¹ The article will focus on the activities of the ʽulamā', namely experts in fiqh (jurisprudence) and hadith. It will not deal with Sufi shaykhs and their presence in Gaza—a topic that will be left for another study.

² Meticulously collected, translated, and analysed in the fourth volume of Sharon, M., Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, seven vols (Leiden, 1997–2021)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (henceforth CIAP).

³ ʽĀrif al-ʽĀrif, Ta'rīkh Ghazza (Jerusalem, 1943); ʽUthmān Muṣṭafā al-Ṭabbāʽ, Itḥāf al-aʽizza fī ta'rīkh Ghazza, (ed.) ʽAbd al-Laṭīf Zakī Abū Hāshim, four vols (Gaza, 1999); Maḥmūd ʽAlī ʽAṭā' Allāh, Niyābat Ghazza fī al-ʽahd al-mamlūkī (Beirut, 1986); Sadek, Mohamed-Moain, Die Mamlukische Architektur der Stadt Gaza (Berlin, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ʿAthāmina, Khalīl, Filasṭīn fī al-ʿahdayn al-Ayyūbī wa-l-Mamlūkī (1187–1516) (Beirut, 2006), pp. 315–323Google Scholar; Mahamid, H., ‘The construction of Islamic-educational institutions in Mamluk Gaza’, Nebula IV.1 (2007), pp. 36–40Google Scholar; R. Amitai, ‘The development of a Muslim city in Palestine: Gaza under the Mamluks’, ASK Working Paper XXVIII (Bonn, 2017); Amitai, R., ‘Islamisation in the Southern Levant after the end of Frankish rule: some general considerations and a short case study’, in Islamisation: Comparative Perspectives from History, (ed.) Peacock, A. C. S. (Edinburgh, 2017), pp. 156–186Google Scholar.

⁴ Yāqūt b. ʽAbdallāh al-Ḥamawī, Muʽjam al-buldān, five vols (Beirut, 1955–1957), iii, p. 674.

⁵ Though the identification of Hāshim's burial place with Gaza was consensual in Islamic tradition from early on, there are no attestations to it becoming a pilgrimage site, or even a physical identification of it, prior to the Ottoman period. Al-Harawī, who passed through Gaza during the twelfth century, acknowledges Hāshim's burial there but does not mention his tomb as a pilgrimage site. According to Ibn Khallikān, writing in the second half of the seventh/thirteenth century, Hāshim's tomb was not visible, and its location was unknown to the locals: he claims to have asked some of them when he passed through Gaza, but they did not know anything about it. Meanwhile, travellers during the Ottoman period did visit the site and, in the thirteenth/nineteenth century, a mosque was erected, supposedly over Hāshim's tomb, by order of the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid: Meri, J. W. (trans.), A Lonely Wayfarer's Guide to Pilgrimage: ‘Alī ibn Abī Bakr al-Harawī's Kitāb al-Ishārāt ilā Maʽrifat al-Ziyārāt (Princeton, 2004), p. 82Google Scholar; Khallikān, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn, Wafayāt al-aʽyān wa-inbā' abnā' al-zamān, (ed.) Iḥsān ʽAbbās, eight vols (Beirut, 1968–72), i, p. 61Google Scholar; al-Ṭabbāʽ, Itḥāf, ii, pp. 160–163.

⁶ This site is also not mentioned in the sources of the Mamluk period, except for Mujīr al-Dīn, who wrote in the late ninth/fifteenth century that ‘his birthplace is known and is an object for pious visitation (ziyāra)’. It seems that al-Shāfiʽī's birthplace was known and perhaps even venerated by the locals but, at least until the late Mamluk period, it did not become a very popular shrine—such is not mentioned by any of the geographical compendiums or travellers who mention Gaza, even though al-Ṭabbāʽ mentions an inscription at the site dating to 771/1369–1370 that commemorates a certain building project connected to it. During the Ottoman period, the site was already better known and visitors to Gaza, such as al-Nābulusī, even mention next to it the burial sites of al-Shāfiʽī's mother and sister: al-ʿUlaymī, Mujīr al-Dīn, al-Uns al-jalīl fī taʾrīkh al-Quds wa-l-Khalīl, (ed.) ʿAdnān Yūnus ʿAbd al-Majīd Abū Tabāna, two vols (Hebron, 1999), ii, p. 136Google Scholar; al-Ṭabbāʽ, Itḥāf, ii, pp. 50, 54, 206; ʽAbd al-Ghanī b. Ismāʽīl al-Nābulusī, al-Ḥaqīqa wa'l-majāz fī riḥlat Bilād al-Shām wa-Miṣr wa'l-Ḥijāz, (ed.) Riyāḍ ʽAbd al-Ḥamīd Murād (Damascus, 1989), pp. 462–463; Sharon, CIAP, iv, p. 90. Al-Sakhāwī mentions a parallel tradition according to which al-Shāfiʽī was born in Ascalon: Muḥammad b. ʽAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sakhāwī, al-Buldāniyyat, (ed.) Ḥusām b. Muḥammad al-Qaṭṭān (Riyadh, 2001), pp. 231–232.

