Mamluk Studies Resources
The Middle East Documentation Center at The University of Chicago
Twelfth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
July 23-25, 2026
SMS 2026
We are pleased to announce that the Twelfth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies will be held at the University of Pennsylvania (aka “Penn”) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 23-25, 2026.
The conference will be conducted in two parts: a themed day on “The Mamluks and the Crusades” (July 23) and two days of panels with open themes (July 24-25).
The first day, July 23, will be themed and dedicated to the history of experiences of the crusading movement within the Mamluk sultanate (1250-1517), before and after the fall of Acre in 1291. The rise of the Mamluk sultanate brought with it a palpable shift in the dynamic between the remaining Crusader states and the Muslim polities of the Middle East and north Africa that has yet to be fully explored. We welcome studies of Mamluk-Frankish conflict and cooperation, whether in the realms of military history, diplomacy, commerce, social history, or cultural exchange. The themed day is also open to relevant studies of literature, material culture, non-Muslim communities, historiography, and philological or codicological concerns. A maximum of 12 paper proposals will be selected for this themed day. Should a greater number of proposals be received, the authors of those that are not selected for the conference may be offered the possibility to publish their contribution in the proceedings. The time allotted to each paper will be twenty minutes, plus ten minutes for discussion.
The following two days of the conference (July 24 and 25) will be structured in panels, which may focus on any aspect of the social, economic, intellectual, political, and artistic life of the Mamluk period. The panels will be organized into presentations of three to four papers of twenty minutes each. Panel proposals must be made by a representative, who will be responsible for its organization. Please note that in case of cancellation of two papers out of the three (or three out of the four) composing the panel, the panel will have to be withdrawn from the program. The time allotted to each paper will be twenty minutes. Discussion will take place at the end of each panel.
Language: The official language of the conference will be English.
Location:The conference will take place in the Orrery Pavilion in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, Van Pelt Library 6th Floor, University of Pennsylvania.
Fees: The conference registration fee is $60 for participants and non-participating attendees. Please note that all attendees, including audience members, must register for the conference. We are pleased to report that graduate students will be offered a discounted fee of $45.
To register for the conference and pay the $60 registration fee, either as a participant or non-participant attendee, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/school-of-mamluk-studies-2026-conference-philadelphia-tickets-1567051907439
Payment of the fees must be received by April 30, 2026. Any enquiries should be sent to sms2026philadelphia@gmail.com
Dinner: We are pleased to offer an optional farewell dinner at Estia Restaurant in downtown Philadelphia on Saturday, July 25 at 7pm. With thanks to an anonymous donor, this event is free of charge, but registration is required by April 30. To register, please visit the following link, and add the “Farewell Dinner (Optional)” to your shopping cart:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/school-of-mamluk-studies-2026-conference-philadelphia-tickets-1567051907439
The deadlines for paper and panel proposals have passed.
Publication: Selected papers from the themed day will be published in a special issue of Mamlūk Studies Review.
Travel and Accommodations: Participants must make their own travel arrangements and secure their own accommodations.
Please see THE FIRST CIRCULAR for more information about transportation, accomodations, conference organization, the optional tour of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and more.
Those who would like to express their intention to attend the conference as non-presenters should complete the registration form.
SCHEDULE OF PAPERS AND PANELS
THEMED DAY: The Mamluks and the Crusades
Thursday, 23 July 2026
9:00-9:30: Coffee and welcome
9:30-11:00: SESSION ONE: RESOURCES
- “Follow the Money: Frankish strategic efforts, and failure, to find sufficient resources to meet Muslim military challenges in the Levant”
Reuven Amitai - “Trade between Lusignan Cyprus and Mamluk Egypt under King Henry II (1285-1324): The Impact of the Papal Embargo"
Nicholas Coureas - “The Inevitability of 1291: Weighing the Evidence for a Mamluk Strategy of Total Conquest"
Bogdan Smarandache
11:15-11:30: Coffee break
11:30-1:00: SESSION TWO: PIETY AND MEMORY
- “Remembering and Forgetting the Crusades in Fourteenth-century Cairo: The Performance of New Political Narratives through Architectural Spolia and Urban Ceremonial"
Karen Rose Mathews - “Mujīr al-Dīn and the Crusades: The Memory of the Epoch from the (Chronological) Edge"
Fadi Ragheb - “The Return of the Murābiṭūn? Sufis and the Political Economy of Jihād on the Syrian Front"
Or Amir
1:00-2:00: Lunch break
2:00-4:00: SESSION THREE: REGIONAL CONNECTIONS
- "Foreign Entanglements: Frankish Syria and Mamluk Egypt in their Mediterranean Context"
Jesse Izzo - “Convert to Christianity and Wage War Against the Turks - A Sixteenth Century Plan to Enlist the Mamluks in a Crusade Against the Ottoman Empire"
James Kroemer - “Slaves of Christian European Origin under the Civilian and Ruling Elite in the Mamluk Sultanate – an 'Ethnic Division of Labor'?"
