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Mongols in Mamluk eyesRepresenting ethnic others in the medieval Middle Eastvan den Bent, J.M.C.

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Citation for published version (APA):van den Bent, J. M. C. (2020). Mongols in Mamluk eyes: Representing ethnic others in the medieval MiddleEast.

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Download date: 20 Jun 2020

Cover illustration: Baptistère de Saint Louis (detail), Musée du Louvre, LP 16. Photo: author.

Cover design: Irwan Droog, www.irwandroog.nl.

Mongols in Mamluk Eyes.

Representing Ethnic Others in the Medieval Middle East

ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor

aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam

op gezag van de Rector Magnificus

prof. dr. ir. K.I.J. Maex

ten overstaan van een door het College voor Promoties ingestelde commissie,

in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Aula der Universiteit

op vrijdag 31 januari 2020, te 13.00 uur

door Josephine Maria Catharine van den Bent

geboren te Amsterdam

Promotiecommissie:

Promotores: prof. dr. G. Geltner Universiteit van Amsterdam prof. dr. M.L.M. van Berkel Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen

Overige leden: prof. dr. R. Amitai Hebrew University Jerusalem prof. dr. C.R. Lange Universiteit Utrecht

prof. dr. R. Peters Universiteit van Amsterdam prof. dr. G.A. Wiegers Universiteit van Amsterdam

dr. A.F. Broadbridge University of Massachusetts Amherst dr. T.A.M. Smidt van Gelder-Fontaine Universiteit van Amsterdam

dr. C.V. Weeda Universiteit van Amsterdam Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen

Dit werk maakt deel uit van het onderzoeksprogramma Promoties in de geesteswetenschappen met projectnummer 322-50-002 dat (mede)gefinancierd is door de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO).

5

Contents Note on transliteration, dates and citations ................................................................................................................... 7

List of figures ................................................................................................................................................................ .............. 8

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................. 11

Mongols and Mamluks .................................................................................................................................................... 13

Ethnicity and stereotypes ............................................................................................................................................. 18

Ethnicity in the medieval Islamic world ............................................................................................................. 25

Terminology ................................................................................................................................................................ ........ 31

Primary sources ................................................................................................................................................................ 39

Contents of this study ..................................................................................................................................................... 45

1. Courageous horse-riders with big backsides: the Mongols in ethnographic descriptions ................ 49

Ethnography in the Islamic world ............................................................................................................................. 51

Environmental theory ................................................................................................................................................ 54

The peoples of the north ........................................................................................................................................... 60

The Mongols and Turks in Mamluk sources .......................................................................................................... 63

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................................... 78

2. Sunrays and a lion’s den: Origin stories of the Mongols in Mamluk texts ................................................. 81

The Mongol origo gentis in Mamluk-era texts ...................................................................................................... 85

The Mongols’ origin in the work of Ibn al-Dawādārī ......................................................................................... 91

The story of the lion boy and the wandering ‘Tatars’ ................................................................................... 96

Ibn al-Dawādārī’s use of the myth ..................................................................................................................... 102

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................ ........ 107

3. Symbols of the Mongols: Chinggis Khan and his Yasa .................................................................................... 109

Chinggis Khan’s importance to the Mongols ...................................................................................................... 111

Rise to power .............................................................................................................................................................. 114

Prophethood ............................................................................................................................................................... 116

The Yasa: Mongol law in Mamluk sources .......................................................................................................... 120

The Yasa in seventh/thirteenth-century Mamluk sources ...................................................................... 123

The Yasa in eighth/fourteenth-century Mamluk sources ........................................................................ 125

Ibn Taymiyya: the Yasa in his fatwas against the Mongols ..................................................................... 128

Al-ʿUmarī vs. Ibn Kathīr: one source, two approaches ............................................................................... 131

6

Al-Ṣafadī: ridicule and contrast ........................................................................................................................... 142

The Yasa in later texts ............................................................................................................................................. 146

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................ ........ 149

4. Mongols on the horizon ............................................................................................................................................... 153

First Mongol conquests ............................................................................................................................................... 155

Ilkhanids ............................................................................................................................................................................ 169

Baghdad ................................................................................................................................................................ ........ 170

The Mongol incursion into Syria ........................................................................................................................ 173

Islamization and the 699/1299-1300 Mongol occupation of Damascus ........................................... 184

Golden Horde ................................................................................................................................................................ ... 195

Berke’s conversion ................................................................................................................................................... 196

Later khans ................................................................................................................................................................ .. 200

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................................ 203

5. Mongols in the sultanate ............................................................................................................................................. 207

The wāfidiyya Mongols ................................................................................................................................................ 213

The first wave of Mongol wāfidiyyas ................................................................................................................. 215

The Oirats ................................................................................................................................................................ ..... 220

Al-Malik al-ʿĀdil Zayn al-Dīn Kitbugha – a Mongol Mamluk sultan .......................................................... 228

