History and Society during the Mamluk Period (1250–1517)

Studies of the Annemarie Schimmel Research College I

Edited by Stephan Conermann Series edited by Stephan Conermann

Book cover: History and Society during the Mamluk Period (1250–1517)

Extent: 229 pages

Publisher: V&R unipress

Subjects: Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, Medieval Studies

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(March 2014)

ISBN: 9783847102281

6.3 x 9.25 inches

Price: $74.00

Out of stock

The authors of this volume address a wide range of fascinating topics: medicine and non-Muslim physicians in Mamluk Cairo, the social order of 15th-century Damascus, official reports on natural disasters (ma???ir) as sources of Mamluk geography, folk literature, narrative analysis of ego-documents, the judiciary of Late Mamluk and Early Ottoman Damascus, and the problems of imperial village planning. All contributions lead to a better and more sophisticated understanding of the Mamluk society. The contributions were produced at the Annemarie Schimmel-Kolleg History and Society of the Mamluk Era at Bonn University.


Once a person starts to study the 250-some years of the Mamluk Era in Egypt and Syria (12501517), one characteristic of that period stands out immediately the very unusual polarization of its society. A predominantly Arabic population was dominated by a purely Turkish-born elite of manu-mitted military slaves who sought to regenerate themselves continuously through a self-imposed fiat. The only person who could become a Mamluk was a Turk who had been born free outside the Islamic territories as a non-Muslim, then enslaved, brought to Egypt as a slave, converted to Islam, freed, and finally, trained as a warrior. Only those who met these prerequisites were members of the ruling stratum with all the concomitant political, military, and economic advantages. On this historically unique model of a society, Stephan Conermann has published a series of seminal articles. In this edited volume the reader gets an excellent introduction to some of the central issues of the ongoing research on the Mamluk history and society.

  • Edited by Stephan Conermann
  • Series edited by Stephan Conermann