⁷ Al-Ṭabbāʽ, Itḥāf, ii, pp. 31–34; D. Sourdel, ‘Ghazza’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition (Leiden, 1950–2004), ii, p. 1056; Mujīr al-Dīn, al-Uns, ii, p. 136; Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 23–24.

⁸ Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, i, pp. 57–60. Yāqūt also mentions one hadith transmitter from Gaza, Muḥammad b. ‘Amrū b. al-Jarrāḥ al-Ghazzī: al-Ḥamawī, Muʽjam al-buldān, iii, p. 800.

⁹ Amitai, R., ‘Gaza in the Frankish and Ayyubid periods: the run-up to 1260 CE’, in Syria in Crusader Times: Conflict and Co-Existence, (ed.) Hillenbrand, C. (Edinburgh, 2019), pp. 225–244CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 52–57. Al-Ṭabbāʽ (Itḥāf, ii, p. 224) claims that al-Malik al-Kāmil erected a Friday Mosque and a madrasa in Gaza. The early Ottoman waqf registry contains information on substantial lands endowed for the Kamāliyya Friday Mosque (jāmiʿ), but no mention is made of a related madrasa: Ṣāliḥiyya, Muḥammad ʿĪsā, Sijill arāḍī alwiya (Ṣafad, Nāblus, Ghazza, wa-qaḍāʾ al-Ramla) ḥasba al-daftar raqm 316 taʾrīkh-hu 964h/1556m (Amman, 1999), pp. 263–264Google Scholar.

¹¹ This is Bārasṭughān b. Abī al-Futūḥ (d. 616/1219): Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām wa-wafayāt al-mashāhīr wa'l-aʽlām, (ed.) ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salām Tadmurī, 61 vols (Beirut, 1997), lii, p. 284.

¹² As we may infer from the biography of the Shāfiʽī qāḍī, ʽUmar b. Mūsā (d. 679/1281), who seems to have held the position already during the Ayyubid period: he is mentioned as a respectable scholar during the 1250s and was close to notable emirs of the Ṣāliḥiyya regiment—a fact that probably facilitated his retaining of the office of qāḍī into the Mamluk period: Mūsā b. Aḥmad al-Yūnīnī, Dhayl mir'āt al-zamān, four vols (Hyderabad, 1954–1961), iv, pp. 57–59; al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad al-Birzālī, al-Muqtafī ‘alā kitāb al-rawḍatayn, (ed.) ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salām Tadmuri, four vols (Beirut, 2006), i, pp. 498–499.

¹³ See, for example, al-Dhahabī, Ta'rīkh al-Islām, lv, p. 98; S. Aljoumani and K. Hirschler, Audition Certificates Platform (version 1), audition certificate BNF Paris, Suppl Turc 984, 134r, N. 2, ed. S. Aljoumani, https://www.audition-certificates-platform.org/ac/447 (accessed 11 December 2023).

¹⁴ Amitai, ‘Development of a Muslim city’; R. Amitai and K. Raphael, ‘Bridges and roads to Mamluk Gaza and beyond’, forthcoming in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 54 (2023), pp. 159–212.

¹⁵ One caveat to consider is that the Mamluk period in general, and particularly the ninth/fifteenth century, produced a remarkable—indeed unprecedented—amount of historical, and specifically biographical, writings, the sheer magnitude of which might be somewhat misleading when trying to compare the number of scholars active during the Mamluk period and prior to it. This chronological prejudice is somewhat mitigated by the fact that many of the biographical dictionaries produced during the Mamluk period contained biographies of prominent Muslims from earlier generations. Still, the place afforded to contemporary scholars was greater in proportions. Furthermore, even within the Mamluk period, there are disparities in the coverage afforded to different periods and regions, which is a consequence of the available sources. For example, the ninth/fifteenth century seems to be much better covered, in many ways thanks to the invaluable biographical dictionary of al-Sakhāwī devoted to notables of this century alone. On the surge in historiographical writing during the Mamluk period, see K. Hirschler, ‘Studying Mamluk historiography: from source-criticism to the cultural turn’, in Ubi sumus? Quo vademus? Mamluk Studies—State of the Art, (ed.) S. Conermann (Gottingen, 2013), pp. 161–163.

