Egypt and Syria in the Early Mamluk Period

An Extract from Ibn Fa?l Allah Al-?Umari's Masalik Al-Ab?ar Fi Mamalik Al-Am?ar

D.S. Richards

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781315458793
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Providing a modern English translation of a key selection of Ibn Fadl Allah al-`Umar?'s Mas?lik al-abs?r, this book offers a rich description of Egypt and Syria under the Mamluks in the first half of the fourteenth-century A.D. It provides a fascinating snapshot of the physical and administrative geography of this crucial region as well as insights into its society and the organization and functioning of the Mamluk state.

p.13

The translation

<77> Concerning the realm of Egypt, Syria and the Hijaz

[1]²⁴

These countries form one realm. Most of Egypt is situated at the beginning of the third [clime], and most of Syria at its end. Aleppo, part of Syria, is in the fourth. It is a large realm of great wealth, whose seat of government is the Citadel of the Mount [in Cairo], and secondarily Damascus. It is one of the most glorious kingdoms on earth because it possesses certain revered sites, the Holy Land and places of worship that were founded in goodly piety. Within it are the three mosques “which are the goal of all pilgrims”,²⁵ the tombs of the Prophets (the blessings of God be upon them), al-Ṭūr,²⁶ and the Nile and the Euphrates, the two rivers that flow from Paradise.²⁷

[2]²⁸

<78> In this realm there is an emerald mine,²⁹ unrivalled anywhere in the world. The fact that Egypt is in sole possession of this mine and that distant foreign rulers seek its products from her is in itself a sufficient cause for pride. The following account of the mine I had from the notary³⁰ ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, the Clerk of the Mine:

Travelling at the normal moderate speed it takes eight days to get there from Qūs. The Beja³¹ camp around about it or in the vicinity to undertake the digging and guarding of it. The mine is in the mountains east of the Nile, to the north of a large peak called Qurshanda, the highest and noblest in the mountains there. The stretch of country in which it is situated has no permanent settlement, nor is there one around about or anywhere near. The nearest water is half a day’s journey away or more, and is water collected from the rain, known as the Pool of Aʿyun. It is abundant when there is much rain and scarce when there is little.³²

The mine is at the heart of a lengthy cavern in white rock from which the emeralds are extracted. This white rock is of three kinds. The first is called talq kāfūrī,³³ the second is called ṭalq fiḍḍa³⁴ and the third is called <79> ḥarawī stone [?]. The rock is broken to reveal the emeralds, which are, as it were, veins within it. The best sort – and the emeralds are of three types – are the so-called dhubābī [fly-green].³⁵ These are the most splendid, but they are rare, no, rarer than rare; they are hardly ever found.

p.14

The notary, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, reported that during all the time he was employed there he saw not a single one, nor was one mined in all that period, and he had to collect throughout the year all that was found by any worker there.

He continued:

There is no fixed limit to the number of workers. It fluctuates according to the interest, or lack of it, in exploiting the mine. When an emerald is mined, it is thrown into linseed oil, then placed in cotton and the cotton is wrapped up in strips of linen, or something similar. Security in the mine is very strict. The workers are searched each day when they leave; even places which it is not proper to mention are searched.

This is what he has told me.

Another person, who knows all about this mine, told me that the workers in the mine, notwithstanding the strict security, have many devious ways of stealing emeralds.³⁶ For example, a man may steal such emeralds as he can, put them in a little purse, which he has with him, prepared for the purpose, tie it up and suspend it by a silk thread, tied securely to it, between his back molars. The top of the thread is tied firmly, and when the thread is suspended he works the knot between the two molars towards his cheek. The purse remains attached, and when he leaves the mine and reaches a safe place, he retrieves it and takes the contents.

