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A Mamlūk emir's ‘square’ decree
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
In his catalogue of the Haram documents, D. P. Little has brought attention to a group of nine items, which he identifies with what the handbooks and other contemporary sources describe as murabba'āt One may accept the translation ‘square’ for convenience sake, but the surviving examples show that murabba'a should strictly be understood as ‘quadrangular’. Under question are documents written on a sheet of paper in ‘landscape’ mode, folded centrally to form four pages, and distinguished from documents written on a piece of paper in ‘portrait’ mode or a series of these stuck together to produce a scroll. While looking through the Cambridge University Library's varied collection of material, both paper and papyrus, that is known by the name of its immediate source, Michaelides, I came across one more example, at least, if one judges bythe shape and general lay-out. It seems to be of sufficient interest to merit a brief study, with some cross-reference to the Haram material.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , February 1991 , pp. 63 - 67
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1991
References
1 Little, D. P., A catalogue of the Islamic documents from al-Haram aś-Śarif in Jerusalem, Beirut,1984, 28–35Google Scholar.
2 It is odd to see that Qalqāshandī refers to a common ‘abhorrence of four-squareness (kirāhat al-tarbī')’, exemplified by writers' cutting off the bottom right corner of a petition, see Ṣubḥ al-A'shā, Cairo, 1915, VI, 204Google Scholar.
3 Ṣubḥ, xin, 154Google Scholar.
4 For description of the process and the form of the document, see al-Nuwairī, , Nihāyat al-arab, Cairo, III, 208–10Google Scholar; Ibn Nāẓir, al-Jaish,Tathqifal-Ta'rlf, ed. Vesely, R., Cairo, 1987, 150–1, 154, 156Google Scholar, and Ṣubḥ, vi, 201–202Google Scholar, and xIII, 154–6Google Scholar.
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6 Ṣubḥ, viii, 75Google Scholar. The circumstances of this usage of the word were misunderstood by Little, op.cit., 29 (and correct the reference to the Subh in note 22 there).
7 See Little, op. cit., nos. 1, 6, 304, 308, 309. As Little says (p. 29), another ‘royal’ example will be found in Ernst, H., Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden des Sinai-Klosters, Wiesbaden,1960, no. LXVII. That one was issued in response to a petition of the Sinai monks. Haram no. 1 was also in response to a petition, but Haram no. 304 was issued on the basis of an ishhād; cf. Subh, vi, 202; xii, 154.Google Scholar
8 For the building and the founder, see Burgoyne, M. H. and Richards, D. S., Mamluk Jerusalem; an architectural study, British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, 1987, 399–411Google Scholar.
9 The document has been made available for publication by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.
10 I leave most of these epithets, which are in nisba form, untranslated. Explanatory notes will be found in the alphabetically arranged section on alqāb in Ṣubḥ, vi, 10–27Google Scholar.
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