This paper seeks to depict the historical processes which underpin Mamluk Syria as an enduring “archive” for Arabic historiography and Muslim scholarship with an eye to the changing scholarly practices, urban landscape, demographic trends, which underlie this phenomenon. Attention must first be drawn to Syria’s emergent role in this period as a center of Sunni Islam’s Shafi‘i and Hanbali legal guilds; these being the two concerned most with the maintenance of a communal standard for traditionalist forms of literary production and theological normativity. Trends for both schools in the early Mamluk period in legal and historiographical scholarship, as well as practices of manuscript culture, reflect innovative attempts at consolidation of scholarly authority via archival memory of the past both in contention with one another as well as in response to changes in the available resources at their disposal. These developments were not a foregone conclusion. Since the rise of the Abbasids, Syria had retreated into the cultural periphery for the sake of Baghdad and other eastern metropoles. Under the Seljuks, however, Syrian cities underwent infrastructural renovation during which practices of urban development and knowledge production were established that endured into the Zengid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk periods. Competition for employment in these nascent scholarly institutions as identified by Michael Chamberlain was augmented by new populations displaced by the Crusades, Spanish Reconquista, and Mongol invasions, providing Mamluk Syria with the human capital and material means for synthetic consolidation of transregional scholarly practices. These Syrian cultural products went on, both via localized dissemination and Cairene transmission, to enjoy hitherto unprecedented success in their reception. These insights allow us to reflect on how literary and living links with the past established in early Mamluk Syria function as archival sites of pre-Mamluk/Mongol temporalities in broader Arabic and Sunni Islamic thought for posterity, into the present day. Fruitful points of comparison can be made with Shi‘ite scholarship in the Mamluk Levant as well, where consolidation of jurisprudential and Hadith scholarship as well as manuscript culture, as demonstrated by Rula Abisaab, served as repository to fruitful effect in Savafid Iran and beyond. Such observations invite broader reflections on the specific geographical, urban, and cultural features of Mamluk Syria that lent it the requisite “stability” by which it merits its archival nature.

This paper explores the tensions within Shafi‘ism in Ayyubid Damascus by examining the relationship between its two leading authorities in the first half of the thirteenth century, Taqi al-Din b. al-Salah (d. 643/1245) and ‘Izz al-Din b. ‘Abd al-Salam (d. 660/1262). The nascent Shafi'i community in Damascus evolved from the Shafi'i traditions of Khorasan and Iraq that preceded it, which had developed autonomously throughout the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries. These two regional traditions were ultimately fused into a single authoritarian school doctrine by Mamluk era jurists, most notably al-Nawawi. Prior to this however, the Ayyubid period formed an intermezzo of sorts for Shafi'ism, where juristic proponents of the two until then insulated regional traditions converged upon Damascus, where they clashed over crucial issues of methodology. The legal history of Shafi'ism during both its Khorasani-Iraqi phase and after its transplantation into Ayyubid Damascus have received little scholarly attention, giving us only a vague understanding of the conceptual-historical categories of the Khorasani and Iraqi interpretive traditions (turuq) of the Shafi'i school and the subsequently painstaking process of synthesizing the two streams. In this paper I utilize the rivalry between Ibn al-Salah and Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam as a window into these larger competing trends within Shafi‘ism as it evolved from its Khorasani and Iraqi legacies. I first situate Ibn al-Salah and Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam within distinct intellectual genealogies and networks in Damascus. Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam was embedded in the more analytical and speculative Khorasani interpretive community, while Ibn al-Salah inherited the conservative and transmission-based orientation of the Iraqi tradition. While formal attribution to the Khorasani and Iraqi lines of the school gradually ceased with the destruction of Khorasan, the intellectual legacies and distinct methodologies of each stream vied in Ayyubid Damascus, with Ibn al-Salah and Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam being outstanding representatives of these contending approaches. Through a reconstruction of their biographies and close reading of their largely unexamined writings, fatwas and counter-fatwas, I show how their recurrent clashes epitomized these long-standing fault lines within Shafi'ism. At stake was first the validity of dialectic theology and its influence on other sciences like legal methodology, which Ibn 'Abd al-Salam supported while Ibn al-Salah vehemently censured. Also at issue was the legitimacy of legal innovation and embracing unprecedented opinions in the tradition of ijtihad, which Ibn 'Abd al-Salam engaged in without hesitation while Ibn al-Salah’s conservative orientation kept him in close adherence to existing school doctrine.