[3]

<80> Balsam, that well-known substance, is found in Egypt. The rulers of Christendom most eagerly solicit it, for Christians generally have a particular belief concerning it, thinking that no Christian is fully made a Christian until some oil of balsam is put in the water of the font at his baptism.³⁷

[4]

The various sources of income and revenue of this state, its regiments and troops, the communities that have taken refuge in it and the multifarious peoples that have come to live here, the goodly rule and long tradition of leadership for which its Sultans are known – all this is common knowledge and not concealed in obscurity from any person of perception. In previous passages of this work and in some others still to come my words find their justification. Let no-one believe or suppose that bias lies behind my words, because I am a native of these lands, subject to the authority of their rulers, and nurtured like my forefathers in the grace and favour of the Sultans. God forbid that I should speak anything but the truth or record what is not correct, especially concerning what will be repeated by generation after generation. Indeed, for this reason, I have rather abbreviated what I have to say.

p.15

[5]³⁸

The currency used is dirhems, which are two thirds silver and one third copper. The dirhem is 18 carob seeds, one of which equals 3 qamḥa (wheat grain). A mithqāl is 24 <81> carobs. One of these dirhems is worth 48 fulūs. The “army dinar”³⁹ is a nominal unit worth 13⅓ dirhems ordinarily, and the nominal equivalent of 40 “black” dirhems, one of which is a third of one of the dirhems mentioned above. In Egypt [generally] “black” dirhems exist only as nominal units of account, not as actual coins, but they are found in Alexandria, each worth half a [normal] dirhem.

There are various measures of volume used. In Cairo the ardebb is 6 waibas, the waiba is 4 “quarters”, the “quarter” is 4 qadaḥs and each qadaḥ is 232 dirhems. Such is the ardebb in Cairo. In the countryside the volume of the ardebb differs from this. At its greatest it reaches 8 waibas. The normal, commonly used measure is the ardebb mentioned above. [Of weights] the rotl is 12 okes and the oke is 12 dirhems; thus the rotl equals 144 dirhems.⁴⁰

In Damascus the same currency is used, except that the standard weight differs, so that every hundred Syrian mithqāls are the equivalent of only 98¾ Egyptian. The same is true of the dirhems. The rotl is 12 okes and each oke 50 dirhems, so that a rotl equals 600 dirhems.⁴¹

The ghirāra is used for produce and equals 12 “measures” (kail), each “measure” being 6 mudds. A mudd is a little short of the Egyptian “quarter”, and thus the relationship between the ghirāra and that of the ardebb is that <82> each ghirāra plus 1½ mudd equals 3 Egyptian ardebbs precisely. In the Damascus countryside the rotl and the ghirāra sometimes are bigger than the Damascus city variety. Because of the size of the extra amount in some places the discrepancy can be quite large. However, the Damascus measures and the Damascus rotl provide the accepted standard.

In Aleppo, Hama and Homs the rotls are larger than those of Damascus, while the ghirāra is unknown. The normal measure is the makkūk. Although the ratio between the two measures is variable, normally the ghirāra is from two makkūks to two and a half, but all this is an approximation.

[6]⁴²

Egypt’s agricultural land depends on the Nile when it rises and inundates whole areas, with the exception of a small amount of no great significance, which is rain-fed, such as the outlying districts of Buhaira, or which is irrigated from permanent flows, such as the Fayyum Oasis, watered from the Manha Canal of Joseph,⁴³ which branches off from the Nile and which, as is well known, never dries up.

Most of the good things of Egypt are imported. Indeed, one local even exaggerated and said, “The four elements are imports; water, that is to say the Nile, is imported from the south, soil is imported, being carried down by the water (otherwise Egypt would be pure sand that could grow no crop), the source of fire, in other words flint-stone, is only found there when it has been imported, and no air blows there except from one of the two seas, either [the breeze from] the Mediterranean or the one that issues from the Red Sea.” This was excessive prejudice [against the country].

p.16

<83> Egypt has many grains and pulses – wheat, barley, beans, chick-peas, lentils, peas, lūbiyā-beans, millet and rice – and many flowers, such as penny-royal, myrtle, rose, nenuphar (Egyptian lotus), eglantine, the ben-oil tree, fāmarḥanna (?), wallflower and jasmine. There one finds the citron, orange, lemon, sorrel, bitter oranges, many bananas, and much sugar cane, dates, grapes, figs, pomegranates, mulberries, white mulberries, peaches, almonds, sycomore figs, Christ’s thorn, plums, cherries and apples. Of quinces and pears there are few, and olives too are imported, except for an insignificant few from the Fayyum. There are only a very few nuts. Pistachios and hazel nuts do not grow there at all. There are yellow melons of various sorts and watermelons, also cucumbers⁴⁴ of different sorts, colocasia, turnips, carrots, cauliflowers, radish and multifarious vegetables.

[7]⁴⁵

The varieties of animal in Egypt include hors...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Egypt and Syria in the Early Mamluk Period
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• The translation
• Notes
• References
• Index