¹⁶ ʽAṭā' Allāh, Niyābat Ghazza, pp. 188–190. Baybars did invest in roads around Gaza, including building several bridges, and the shrine dedicated to Salmān al-Fārsī in Ashdod—not far north from Gaza—was built during his reign (and by one of his mamlūks): ʽAṭā' Allāh, Niyābat Ghazza, pp. 223–224; Sharon, CIAP, i, pp. 126–128; Amitai and Raphael, ‘Bridges and roads’.

¹⁷ It seems that this is first claimed, without any references, by al-ʽĀrif, Ta'rīkh Ghazza, p. 144. It is then repeated by al-Ṭabbāʽ (Itḥāf, ii, pp. 117–118, 184); Sadek, Die Mamlukische Architektur, pp. 323–324 (referring to al-Ṭabbāʽ); and Mahamid, ‘Construction of Islamic-educational institutions’, p. 38 (where he refers to Sadek). This claim might have originated in some local traditions, but I could not find any support for it in the sources. Ibn Shaddād, in the chapter in his biography of Baybars dedicated to the sultan's building activities, which enumerates dozens of such structures from all over Baybars's realm, does not mention this. He most certainly would have mentioned such an important project, which would have probably provided significant religious capital for his protagonist. The only building activity he mentions in Gaza is a Sufi convent (zāwiya) dedicated to the shaykh Khiḍr, Baybars's Hausprophet, to whom Baybars dedicated zāwiyas in locations scattered throughout the Sultanate: Muḥammad b. ‘Alī Ibn Shaddād, Ta'rīkh al-malik al-Ẓāhir, (ed.) Aḥmad Ḥuṭayṭ (Wiesbaden, 1983), p. 352.

¹⁸ ʽAṭā' Allāh, Niyābat Ghazza, pp. 152–157.

¹⁹ Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 59–83. Again, there is a similar assertion that Qalāwūn also erected a madrasa in Gaza, after eradicating the traces of Baybars's establishment and transporting his predecessor's library to his new madrasa. However, this is claimed by the same scholars who circulated the story about Baybars's library and, in a way, the story of Qalāwūn's madrasa seems to be a complementary addendum to the former: Baybars built in Gaza—‘due to his love for Gaza and compassion for its inhabitants’ (apparently since he met his wife there)—a madrasa with a library; Qalāwūn relocated it and changed its name; and then, almost two centuries later (for some unclear reason), the sultan Qā'itbāy ‘took vengeance on Qalāwūn in Baybars' name’, returned the library to its former location, and renamed it after its original founder. It might be significant that the scholar who seems responsible for circulating this tradition is al-Ṭabbāʽ, who took upon himself the mission of reviving the library of the Great Mosque of Gaza in the twentieth century and seems eager to establish ancient roots for this institution. Apparently, Baybars's library-madrasa was later identified with al-Ghusayn madrasa: al-Ṭabbāʽ, Itḥāf, ii, pp. 116–118, 184.