The Shafi‘i jurist Taqi al-Din al-Subki (d. 756/1355), in his treatise al-Sayf al-maslul ‘ala man sabb al-rasul, expresses two opposing opinions on the penalty for non-Muslims who insult the Prophet. The first opinion is to pardon those who insult the Prophet if they repent by announcing conversion to Islam. This was al-Subki’s view when he first wrote the treatise in 734/1334. His second opinion was to execute a Christian named Ibn al-Zibtr for insulting the Prophet even though Ibn al-Zibtr repented and later converted to Islam. Al-Subki added this view to the treatise in 751/1351. This paper argues that al-Subki’s divergent views derive from his attempt to sustain the precedence of the Shafi‘i legal school in the Mamluk sultanate. The first opinion sought to cast the Shafi‘is as protectors of Christians working in the bureaucracy during the reign of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad (d. 741/1340). The position of the Shafi‘i madhhab is to pardon anyone who insults the Prophet if they repent. In contrast, the position of Malikis and Hanbalis is to execute those who insult the Prophet, even if they repent. Therefore, the Sultan referred Christians of lower social status to the Malikis and Hanbalis for execution. After the death of al-Nasir Muhammad, the ruling elite sought to confiscate wealth wherever they could, and Christians working in the bureaucracy were also targeted for execution. The wealthy Christian Ibn al-Zibtr was an easy target. Al-Subki adopted his second opinion to retain Shafi‘i jurisdiction over cases involving insulting the Prophet, and not lose them to the Malikis and Hanbalis, who traditionally issued death sentences for such cases. This study also reveals that al-Subki does not abandon his first opinion when arguing for the second. He instead discusses the two together in al-Sayf al-maslul. Al-Subki was probably keen to keep all options open to remain flexible in the face of unpredictable political shifts and social trends. The paper will show furthermore that that the aims of the Sultan and the ruling elite intersected with the ambitions of judges like al-Subki in a synergistic network of common interests.

This paper highlights the significance of Ibn Taymiyya’s theology and ethics for making sense of his conflict with the Mamluk religious establishment in the early 1300s. Ibn Taymiyya was imprisoned in Cairo in 1306 for holding heretical theological views. Then, he was released from prison in 1307 when, according to some reports, he signed a retraction of his doctrine. Earlier scholarship downplayed the significance of theology in Ibn Taymiyya’s 1306 imprisonment and followed contemporary Mamluk chroniclers in ascribing his troubles to rivalries with other scholars. Recent scholarship has called for giving more attention to Ibn Taymiyya’s theology to explain his difficulties and has shown that he held views on God’s corporeality and God’s speech fundamentally at odds with the prevailing Ash‘ari theology. While rivalries certainly played a part, Ibn Taymiyya was imprisoned mainly because his theological views threatened the hegemony of Ash‘ari orthodoxy in the Mamluk sultanate. With this background in place, the present paper will examine why the Mamluk authorities released Ibn Taymiyya from prison in 1307, a question that has received limited scholarly attention. Some Mamluk-era sources are reserved or evasive about what took place to effect the release. However, the chronicle of Egyptian bureaucrat al-Nuwayri states that Ibn Taymiyya confessed Ash‘arism and voluntarily signed a confession to procure his freedom. It also copies in the confession text. Much more briefly, the traditionalist Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi mentions that Ibn Taymiyya signed something to secure his release, but under threat of death. Al-Nuwayri’s story does not fit Ibn Taymiyya’s reputation for intransigence. Nor does Ibn Taymiyya adhere to the doctrines found in the confession in any of his books. It has thus been suggested that the confession copied by al-Nuwayri was a forgery. However, as this paper will show, it is very difficult to explain how the document could have been forged in light of the socio-political circumstances of the moment. This paper instead accepts al-Nuwayri’s report as credible and turns instead to Ibn Taymiyya’s ethics for explanation. Ibn Taymiyya articulates a utilitarian ethic in his writings, and some of his actions betray utilitarian reasoning as well. Thus, it is not implausible that Ibn Taymiyya weighed up the benefits and harms of signing a confession retracting his doctrine and concluded that procuring his release from prison would be of greater benefit to the Muslim community than suffering a martyr’s death.