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Ownership Divided? The Case of Frankish-Muslim Partition Truces (Munasafat)
Abstract
This presentation focuses on the ‘condominia’ or land partition truces negotiated by Frankish and Muslim rulers during the Eastern crusades (488-690 AH/1095-1291 AD). Although the earliest Christian-Muslim partition truce was negotiated in 69/688, this type of diplomatic agreement was not used again until the crusaders established a foothold in the Levant in the sixth/twelfth century. The last known condominium truce was concluded by the Franks, represented by Eschiva of Beirut and Lady Margaret of Tyre, and the Mamluk sultan Qalawun in 684/1285. This presentation begins with an overview of the history and defining characteristics of the munasafa. It then focuses on the procedures that Frankish and Muslim rulers and envoys followed when negotiating such truces. Concluding an agreement invariably involved drafting a truce through a collaborative process to accurately render stipulations in the languages of both parties involved. In reconstructing the drafting process, I will draw on testimony from the chancery encyclopaedia of the Mamluk chief scribe, al-Qalqashandi (756-821/1355-1418) as well as traces of intercultural exchange preserved in extant truce documents. Finally, this presentation examines how aspects of shared territorial control, including shared judicial and administrative duties, were translated and expressed in the extant truce documents. Whereas the Islamic tradition emphasized the importance of sources of revenue as the basis for ownership, the Latin Christian tradition emphasized territorial rights to land within which sources of revenue were located. By analyzing the division of administrative duties and shared rights to revenue in the extant truces, I argue that a limited form of ownership was exercised in partition truces which resembled commercial partnerships (sharikat) as well as political claims of territorial sovereignty.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Lebanon
Syria
The Levant
Sub Area
None