Qalāwūnid Discourse, Elite Communication and the Mamluk Cultural Matrix: Interpreting a 14th-Century Panegyric

• Published in: Journal of Arabic literature Vol. 43; no. 1; pp. 1 - 28
• Main Author: Steenbergen, Jo Van
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Brill 2012
• Subjects: al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl; Arabic literature; Chancery courts; discourse; Divinity; High culture; Ibrāhīm b. al-Qaysarānī; Lingua franca; Mamluk cultural matrix; Mamluk literature; Mamluk Sultanate; mujaddid; panegyrics; Poetry; Praise poetry; Qalāwūnid dynasty; risālah; Social organization; social performance; Social semiotics
• ISSN: 0085-2376; 1570-064X
• DOI: 10.1163/157006412X629755

Abstract
This article analyses a brief panegyric text from mid-14th-century Egypt, authored by the court scribe Ibrāhīm b. al-Qaysarānī (d. 1352) and dedicated to the Qalāwūnid Mamluk sultan al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl (r. 1342-5). It challenges this panegyric's standard treatment as a work of history and as a product of court propaganda, and instead connects it to wider issues of Mamluk literary production and social organisation. In doing so, a new understanding of this panegyric emerges within a specific context of Mamluk elite communication and social performance, demonstrating at the same time how such a social semiotic reading of Mamluk cultural expressions generates further insights into the symbiotic interactions between Mamluk culture and society.