Mamluk Studies Resources
The Middle East Documentation Center at The University of Chicago
Eleventh Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies
Queen Mary University of London
U. K.
May 8-10, 2025
SMS 2025
We are pleased to announce that the Eleventh Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies will be held at Queen Mary University London, May 8-10, 2025.
The conference will be conducted in two parts: a themed day on law and justice in the Mamluk Sultanate (May 8) and two days of panels with open themes (May 9-10). The conference will be preceded by a two-day intensive course on Mamluk law and society (May 6-7).See below for more information about this course.
Fees: The conference registration fee will be £70 for participants and attendees. Graduate students will be offered a discounted fee of £40, subject to availability. A farewell dinner will take place on the last day (May 10) at a cost to be determined. Payment of the fees (registration and farewell dinner) must be received by April 15, 2025.
Accommodations:Participants must make their own travel arrangements and secure their own accommodations. The conference will be held in the Bancroft Building on the Mile End Campus of Queen Mary University London.
The university has a list of suggested hotels at https://www.qmul.ac.uk/residences/alternative/hotels/
Those who would like to express their intention to attend the conference as non-presenters should complete the registration form.
To pay the registration fee, please visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/school-of-mamluk-studies-conference-2025-tickets-1206799593069
PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE OF PAPERS AND PANELS
THEMED DAY: Law and Justice in the Mamluk Sultanate
Thursday, 8 May 2025, 9:30-17:30
SESSION 1: Mamluk Legal Systems
- “The Mamluk legal system: A Reappraisal”
Christian Müller (CNRS) - “Venetian Consuls Administering Mamluk Governmental Justice?”
Georg Christ (Manchester) and Malika Dekkiche (Antwerp) - “The Rights of the Genoese Community in al-Iskandarīyya: A Reassessment of the Hudna and Pax et Conventio Agreements between the Commune of Genoa and the Mamluk Sultanate of 1290”
Stefano Nicastro (Edinburgh)
SESSION 2: Laws of War, Market and Menstruation
- “The legal issue of sacrifice in warfare in the Mamluk context: Ibn Taymiyya as a case study”
Mehdi Berriah (Institut français du Proche-Orient) - “Between Individual Agency and Communal Interests. Reconciling Individual and Collective Imperatives in Ibn Taymiyya’s Economic Thought.”
Davide Ravazzoni (Groningen) - “'Women are more knowledgeable about that' – Menstruation, Law and Piety in the Mamluk Empire”
Kaley Zinaty (Upenn)
SESSION 3: Law and Justice in the Mamluk Countryside
- “Flexible Fiqh in Fourteenth Century Jerusalem”
Omar K. Abdel-Ghaffar (Harvard) - “Druze law on the illegality of Mamluk authorities”
Wissam Halawi (Lausanne) - “The Emir’s Justice: Iqṭāʿ-holders in the Governance of the Egyptian Countryside”
Daisy Livingston (Durham)
SESSION 4: Urban Law
- “Mosque Construction under Sharīʿa Law in late Medieval Egypt”
Hend Elsayed (Toronto) - “The Legal Debate Behind Mamluk Urbanism: Abū Ḥāmid al-Qudsī and the Streets of Cairo”
Moaaz Lafi (AUC) - “Changing Madhhab in the Mamluk context”
Ahmed Janahi (Birmingham)
PANELS
Friday, 9 May 2025, 9:00-18:00
PANEL 1: Between Mamluks and Franks: untangling layers of history in military architecture, narrative sources, and legal discourses
- “Doors and Windows of the Crac des Chevaliers: A Comparative Study of Crusader and Mamluk Additions”
Dania Keyrouz (Wessex Archaeology) - “Louis IX’s Crusade and the Making of the First Mamluk Sultan: Rethinking R. S. Humphrey’s Model”
Mohamad El-Merheb (SOAS) - “Custom (ʿUrf), public welfare (Maṣlaḥa), and dhimmī law in Frankish-Muslim diplomatic agreements”
Bogdan Smarandache (Université de Liège) - “Fashioning “Mamluk-Crusading” pasts: selection and omission in the Recueil des historiens des croisades”
Dr. James Wilson (University of Konstanz)
PANEL 2: New Perspectives on the Genesis of the Circassian Regime
- “The North Caucasian Political Background of the Circassian Mamlūks”
John Latham-Sprinkle (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) - “When did the Circassian regime begin?”
