Mamluk Studies Resources
The Middle East Documentation Center at The University of Chicago
Ninth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island
June 8-10, 2023
SMS 2023
The Ninth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies will be held at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island (USA), June 8-10, 2023. The conference will be conducted in two parts and will be preceded by a three-day intensive course on the history of the Arabic language during the Mamluk period.
To register for the conference, please visit the registration page.
SCHEDULE
Thursday, June 8, 2023
Themed Day: The Languages of the Mamluk Sultanate
10:00-11:00 Registration, coffee and pastries (Petteruti Lounge)
11:00-11:15 Welcome remarks from SMS organizing committee
11:15-12:30 Papers 1 and 2
- Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew as Competing Languages in the Late Mamluk Period
Dotan Arad - “Knowledge of the Three Shone in One”: Unravelling al-Sakhawi’s perceptions of Arabic, Persian, and Turkic multilingualism in the Daw' al-Lami'
Mustafa Banister
12:30-2:00 Lunch break
2:00-3:15 Papers 3 and 4
- Arabic language’s Status and Merits in Ibn Taymiyya
Mehdi Berriah - Conquest and Career: The Versified Turkic Translation of al-Wāqidī's Futūḥ al Shām by Ibn Ajā
Georg Leube
3:15-3:45 Coffee Break
3:45-5:00 Papers 5 and 6
- The Instrumentalization of Language in a Christian Mamluk Province: Arabic, Syriac, and the Interconfessional Strife in 15th-century Mount Lebanon
Ghassan Osmat - Learning to Read Coptic: The Coptic Grammars of the 13th/14th Centuries
Ramona Teepe
5:00 Welcome reception in Leung Family Gallery
Friday, June 9, 2023: Panels
9:00-11:00 Panel 1: African Diasporas in Mamluk Egypt and Syria
Panel Chair and organizer: Julien Loiseau
- Ethiopian Monastic communities in Cairo (15th-16th centuries)
Martina Ambu - King David and his sisters: Nubian Royal Captives and Mamluk policy in the Middle Nile Valley (13th-14th cent.)
Robin Seignobos - Black Skins White Hearts: On ‘Ethiopian’ Slaves Turned Into Sufi Saints in Mamluk Egypt
Giuseppe Cecere - Greetings from the Najāshī’s people: Free Ethiopian Muslims in Mamluk Egypt and Syria
Julien Loiseau
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
11:30-1:00 Panel 2: Textual Encounters: Contesting Literary and Ideological Boundaries under the Mamluks
Panel Chair and Organizer: Omer Ilgezdi
- The Image of Ottoman Patronage in the Works of the Mamluk Scholar ʿAbd al Bāsiṭ al-Malaṭī
Omer Ilgezdi - The Sacred Power of Obedience: The Ramifications of Taymiyyan Thought on Baraka
Sara Mokh - Medieval Liars in the Arab World: The Censorship of Hasan al Bakri
Faiza Masood
1:00-2:30 Lunch break
Panel 3: From Cairo to Jerusalem and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Readings of Mamluk Society and Scholarship
Panel Chair and Organizer: Mustafa Banister
- Medical Discussions on Lovesickness (ʿIshq) during the Post-Classical Period
Nahyan Fancy - Al-Maqrīzī, Ibn Ḥajar and the Man Who Pretended to Be the Sufyānī: An Insight into Source Criticism in the Late Mamluk Period
Frédéric Bauden - A Muḥaddith-Calligrapher of Fourteenth-Century Cairo: Ṣadr al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad al-Maydūmī and the Arts of the Book
Noha Abou-Khatwa - The Bimaristan al-Salahi in Jerusalem
Yehoshua Frenkel - A Custody Dispute between a Ḥabashī Slave and her Jewish Owner, reported by the Chronicler of the Late Mamlūk Period and early Ottoman Occupation, Ibn Iyās in 928/1522
Carl Petry
5:00 End of Friday panels
Saturday, June 10, 2023: Panels
Panel 4: Mamluks and Ethnicity in the Circassian Period
Panel Organizer: Hannah Barker
Panel Chair: Koby Yosef
- Mamlūks of Christian Origin in the Mamluk Sultanate: Perhaps European Travelers did not Exaggerate That Much
Koby Yosef - Tribal Genealogy, Ethnic Nobility: al-ʿAyni and the Glorious Circassian Ancestry of Sultan al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh
Julien Loiseau - The Quraysh of the Unbelievers: Constructing Circassian Ethnicity in the Court of Sultan Qāniṣawh al-Ghawrī
Christian Mauder - The Tatars of the Sudan: New Uses of an Old Stereotype
Hannah Barker
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
Panel 5: Nahda/Mamluk Entanglements
Panel Organizer: Betty Rosen
Panel Chair: Maha Abdelmegeed
- “Inna li-kul zamān badī‘an”: Al-Shidyāq reads Ibn Ḥijja
Betty Rosen - “Tarwih al-Nufus”: A Late 19th Century Re-Write of Ibn Sudun’s “Nuzhat al-Nufus”?
Maha Abdelmegeed - The Inheritance of Takhyīl, from al-’Askarī to al-Bārūdī
Adam Koutajyani
1:00-2:00 Lunch Break
2:30-4:00 Panel 6: Miscellaneous topics
Panel Chair: Miriam Frenkel
- Self Expression through Mamluk Autobiographies
Maha Shawki - Weights and Measures in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean Trade Network in the early Mamluk Era
Daniel Varisco - Engaging al-Ghazali, Countering Ibn Taymiyya: Ibn al-Akfani and Tashkoprizade on True Knowledge
Ahmed Tahir Nur
4:00 Concluding Remarks
4:15 End of conference
6:00 Farewell Dinner at Mill's Tavern<
Publication
a) Themed day: The conference organizers expect that a selection of papers from the themed day will be published in a volume of proceedings, pending interest from scholarly publishers.
b) Panels: Selected papers will be published in Mamlūk Studies Review.
Fees
The conference registration fees will be $50 for participants and attendees. For those interested, there will be a farewell dinner at a local restaurant, at a cost to be determined. Payment of the fees must be received by April 30, 2023, and information on the method of payment to be used will be provided in the first circular.
Participants must make their own travel and accommodation arrangements.
Intensive course: Arabic in the Mamluk Period
Prior to the conference, Professor Marina Rustow (Princeton University) and Professor Phillip Stokes (University of Tennessee) will offer a three-day intensive course (June 5-7) on the history of the Arabic language during the Mamluk period. The course will present an overview and history of the different varieties of Arabic attested in Mamluk-era sources, with a focus on Judeo-Arabic, Christian Arabic, and other forms of Middle Arabic.
Students will be introduced to the major repositories of documents that are sources for the linguistic history of this period, such as the Cairo Geniza, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, and the Haram al-Sharif documents. The course is intended for advanced graduate students and other qualified participants, and will combine lecture and discussion with hands-on investigation of Mamluk-era materials. Advanced proficiency in Classical Arabic is required, but no other specialized training is necessary to attend.
Please contact Elias Muhanna with any questions: schoolofmamlukstudies2023@gmail.com
We look forward to meeting you in Providence!
Elias Muhanna, Brown University (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.