Google Scholar

page 863 note 1 Shāma, Abū, Kitāb al-Rawḍatayn, ed. A.H. 1287, i, p. 6, , 1. 37, to p. 7, 1. 2; p. 7, 1. 12; p. 11, 1. 1.Google Scholar

page 863 note 2 Ibid., p. 13, 11. 18–25, etc.

page 864 note 1 Sultans Aynāl and Yalbāy may be cited as examples: Iyās, Ibn, ed. A.H. 1311, ii, p. 64, 1. 29Google Scholar; Birdī, Ibn TaghrĪ, Ḥawādith, p. 335, 1. 17Google Scholar; p. 608, 11. 8–11.

page 864 note 2 This view is endorsed by Ibn Khaldūn, Kitāb al-‘Ibar, ii, p. 10, 11. 6–12;Google Scholar iv, p. 501, 1. 8, etc.

page 864 note 3 Al-SakhāwĪ, , al-Ḍaw’ al-Lāmi‘, ii, p. 276, 1. 17Google Scholar; BirdI, Ibn TaghrĪ, Nujūn, vi, p. 784, 1. 8;Google Scholar p. 812, 1. 6, etc.

page 864 note 4 Khiṭaṭ, , ii, p. 221, 11. 14–15, etc.Google ScholarSuch evidence must be carefully distinguished from that which applies the term Qypchaq to the Golden Horde. In the Zangid and Ayyūbid times the same name designated a province of Kurdistan (after one of its rulers), whose lords were Turcomans: Shāma, Abū, ii, p. 138, 1. 33.Google Scholar

page 865 note 1 Nujūm, v, p. 63. Ibn al-WardĪ in Ta'rĪkh of Abū1-Fidā', ed. A.H. 1286, iv, p. 150.

page 865 note 2 Ibn Khaldūn, v, p. 372. Al-QalqashandĪ, , Ḍubḥ, iv, pp. 182, 216.Google Scholar "Wlādmr" in Ibn Ḥajar, al-Durar al-Kāmina, iv, p. 408, 1. 2 = Vladimir? But in general the Russians, as others, adopted Turkish names: cf. Baybughā Rūs or B. Urūs, d. 1353. During the ethnic conflict among the Mamlūks in A.H. 870, there was no longer a Russian faction: Ḥawādith, p. 525, 11. 14–16. The “Slavic” regiment of “Turkish” troops in the Yaman, which existed in the fifteenth century (SakhāwĪ, x, p. 215, No. 937), possibly retained its name from earlier times.

page 865 note 3 i, p. 102, 11. 18–21.

page 865 note 4 Ibn Iyās, iv, p. 56, 11. 89Google Scholar; p. 102, 11. 8–15; p. 149, 11. 8–17; p. 195, 11. 2–8, The appellation al-GhawrĪ is derived not from the place of birth but from the barracks where he received his military education, ṭabaqat al-ghawr: Muhammad al-GhazzĪs al-Kawākib al-Sā'ira, MS. Damascus (Ẓāhiriyya), i, f. 123 (the author, who lived in the seventeenth century, already ignores the meaning of the word ṭabaqa!Google ScholarCf. on ṭabaqat al-ghawr, situated in the citadel of Cairo, Ibn TaghrĪ BirdĪ, al-Manhal al-ṢāfĪ, MS. Paris, v, f. 113a, 1. 16).Google Scholar

page 865 note 5 Ibn Iyās, i, p. 269, 11. 1–15, 17Google Scholar; p. 309, 1. 23.

page 865 note 6 Cf., e.g., Abū 1-Fidā’, Ta'rĪkh, p. 97, 1. 28;Google ScholarKhaldūn, Ibn, ii, p. 282, 11. 89;Google ScholarṢubḥ, iv, p. 462, 1. 5.Google ScholarUnder the Circassian sultans the citadel of Cairo contained for some time a Christian church, probably for Circassian women, who were not compelled to give up their faith as were men: al-SakhāwĪ, , al-Tibr al-Masbūk, ed. 1896, p. 73, II. 25.Google Scholar The native biographers of Mamlūk emirs and knights were not allowed to write about their Christian past, not even to mention the date of their conversion to Islam.