²⁰ As al-Ṣafadī writes regarding al-Jāwlī: ‘He is the one who turned Gaza into a city and urbanized it’ (wa-huwa allādhī maddana Ghazza wa-maṣṣarahā): Khalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī, A‛yān al-‘aṣr wa-a‛wān al-naṣr, (ed.) ‘Alī Abū Zayd et al., six vols (Damascus, 1998), ii, p. 467 (quoted and translated in Amitai, ‘Development of a Muslim city’, p. 9) and compare with al-Maqrīzī's comment, analysed by ʿAthāmina (Filasṭīn fī al-ʿahdayn al-Ayyūbī wa-l-Mamlūkī, pp. 318–319), who claims that al-Jāwlī's initiatives were solely related to found in Gaza the necessary institutions for a provincial capital (niyāba). In any case, this intensive building activity in Gaza should be seen as part of the wider picture, as such a building frenzy was going on throughout the Sultanate, inspired by the sultan's policy: Aḥmad b. ‘Alī al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk li-ma‘rifat duwal al-mulūk, (ed.) Muḥammad Muṣṭafā Ziyāda, four vols (Cairo, 1936–1973), ii, pp. 537–549; D. Ayalon, ‘The expansion and decline of Cairo under the Mamlūks and its background’, in Itinéraires d'orient: Hommages à Claude Cahen, (eds.) R. Curiel and R. Gyselen (Bures-sur-Yvette, 1994), pp. 14–15. While this was certainly most conspicuous in Cairo, it was strongly felt in Bilād al-Shām as well, especially under the governorship of Tankiz and with the patronage of several local governors who spent untypically long periods in their posts, such as al-Jāwlī at Gaza, Ariqṭāy at Safed, and others about whom we know very little, such as Baktamur al-Ashrafī, governor of Ḥiṣn al-Akrād. On the latter's impressive building projects there, completely unnoticed in the narrative sources, see M. van Berchem, Matériaux pour un corpus inscriptionum arabicarum, four vols (Paris-Cairo, 1903–1985), ii, pp. 27–30, 33–34. On Ariqṭāy, see Abū Bakr b. Aḥmad Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Ta'rīkh Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, (ed.) ʽAdnān Darwīsh, three vols (Damascus, 1977–1994), i, p. 682.

²¹ Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, The Travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa a.d. 1325–1354, (trans.) H. A. R. Gibb and C. Buckingham, five vols (Cambridge, 1971), i, p. 73. On the mosque, see Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 84–90.

²² We even have evidence of his involvement in the Gaza scholarly scene: the qāḍī of Gaza, ʽImād al-Dīn Ismāʽīl al-Kurdī (d. 755/1354), heard from him, the musnad of al-Shāfiʽī: Aḥmad b. ʿAlī ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina fī a‛yān al-miʾa al-thāmina, (ed.) Muḥammad Sayyid Jād al-Ḥaqq, five vols (Cairo, 1966), i, p. 388. On al-Jāwlī's learning, see al-Ṣafadī, A‛yān, ii, p. 470; Ibn Ḥajar, al-Durar al-kāmina, ii, p. 267. On the wider phenomenon of learned mamlūks, see U. Haarmann, ‘Arabic in speech, Turkish in lineage: Mamluks and their sons in the intellectual life of fourteenth-century Egypt and Syria’, Journal of Semitic Studies XXXIII (1988), pp. 81–114; J. Berkey, ‘“Silver threads among the coal”: a well-educated Mamluk of the ninth/fifteenth century’, Studia Islamica LXXIII (1991), pp. 109–125.

²³ For example, Kamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Zaynī (d. 762/1361), who was a lecturer in the madrasa: Muḥammad b. Ibn Rāfiʽ al-Sallāmī, al-Wafayāt, (eds.) Ṣāliḥ Mahdī ʽAbbās and Bashshār ʽAwwād Maʽrūf, two vols (Beirut, 1982), ii, p. 238. Early Ottoman waqf records attest that al-Jāwlī's mosque provided over 30 paid positions (not all for scholars, but also for other personnel), as well as stipends for 20 orphans. See Ṣāliḥiyya, Sijill arāḍī alwiya, pp. 296–298. One might also mention al-Jāwlī's bīmāristān (alternatively named Dār al-shifāʾ), which, though not dedicated to religious scholars per se, also provided income for some 30 personnel (at least in the tenth/sixteenth century). See ibid., pp. 320–324.

²⁴ Sharon, CIAP, vol. iv; al-Ṭabbāʽ, Itḥāf; ʽAṭā' Allāh, Niyābat Ghazza, pp. 245–247.

²⁵ Mahamid, ‘Construction of Islamic-educational institutions’, pp. 37–38.

²⁶ Al-Ṭabbāʽ, Itḥāf, ii, pp. 239–247; Ṣāliḥiyya, Sijill arāḍī alwiya, pp. 268–275.

²⁷ Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 167ff.; Muḥammad b. ʽAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ li-ahl al-qarn al-tāsiʿ, 12 vols (Cairo, 1934), i, pp. 59, 74, iv, p. 91, vi, pp. 257–258. For two scholars who were brothers with paid positions in this madrasa (one a hadith teacher, the other a Quran reader), see al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, i, p. 312, iv, pp. 267–268. Evidence for the Luddī family's continuing prominence in Gaza comes from a waqf endowed by ʽAbd al-Raḥmān's two sons, Mūsā and ʿUthmān, in 916/1510–1511 (Ṣāliḥiyya, Sijill arāḍī alwiya, p. 280) and another waqf evidently endowed by ʽAbd al-Raḥmān's brother, Zayn al-Dīn Yūsuf, in 887/1482-3 (ibid., p. 276).