Koby Yosef - “Differentiated Oath of Allegiance Dealing with Crusade – A New International Framework in the 14th Century Mediterranean?"
Georg Christ
4:30 (approx.)-6:00: Reception: Kislak Center for Rare Books and Manuscripts (Crusades-related highlights from the collection will be on display)
PANELS
Friday, 24 July 2026
8:30-9:00: Coffee and welcome
9:00: PANEL 1: EARTHLY MATTERS: SOIL AND WATER IN THE MAMLUK LANDSCAPE
Panel Chairperson: Warren Schultz
- “Soil management in Mamluk Syria: Labor and the recycling of household trash in gardens and orchards”
Bethany Walker - “Arboriculture in the Fayyūm (Egypt) in pre-modern and modern times”
Nicolas Michel - “The Nile and Mamluk Egyptian Agriculture in Yemeni Rasulid Sources”
Daniel Martin Varisco - “A Basin with a Past: Tracing the Mamluk Biography of the Enchanted Basin”
Anthony Quickel
Coffee break
PANEL 2: RE-PRESENTING THE TRADITION: INTELLECTUAL TRENDS TOWARDS ORGANIZATION
Panel Chairperson: Tom Abi Samra
- “Reorganizing Love: Al-Biqāʿī (d. 885/1480) and his Re-Presentation of Maṣāriʿ al-ʿUshshāq by al-Sarrāj (d. 500/1106)”
Matthew L. Keegan - “Remembering the Shāfiʿī School: Biographical Memory in the Writings of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Isnawī (d. 794/1392)”
Elias G. Saba - “Ibn Ḥijja al-Ḥamawī Reads Imruʾ al-Qays’s Muʿallaqa and Its Muḍamminūn”
Tom Abi Samra
1:00-2:00: Lunch
2:00 PANEL 3: MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN THE SYRO-EGYPTIAN SULTANATE: TEXTS, SPACES, AND DOCUMENTS
Panel Chairperson: Mustafa Banister
- “A Christian Apocalyptic View of the Third Accession of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad”
Patrick Wing - “Būṣīrī’s Polemical Poetry”
Luke Yarbrough - “Christian Repair Rights under Sultan Jaqmaq: Evidence from ‘Documenti e Firmani’ (1936)”
Mustafa Banister
Coffee break
PANEL 4: MAMLŪK SCHOLARS, SCRIBES, AND THEIR NETWORKS
Panel Chairperson: Shuaib Ally
- “Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ (d. 654/1256) and His Circle: The Life and Afterlife of a Late-Ayyubid/Early-Mamluk Literary and Scholarly Network”
Betty Rosen - “Re-Writing, Teaching, and Transmitting al-Aṣfahānī’s Qurʾān Commentary”
Shuaib Ally - “Networks of Reform: Defining Bidʿa in Mamlūk Egypt and Syria”
Tara Stephan - “Scribal Competition in Mamluk Syria: Ibn Nubāta al-Miṣrī’s Aspirations to a Chancery Career”
Ingrid Austveg Evans
PANELS
Saturday, 25 July 2026
10:00 PANEL 5: NATURE INSIDE AND OUT
Panel Chairperson: Christopher Herde
- “Plague Before the Black Death in Mamluk Realms”
Nahyan Fancy - “Plague in the Thirteenth Century: The European Evidence”
Monica Green - “Al-Juḥfa and the interpretation of the contagion by Mamluk Hadith scholars”
Mustafa Baig - “Intellectual Thought on Nature in the Mamluk World”
Haseena Sahib
Coffee break
PANEL 6: REVIVING THE SULTAN INAL COMPLEX: ACADEMIC PARTNERSHIP AND COMMUNITY-LED HERITAGE PRESERVATION
Panel Chairperson: Robert J. Vigar
- “Academic Partnerships in Egyptian Heritage: The Penn-Inal Model”
Robert J. Vigar - “Reviving the Architectural Complex of Sultan al-Ashraf Inal: A Community-Led Heritage Initiative in Cairo's City of the Dead”
Hossam Abd El Azeem - “Invisible Excavators, Visible Heritage: Decolonizing Qufti Labor Through Archaeological Record-Making at the Inal Complex, Cairo”
Amany Abd El Hameed
2:30 (approx.): Next Steps (publication, future conferences, etc.)
Optional tour of Philadelphia Museum of Art
(Exact time TBA. Limited to 20 people.)
7:00 (approx.): Farewell Dinner
We look forward to meeting you in Philadelphia!
Paul M. Cobb, University of Pennsylvania (local organizer)
Frédéric Bauden, Université de Liège
Antonella Ghersetti, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice
Marlis Saleh, University of Chicago
© Middle East Documentation Center. The SMS logo is based on the lion emblem used by Sultan Baybars.