page 866 note 1 Charkas = jarkas = jārkas, lit. “[owner of] four souls”: al-Manhal al-Ṣāfi, i, f. 173a. Used as personal name. Under the Ayyubids we still find its original form, chahārkas = jahārkas: Khallikān, Ibn, Wafayāt al-Aެyān, i, p. 397, 1. 3.Google Scholar

page 866 note 2 Volney, C. P., Voyage en Syrie et en Égypte, Paris, 1787, i, p. 166.Google Scholar

page 866 note 3 The Alans (ެAlān, al-Lān, Āṣ, Ās, al-Lāṣ, al-Āz) were numerous there throughout the Mamlūk epoch: cf., e.g., Ibn Khaldūn, v, p. 372; Ṣubḥ, iv, p. 182; Hawadith, p. 525. The Abkhasians (Abaẓā, Abaza) only during its last century: Hawādith, loc. cit., etc.

page 866 note 4 Cf. our remarks in Revue des Études Islamiques, 1935, pp. 236-8Google Scholar. Unfortunately, owing to the opposition of the military caste to the study of its tongue by the natives (Feudalism, p. 1, n. 2), the surviving Arabic-Turkish glossaries of the Mamlūk epoch have been written not by members of this caste but by outsiders, who had little connection with it. Perhaps they do not reflect the official dialect but are due to the fact that the natives did not distinguish one Turkish dialect from another, the official being, of course, not the only one used in the Mamlūk state. The only published glossary whose author claims to be a Turk by birth, Bulghat al-Mushtāq of ެal-Turkī, Abdullāh (ed. Zajaczkowski, A., Warsaw, 1938), is the work of one whose Arabic name shows clearly that he did not belong to the military caste (cf. Ḥawādith), p. 616, 11. 5-8; al-Sakhawi, al-Daw', iii, p. 71), and who honestly admits that the Turkish words compiled by him became known to him through the medium of earlier books and of persons better acquainted with Turkish than himself.Google Scholar He too evidently believed in the identity of “Turkish” proper with the language of Qypehaq (cf. the text, p. 1, 11. 1, 10). the latter being in this case probably not one of South Russian Qypchaqs but the tongue of North Mesopotamian Qypchaq, which included that region of Irbil in which he was particularly interested (cf. p. xiii). This tongue belonged, indeed, to the same Ghuzz family as the Mamlūk Turkish, though it hardly was quite identical with the latter. The claim of North Syrian Turcomans to be Qypchaqs (Ṣubḥ, xiii, p. 37, 1. 7) might be also a reminiscence of their being descendants of that Qypchaq, since, according to many evidences, this Turcoman tribe was brought to North Syria by the Atabeg Zangī from the east: cf., e.g., Abū Shama, i, pp. 43-4 (on the tribal name cf. Ṣubḥ, vii, p. 190; Ẓāhirī, Zubdat Kashf al-MamĐlilk, ed. Ravaisse, p. 105). At any rate, though the material cited in such works is possibly of more heterogeneous stock than the official Mamlūk vocabulary, it also proves the latter's Ghuzz origin.

page 867 note 1 Nujūm, v, p. 56.Google Scholar

page 867 note 2 Cf., e.g., Ḥawādith, p. 549, 1. 18.Google Scholar

page 867 note 3 Ṣubḥ, iv, p. 182, 1. 12.Google Scholar

page 867 note 4 Ḥawādith, p. 525, II. 1416.Google Scholar

page 867 note 5 Khiṭaṭ, i, p. 95, 1. 4.Google ScholarSulūk, Quatremère'’s, transl., i, p. 24, I. 23;Google Scholar i, ii, p. 45, n 53.

page 867 note 6 Ibn Iyās, i, p. 168, 1. 6Google Scholar.

page 867 note 7 Ḥaādith, loc. cit.Google Scholar

page 867 note 8 Cf. the chapter Nobilitas hominum et mulierum in the editions of Kuun, 1880, and Granbech, 1936.Google Scholar

page 868 note 1 ẒāḥirĪ, , Zubdat Kashf al-Mamālik, ed. Ravaisse, , p. 16, 11. 1113, etc.Google Scholar

page 868 note 2 Poliak in RÉl., 1935, p. 236, n. 3;Google ScholarFeudalism, p. 1, n. 4;Google Scholar and JRAS., 1939, pp. 429430.Google Scholar

page 868 note 3 Ṣubḥ, xiv, p. 102, 1. 18;Google Scholar p. 103, 1. 7 (rendered as kūrkān). While in Central Asia this title was so forgotten that V. Barthold supposed it to have never been used after the Qara Qytai epoch (12 Vorlesungen über die Oeschichte der Türken Mittelasiens, p. 123), the Mamlūks preserved the ancient tradition of the steppe.Google Scholar