²⁸ See also the construction in the Great Mosque of Gaza initiated by the sultan Lājīn in 697/1298 (Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 75–78) or the enlargement of that same mosque undertaken in 730/1329 by Tankiz, governor of Bilād al-Shām (ibid., iv, pp. 95–99).

²⁹ For example, the emir Balabān al-Mustaʽribī who was assigned with an iqṭā' in the coastal plains around Gaza and founded a mosque in town (Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 67–69); or the restoration of the Great Mosque undertaken by the governor of Gaza, Ṭurunṭāy al-Jūkandār around 731/1331 (ibid., iv, pp. 100–101). The same Ṭurunṭāy also patronised the foundation of a certain ‘blessed place’, which, probably later, came to be known as the zāwiya of Aḥmad al-Badawī (ibid., iv, pp. 105–106). Ṭurunṭāy was appointed as governor of Gaza shortly after the dismissal of Sanjar al-Jāwlī, still during the reign of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad. The fact that we have concrete evidence that building initiatives continued during his short tenure at Gaza is another indication that al-Jāwlī's massive construction was part of a larger policy of the sultan. See also the madrasa founded by Shāhīn al-Kujukī in 786/1384 (ibid., iv, pp. 124–130, 157–158); the mosque founded by the governor Āqbughā al-Ṭūlūtamurī in 802/1400 (ibid., iv, pp. 142–143); a mosque and a ḥammām constructed by two Chief Chamberlains of Gaza during the reign of al-Mu'ayyad Shaykh, in 816/1413 and 821/1418 (ibid., iv, pp. 150–156); the minaret erected by the governor Īnāl (later to be sultan) in 835/1432 (ibid., iv, p. 162), and more.

³⁰ Homerin claimed that the main purpose behind the Mamluks' patronage of Sufi institutions (khānqāhs) was attaining their own salvation—surely an important motivation that might also be applied to patronage of other religious institutions: Th. E. Homerin, ‘Saving Muslim souls: the Khānqāh and the Sufi duty in Mamluk lands’, Mamlūk Studies Review III (1999), pp. 59–83.

³¹ This is implied in al-Maqrīzī's obituary of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad (al-Sulūk, ii, p. 543). After describing the sultan's enthusiasm for building, the historian writes that ‘[t]he emirs followed his example in [patronising] building projects’.

³² I. M. Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 77–78.

³³ E. Kenney, Power and Patronage in Medieval Syria: The Architecture and Urban Works of Tankiz al-Nāṣirī (Chicago, 2009), pp. 12–13; N. Luz, The Mamluk City in the Middle East: History, Culture, and the Urban Landscape (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 139–141.

³⁴ S. A. Arjomand, ‘Philanthropy, the law, and public policy in the Islamic world before the modern era’, in Philanthropy in the World's Traditions, (eds.) W. F. Ilchman, S. N. Katz, and E. L. Queen II (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1998), pp. 116–117.

³⁵ The memory of Ariqṭāy's governorship in Safed was such that, in his history of the town, when listing its governors throughout the first 100 years of Mamluk rule, al-ʽUthmānī divides them into those who held office before and after Ariqṭāy: Muḥammad b. ʽAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿUthmānī, Ta'rīkh Ṣafad, (ed.) Suhayl Zakkār (Damascus, 2009), p. 148.

³⁶ As al-ʽUthmānī writes regarding one beloved governor, Uzdamur al-Khizandār (who ruled briefly in 762–763/1362–1363): ‘He became one of the people of the town, even more so than the emir Sayf al-Dīn Ariqṭāy [the legendary governor of Safed], despite his short tenure in office.’ When Uzdamur returned for a second term in Safed, he was joyfully received: al-ʿUthmānī, Ta'rīkh Ṣafad, p. 148. For more similar examples, see ibid., pp. 138–146. Naturally, the flip side to this sympathy of the community towards good governors was their hostility to corrupt, abusive, or simply incompetent ones, as in the case of the emir Bilik al-Jamdār (r. 743–746/1344–1345): ibid., pp. 136–137.