Mongol Mamluks in art – the Baptistère de Saint Louis and the Vasselot Bowl .................................. 237

The Baptistère and the Vasselot Bowl: description and context........................................................... 240

Imagery and messages ............................................................................................................................................ 250

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................................ 259

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................................. 261

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................................ .......... 269

Summary ................................................................................................................................................................ ................. 289

Samenvatting ........................................................................................................................................................................ 293

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................................. 298

Note on transliteration, dates and citations

The transliteration of Arabic names, phrases and terminology uses the system of the Encyclopaedia

of Islam, THREE, except for the elision of the article. The vowel is elided only after wa-, li- and bi-: so

bi-l-nisba and wa-l-nihāya, maar Muḥyī al-Dīn. For Persian names and book titles I have used the

Library of Congress system, with the exception of the ض, for which I have used ḍ rather than z with

two subscript dots. For Turkish and Mongolian names in the Mamluk sultanate, I have adhered to

their spelling in Arabic with regard to the vowels (only a, i, u).

Mongolian names and terminology adhere to the standard set by John Andrew Boyle in his

translation of Rashīd al-Dīn, The Successors of Genghis Khan (New York: Columbia University Press,

1971), with two exceptions. The first is the name Chinggis Khan, which is rendered as shown here.

The second is the name Kitbugha, which is spelled like the Mamluk sultan of the same name. For

names from Mongol legend predating the period discussed in The Successors, I have adhered to the

spelling in De Rachewiltz’ translation of The Secret History of the Mongols (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

Words and names that have entered common English usage (e.g. Qur’an, Muhammad) I use

in their English form. The same applies to modern Arab authors and others who employ a standard

Westernised spelling of their name. Place-names are similarly given in their modern (English)

versions: Cairo (not al-Qāhira), Bukhara (not Bukhārā), Damascus (not Dimashq), etc. The same

goes for peoples, such as the Kipchaks. Dynasties are written without diacritics (e.g. Abbasids,

Ayyubids). I will distinguish between mamluks as military slaves in general and the Mamluks as a

ruling elite by capitalizing the latter.

Premodern dates are given in Islamic ḥijrī dating first, followed by their equivalent in

Common Era. Dates pertaining to events and people outside the Islamic world (China, Europe) are

given in CE only.

Notes and bibliography are rendered according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition,

which, among other changes from the previous editions, discourages the use of ibid., replacing it

with the author’s name.

8

List of figures

Map 1. Mamluk territory, 648-58/1250-60.

Jonathan Riley-Smith, ed., The Atlas of the Crusades (London: Times Books, 1991),

108.

13

Map 2. The Successor Khanates.

Patrick K. O’Brien, ed., Atlas of World History. Concise Edition (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2007), 99.

15

Figure 2.1. Genealogies of the early Tatars in Ibn al-Dawādārī's Mongol origin story

98

Figure 5.1. The Baptistère de Saint Louis.

Musée du Louvre, LP 16 (www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/bassin-dit-baptistere-de-

saint-louis).

239

Figure 5.2. Vasselot Bowl (Musée du Louvre, MAO 331). Photo: author.

239

Figure 5.3. Principal signature of Muḥammad ibn al-Zayn (detail). Photo: author.

241

Figure 5.4. Rider (ES) stabbing a bear (detail). Photo: author.

241

Figure 5.5. Rice's diagram of the Baptistère.

D.S. Rice, Le Baptistère de Saint Louis (Paris: Les Éditions du Chêne, 1951), 13.

242

Figure 5.6. Man holding vessel reading 'Ana makhfiya li-ḥaml al-ṭaʿām' (detail).

Photo: author.

245

Figure 5.7. Motif of the seated ruler on the lion throne, flanked by two servants.

Detail from a seventh/thirteenth-century Jazīra candlestick.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 91.1.563

(http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/444563).

246

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Figure 5.8. Seated ruler on the lion throne, flanked by two servants. Detail of the

Baptistère, roundel INE. Photo: author.

247

Figure 5.9. A gold and silver-inlaid brass basin made for al-Nāṣir Muḥammad.

Christies, Sale 12241

(http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=6024811).

248

Figure 5.10. Emblem of the amir Tuquztamur. Detail from a ewer, Museum for

Islamic Art, Cairo, 15125. Photo: Farah de Haan.

249

Figure 5.11. Mongol men on the Baptistère (detail). Photo: author.

252

Figure 5.12. Caucasian/Anatolian men on the Baptistère (detail). Photo: author.

253

Figure 5.13. Turkic men on the Baptistère (detail). Photo: author.

253

Figure 5.14. Diez A fol. 70, S. 4.

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz (http://orient-

digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/receive/SBBMSBook_islamhs_00003261).

254

Figure 5.15. Hunting scene on the Vasselot Bowl. Photo: author.

257

Figure 5.16. Ewer made for al-Nāṣir Muḥammad with hunting scenes and seated

rulers (detail).

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 91.1.571

(https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/444571).

258