page 869 note 1 We find this tendency already in a charter of Hūlāgū of A.H. 658Google Scholar; Yaḥyā, Ṣāliḥ Ibn, Ta'rĪkh Bayrūt, 2nd ed., p. 57, 11. 28.Google Scholar

page 869 note 2 Sulūk, Quatremère's translation, i, ii, pp. 19, 25.Google Scholar

page 869 note 3 Cf. Minorsky in BSOS., ix, p. 950, after JuwaynĪ, i, p. 22, 1. 20.Google Scholar

page 869 note 4 Ṣubḥ, xiii, p. 94, 1. 8;Google Scholar p. 97, 11. 6, 13. Arabic sources render it, of course, as bĪkār.Google Scholar

page 870 note 1 This term survived in Egypt until the nineteenth century: JabartĪ, iv, p. 207, 11. 1720;Google Scholarthe Earl of Cromer, Modern Egypt, the chapter on the corvée.Google Scholar

page 870 note 2 Cf., e.g., Abū'l-Fidā, ’, ii, p. 172, 11. 18, 20, 21;Google ScholarShāma, Abū, ii, p. 185, 1. 31;Google Scholar p. 203, 1. 12.

page 870 note 3 Cf., e.g., the personal name Tarkhān, Ūlugh (Khaldūn, Ibn, iv, p. 297, 1. 21), third century A.H.Google ScholarBailey, H. W., Turks in. Khotanese Texts (JRAS., 1939, p. 91), sums up some non-Moslem materials.Google Scholar

page 870 note 4 Mong. darkhan “freedman”;Google Scholar cf. Vladimirtsov, pp. 69, 93.

page 870 note 5 Cf. the sources cited in Feudalism, p. 15, n. 6Google Scholar.

page 871 note 1 He was a knight of al-ḥalqa and a fief-holder: iv, p. 136, II. 1012, etc.Google Scholar

page 871 note 2 Cf. Poliak in RÉL, 1934, p. 262, n. 4.Google Scholar

page 871 note 3 Cf., e.g., the application of these terms by Shāma, Abū (ii, p. 82, 1. 6; p. 144, 1.20; p. 179, 11. 1318) to Ayyūbid cavalry.Google Scholar The centre was commanded by the ruler, the two wings by senior generals. On the corresponding terms used afterwards by Iranian Turks—manqalay Mong. “forehead, front”, sagh “right”, and sol “left”— cf. Minorsky in BSOS., x, p. 165.Google Scholar

page 871 note 4 Cf., e.g., Shāma, Abū, ii, p. 82, II. 6, 11;Google Scholar p. 144, II. 3–4; p. 202, 1. 24, and numerous Arabic treatises on physical culture (furūsiyya) and hunting. The corresponding term employed by Juwaynī when speaking on Mongol imperial hunts is nerge. Those treatises on warfare whose authors were faithful disciples of the Arab military school (e.g. Ibn Khaldūn, i, pp. 226–233) ignore halqa.

page 871 note 5 Thus, Kitāb fĪ 'Ilm al-Furūsiyya, MS. Aleppo (Ahmadiyya), f. 18a, mentions a ḥalqa play during which horsemen surrounded a single rider, who had to flee from their ring. LāchĪn al-ḤusāmĪ al-Ṭarābulusī, Tuḥfat al-MujāhidĪn ffl-‘Amal bi-’l- MayādĪn, MS. Aleppo (Aḥmadiyya), mentions ḥalqat ḥhifz al-fāris, two concentric rings constituted by “rival” parties; ḥalqatayn al-muqābala, two rings formed by them behind their respective commanders, who met each other in the middle; maydān al-ahilla, two concentric crescents; and ḥalqas of horsemen round their own commanders or round the line on which they were formerly placed. These two small treatises (for the use of excellent photographs of them I am indebted to Dr. S. Reich), describe plays performed on public festivals by Arabic-speaking professional lanceplayers (rammāḥ). These lance-players were a hereditary corporation, anxious to conceal the secrets of their professional education from the general public (Furūsiyya, f. 27b); and since the “Turkish” warriors concealed in their turn technical particulars of their military art from natives, the art of rammāḥs was a conservative one, claiming descent from Sasanian and early Islamic warriors (ibid., ff. 24, 34), not from the Turks and Mongols. The author of Furūsiyya calls various exercises al-ṭaLn al-ḤijāzĪ (f. 4b), KhurĪsānĪ (f. 28b), ShārnĪ (f. 32a), never by names indicating a Turkisḥ or a Mongol origin. Still, some Turkish influence infiltrated through the medium of those Mamlūks discharged from service who had to derive their subsistence from lessons of horsemanship given to despised natives and adapted to their needs. The author of Furūsiyya evidently had only native teachers, as Badr al-DĪn Ḥasan al-Rammāḥ (f. 5a) and Najm al-Dīn Ayyub al-Rammāḥ (f. 15b ff.), and for him a private Mamlūk, Sayf al-Dīn Tuquz, who condescended to write something on this subject, was a most venerable person (f. 14b); but the name of Lāchīn al-ḤusāmĪ indicates that he was some time a Mamlūk, though he prefers not to speak about his past; and the fact that he is much more versed in the halqa plays than the native author corroborates our view that at least these plays were adopted by the rammāḥs from the military caste. By the way, the word ḥalqa is always vocalized by him as ḥalaqa, possibly after its popular pronunciation.

