in Syria. Saint worship became a common practice during these times, and Ibn Taimīyah wrote many volumes condemning it. He also criticized Greek philosophy and logic.
In the field of geography, a number of valuable books were written in this period, the most important being Taqwīm al-Buldān (Tables of the Countries) by Abu’l Fidā’ (1237–1332) in which he argues that the earth is round and that, if a person travels around it he will experience a gain or loss of one day. In the words of P. K. Hitti, ‘this Syrian author was perhaps to be considered the greatest historiographer of the period irrespective of nationality or religion.’40 Another contemporary of Abu’l Fidā’, Shams al-Dīn Dimashqī (d. 1326) produced a cosmographical treatise, Nukhbah al-Dahr fī ‘Ajā’ib al-Barr wa’l-Baḥr (Selections from All Times Relating the Marvels of Land and Sea), which is not so good as Taqwīm from the mathematical point of view, but richer in its physical, mineral and ethnic information. Yāqūt’s (d. 1229) Mu’jam al-Buldān is a geographical dictionary, a supplement to which was written by Ṣafdī (1296–1363).
Biographical books written in this period are of great importance even today. The foremost among all Muslim biographers, Ibn Khallikān (d. 1282), lived in Syria. He published the first dictionary of national biography in Arabic, Wafayāt al-A‘yān wa Anbā’ ahl al-Zamān (Obituary of Eminent Men and Sketches of Leading Contemporaries). Al-Kutubī (d. 1363) of Aleppo produced the supplement to this book under the title Fawāt al-Wafayāt.
Closely related to biography is history. Among the outstanding historians of the period are Abu’l Fidā’ (d. 1332), Nuwairī (d. 1332), al-Jazarī (d. 1339), al-Yūnīnī (d. 1326), and Ibn al-Fawaṭī (d. 1323). Abu’l Fidā”s work on history is a condensation and continuation of the voluminous history of Ibn al-Athīr (d. 1234). So popular was his history that it was continued, summarized and abridged by later writers.41 Ibn Kathīr’s (d. 1373) al-Bidāyah wa’l Nihāyah is a valuable reference work on Islamic history. Its fourteenth volume relates to the period we are concerned with. Ibn Kathīr is famed also for his commentary on the Qur’ān. Nuwairī (1279–1332), who held many posts in the Mamluk Sultanate, wrote Nihāyah al-Arab fī funūn al-Adab in thirty volumes. Part of it is connected with administrative activities, especially the eighth volume, which is important for any research on the financial system of Egypt in that period.
Muhammad bin Ibrāhīm al-Jazarī (1339), author of Ta’rīkh al-Jazarī; Mūsā bin Muḥammad al-Yūnīnī, author of Dhail Mir’āt al-Zamān in two volumes; ‘Abd al-Razzāq bin Aḥmad Ibn al-Fawaṭī (d. 1323), author of al-Hawādith al-Jāmi‘ah, are also representative of this period. The prolific writer Maqrīzī (1364–1442), whose valuable book al-Khiṭaṭ is repeatedly quoted in the following pages, belonged to the last years of the Mamluk Sultanate.
In the fields of language and theological literature too, this period made a distinguished contribution. The most authentic and the greatest Arabic dictionary, Lisān al-‘Arab, in twenty huge volumes, was prepared by Ibn Manẓūr (1311). The famous Arabic grammarian, Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī lived in this age. Theological experts like al-Dhahabī, al-Nawawī, ‘Izz al-Dīn bin ‘Abd al-Salām, al-Subkī and Ibn al-Qayyim all belong to this period.
Commenting on the economic life of the period, Lane-Poole observes: ‘It was an age of extraordinary brilliance in almost every aspect. In spite of the occasional records of scarcity and high prices, the wealth of the country, whether from its fertile soil or from the ever-increasing trade with Europe and the East, was immense, if the fortunes of individuate are any test.’42
The Mamluks knew that the stability and the success of their rule depended on the strength of the economy, alongside the strength of the army. Indeed, the latter’s strength was based on the former. It was for this reason that they tried to exploit fully the sources of wealth, and develop agriculture, trade and industry to enrich the country and the government.
Agriculture received first priority in that age, as it was considered the main source of wealth. It was well understood that the living of the inhabitants depended on agricultural produce. Industry and trade were also tied to the extent of agricultural production.
The Mamluks ordered the measurement of the Nile and survey of land; and redistribution of land was carried out by the two Mamluk Sultans Ḥusām al-Dīn Lājīn and Nāṣir Muḥammad bin Qalāwūn.43 In the time of Nāṣir, a number of big and small dams were erected and many sizeable canals dug.44 Arrangements were also made for the supply of better quality seeds.45 Since, in most cases, production exceeded the country’s needs, the Sultan helped Syria and Ḥijāz with huge quantities of grain.46 There were granaries in Egypt where surplus produce was stocked, for use only in times of famine.47
Among the variety of grains grown in Egypt and Syria at that time were wheat, barley, rice, gram and beans.48 Cultivation of sugar cane, practised in Egypt since the arrival of Islam in that country, was considerably enlarged in the Mamluk era. P. K. Hitti writes in his History of Syria that ‘Arab traders introduced sugar cane from India or south eastern Asia, where it must originally have grown wild’.49 Cotton was the most common textile plant.
Fruits and vegetables were also grown in huge quantities and in great variety. Qalqashandī gives details of every kind of fruit and vegetable grown in Egypt at that time.50 The Mamluk Sultans, especially Nāṣir, paid great attention to the planting of fruit trees and gardens. People became so interested in laying out gardens that towards the end of Nāṣir’s regime there were a hundred and fifty in one city alone. The gardens of al-Jazīrah were second to none in their beauty and yield.51
(a) Iqṭā‘ system
Land in the Mamluk period was distributed among Amirs in the form of iqṭā‘, a sort of administrative grant. We shall use this term, because its European counterpart ‘fief’, though a helpful analogy is fundamentally different52 – a point we shall discuss in Chapter VI when examining Ibn Taimīyah’s views on different forms of economic organization. The Fatimid caliphs used to confer iqṭā‘ upon high-ranking civil officials such as vizier, and the heads of the dīwāns (departments), in lieu of salaries. In this case the muqṭa‘ or ‘fief-holder’ was not liable to military service, but was liable to pay ‘ushr (tithe) on his iqṭā‘ revenue, to the treasury. Even in the earlier Islamic centuries, this type of assignment of iqṭā‘ was found. Maqrīzī mentions a number of such grants made by the Prophet, peace be upon him, and his caliphs. Even mines were sometimes granted as iqṭā‘ by the Prophet.53
When Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Ayyūbi captured the throne of Egypt he was neither able to make full use of the Fatimid iqṭā‘ nor ignore it. He used the Fatimid iqṭā‘ when introducing the military iqṭā‘, but did not adopt the Fatimid model as a whole, since it was no longer subject to ‘ushr, and for this reason the Ayyubid iqṭā‘ is considered to have been freer economically than the Fatimid version.54
When the Mamluks came to power they inherited the Egyptian iqṭā‘ system as it had developed under the Ayyubids. The muqṭa‘ had no right to sell or transfer his iqṭā‘ or pass it on to his heirs. On the contrary, after the expiration of the iqṭā‘ or the death of the muqṭa‘ the land reverted