Clément Onimus (Université Paris 8) - “The Politics of Circassian Periodisation. Late Medieval Arabic Historiography and the Year 784AH/1382CE”
Jo Van Steenbergen (Ghent University)
PANEL 3: Back and Forth: Literary Reception
- "Longing for a Lost Love: Theorising Emotion through Old Stories"
Jonny Lawrence (Cornell University) - "Practicing Theory: From the Ayyubid Majlis to the Badī‘iyya"
Betty Rosen (KCL) - “The Canon of Mamluk Poets in the Ottoman Period”
Tom Abi Samra (Princeton University)
PANEL 4: Gaza’s Mamluk Heritage (16.00 – 17.30)
- “Gaza’s Mamluk Architecture”
Moain Sadeq (Massey College, Toronto) - “Conservation and digitisation of al-Umari Mosque Library and Souq al-Qisariyya”
Muneer El Baz (University College of Applied Sciences, Gaza) - Additional paper, TBC
PANELS
Saturday, 10 May 2025, 9:00-18:00
PANEL 1: Exact Sciences in the Mamluk Realm
- “Weaving User-Friendliness into Precision for the Sake of Timekeeping”
Taha Yasin Arslan (Istanbul Medeniyet University) - “Tracing Ibn al-Haytham's Optics in the Mamluk Realm”
Sena Aydın (Istanbul Medeniyet University) - “Encipherment Methods from Ayyubids to Mamluks”
Afra Akyol (Istanbul Medeniyet University) - “Crafting the Heavens: How to Construct the Celestial Globe in the Mamluks”
Beyzanur Topçuoğlu (Istanbul Technical University)
PANEL 2: Mamluk Polymaths: Interdisciplinarity, Rigor, and Aesthetics
- “Philosophy, Medicine and Religion Intertwined: Discussions on Fetal Generation in the Mamluk Period”
Nahyan Fancy (University of Exeter) - “Riddles of Inheritance Law in Fiqh and Adab”
Matthew L. Keegan (Barnard College) - “Grammar, Legal Theory and the Derivation of Islamic Law”
Elias G. Saba (Grinnell College)
PANEL 3: Sufi Thought and Practice in the Mamluk Realm
- “The Mamluk as Metaphor in Egyptian Sufism”
Adam Sabra (University of California, Santa Barbara) - “Devotionalism and Prophetic Relics in Mamluk Sufism: the Sadat al-Wafa'iyya”
Richard McGregor (Vanderbilt University) - “Upper Egyptian Sufis and the «Science of the Temples»(‘ilm al-barābī): Some case studies from Ayyubid and Mamluk times”
Giuseppe Cecere (University of Bologna)
PANEL 4: Beyond Urban Shadows: Reassessing Rural Communities in the Late Medieval Islamic World (7th/13th-10th/16th centuries)
- “‘Written in a Monastery Overlooking the Euphrates River...’: Perspectives on and from Rural Communities in the Southeastern Taurus Mountains between Çemişgezek and Bitlis, ca. 1420–1520 CE”
Georg Leube (University of Bayreuth) - “Mamluk Power and the Construction of a Rural Christian Community in Jabal Lubnān”
Élise Voguet (CNRS) and Wissam Halawi (Lausanne) - “Tribes in flux: rural communities, economy and power in late medieval Yemen (7th-10th/13th-16th century)”
Zacharie Mochtari de Pierrepont (Ghent University) - “How to make an ethnography of medieval Kurds? Fragmented territories, transhumant and military economy in the face of imperial peripheral politics (13th-14th c.)”
Boris James (University of Montpellier 3, Paul Valéry)
Farewell Dinner (19.00)
INTENSIVE COURSE: Law and Society in the Mamluk Sultanate (May 6-7, 2025)
This two-day intensive course will focus on reading Mamluk-era legal documents as sources for the social, economic and religious history of Egypt and Greater Syria, including Palestine. It is intended for advanced graduate students and other qualified participants and will be offered by Professor Yossef Rapoport (Queen Mary University London) in collaboration with Dr Daisy Livingston (Durham University). The course will include close reading and historical analysis of published Arabic legal documents from the Mamluk Sultanate, including Islamic legal manuals, fatwas, formularies and court documents.
The number of participants will be limited to a maximum of 12.
Applications for the intensive course should include a CV, a statement of purpose (up to 750 words), and a letter of recommendation by someone familiar with your work. These should be sent to history-sms2025@qmul.ac.uk by the end of January 2025. Those who are selected for the course will be notified by the end of February 2025, at which time information about the method of payment for the course fees will be provided.
The course fee is £200, which also includes the registration fee for the subsequent conference (May 8-10). The fees must be paid by April 15, 2025. Registration and participation will not be confirmed until payment is received. Participants must make their own travel arrangements; the local organizer will provide suggestions for accommodation.
To pay the course fee, please visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/school-of-mamluk-studies-conference-2025-tickets-1206799593069
We look forward to seeing you in London!
Yosef Rapaport, Queen Mary University London (local organizer)
Frédéric Bauden, Université de Liège
Antonella Ghersetti, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice
Marlis Saleh, University of Chicago
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