page 872 note 1 Ṣubḥ, iv, p. 22; xiv, pp. 166171Google Scholar. l-Fidā, Abū', iv, pp. 30, 31, 93, 134.Google Scholar

page 872 note 2 Shāma, Abū, ii, p. 179, 11. 1718;Google Scholar p. 180, II. 4, 36, etc. Quatremère's explanation of the term al-ḥalqa in this case as the guard surrounding the ruler and protecting him (Sulūk, his translation, i, ii, pp. 200–2, cited by Dozy, Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes, s.v.), is not founded by him on any sources. In fact, al-ḥalqa did not surround the ruler but fought beside or, more frequently, before him.

page 873 note 1 Ṣubḥ, iii, p. 449. Khiṭaṭ, i, p. 101. ẒāhirĪ, p. 129.

page 873 note 2 Sulūk, Quatremère, , i, ii, p. 26, n. 29.Google ScholarAbūު1-Fidāު, iv, p. 120, II. 1922.Google Scholar

page 873 note 3 Cf. Feudalism, pp. 71–2.

page 873 note 4 Cf. on the Mamlūks: Matériaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, ii, 1, 62;Google ScholarGaudefroy-Demombynes, , La Syrie a lުépoque den Mamelouks, p. 249, n. 7;Google ScholarSubh, xiv, p. 377. II. 13.Google Scholar

page 873 note 5 Khiṭaṭ, i, p. 91, II. 1819.Google Scholar

page 874 note 1 Cf. Feudalism, pp. 64 ff., and RÉI., 1936, pp. 261–3.Google Scholar

page 874 note 2 Al-SubkĪ, , MuުĪd al-Niެam, ed. Myhrman, , p. 48, 1. 15.Google Scholar

page 874 note 3 Ibn al-JĪ'ān's al-Tuḥfat al-Saniyya is a list of Egyptian nāḥiyas. On the term kufūr, sing, kafr, cf. ibid., p. 9, 1. 4; p. 15, II. 22, 27, etc.; Jabarti, i, p. 346, II. 26–8.Google Scholar On transformation of kufūr into particular nāḥiyas, see Ibn al-JĪ'ān, p. 9, 1. 4; p. 13, 1. 4; p. 15, II. 22, 27; p. 22, 1. 6 p. 59, 1. 16, etc.

page 874 note 4 Ṣālih Ibn Yaḥyā, Ta'rĪkh Bayrūt (the cited feudal charters). Ibn al-JĪān (the cases of villages divided among several lords). The Buildings of Qāytbāy, ed. Mayer, , i (text), 1938, pp. 52–60.Google Scholaral-Shiḥna, Ibn, al-Durr al-Muntakhab, ed. 1909, p. 75, II. 1011Google Scholar p. 119, II. 1-6. Sulūk, Quatremère, ii, i, p. 89. Matériaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, i, p. 354, etc.Google ScholarPoliak in JRAS., 1937, pp. 105-6, and Feudalism, pp. 19, 6970.Google Scholar

page 875 note 1 RÉl., 1935, pp. 238241;Google Scholar 1936, p. 264; Feudalism, pp. 65–7.

page 875 note 2 We refer to its final form. The article devoted to the early history of this tax in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, 1942, pp. 5062, written long ago and never seen by me in proofs, utilizes but a part of materials proving that this form differed from early ones.Google Scholar

page 875 note 3 The Buildings of Qāytbāy, i, p. 52, right margin.

page 875 note 4 Ibn Iyās, iv, p. 463, 1. 12; p. 471, II. 18–23; v, p. 159, 1. 11.