³⁷ The case of the emir Birdibak al-Ashrafī (d. 868/1464) illustrates the importance of such local attachments, or sentiments. He was purchased as a mamlūk by Īnāl (the future sultan) in 829/1426, and we may assume that he was with his master when the latter served as governor of Gaza (831–836/1428–1433). After Īnāl became sultan in Cairo, Birdibak succeeded to the highest ranks in court. While there is no mention of him ever returning to Gaza on an official appointment, he did establish a madrasa there in 859/1455 (Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 166–167) and perhaps also a mosque (al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, iii, p. 5; it might very well be that al-Sakhāwī, although he writes that Birdibak founded a Friday Mosque in Gaza, actually refers to the same building). The fact that Birdibak chose Gaza of all places for this might be related to his attachment to this locality, in which he spent several years during his formative experience as a mamlūk.

³⁸ M. Eychenne, Liens personnels, clientélisme et réseaux de pouvoir dans le sultanat mamelouk (milieu XIIIe-fin XIVe siècle) (Damascus, 2013), pp. 19–27.

³⁹ M. Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge, 1994).

⁴⁰ Eychenne, Liens personnels, p. 120.

⁴¹ Specifically, he is mentioned as the teacher of Īnāl's son, and later heir to the Sultanate, Aḥmad, who was born during his father's term as governor of Gaza in 835/1431–1432: al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, i, p. 246.

⁴² Ibid., v, pp. 188–189. Two generations later, we also find the grandson of ʽAlī's brother as a merchant and scholar who made several business trips to Cairo, during which he too learned hadith: ibid., vii, p. 184.

⁴³ Al-Ṣafadī, Aʽyān, v, pp. 282–283. It seems that he was interested in returning to Gaza since he had a profitable business there, trading in cotton, soap, and more.

⁴⁴ On Ṭaynāl's career, see ibid., ii, pp. 630–631.

⁴⁵ Ibid., v, p. 283.

⁴⁶ Another similar example if found in the biography of Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Malaṭī (d. 888/1483): he was born in Gaza to a successful and rich father who owned many properties in town but, after inheriting his father's fortune, he lost it all and eventually found himself in Cairo, impoverished. It was then that a Mamluk emir, Tanibek Qarā, who knew him from his period of exile in Gaza, issued him an allowance. See ʽAbd al-Bāsiṭ b. Khalīl al-Malaṭī, al-Majmaʽ al-mufannan bi'l-muʽjam al-muʽanwan, (ed.) ʽAbdallāh Muḥammad al-Kundurī (Beirut, 2011), pp. 280–281.

⁴⁷ Eychenne, Liens personnel.

⁴⁸ Jerusalem was not part of either Ṭaynāl or Ibn Manṣūr's biographies, but it was closely related to Gaza, as will be discussed below.

⁴⁹ Ṭaynāl, for example, served three times as governor of Tripoli, and also served as governor of Safed and Gaza, spending a period ‘in between jobs’ in Damascus. He did begin his career in Cairo, as one of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad's mamlūks, served in several key posts at his master's court, and even built a mansion and a market (qaysariyya) in Cairo but, after being relocated to Tripoli, he never returned to Egypt: Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī, al-Mawāʽiẓ wa'l-iʽtibār fī dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa'l-āthār, (ed.) Amīn Fu'ād Sayyid, five vols (London, 2003), iii, p. 252. In fact, Ṭaynāl represents well what was written above regarding the attachment of an emir to a certain locale: al-Ṣafadī writes that ‘in every town he stayed he was loved by its inhabitants’ and that, when he was reinstated for a second term as governor of Tripoli, he was grateful. His attachment to Tripoli—where he governed for three terms—is also represented by the splendid mosque he founded there, furnished by a lavish endowment. It is also telling that he erected a mausoleum for himself in Tripoli (although he ended up being buried in Safed): al-Ṣafadī, Aʽyān, ii, p. 632. We may also include Ṭaynāl's activities in Tripoli as part of the overall building policy of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad's third reign, mentioned above.

⁵⁰ To name just two examples: Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Dimashqī al-Sallāwī (d. 813/1410) was qāḍī in Baalbek, Gaza, Safed, and Jerusalem, with a short stint in Medina, before he died in Damascus (al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, ii, p. 81); Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Biqāʽī (d. 878/1473) served as qāḍī in Safed, Ramla, Hamat, Tripoli, Gaza, and Aleppo (ibid., i, p. 192).

⁵¹ Cf. C. F. Petry, ‘Travel patterns of medieval notables in the Near East’, Studia Islamica LXII (1985), pp. 53–87.

⁵² On Shihāb al-Dīn, see al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, i, p. 356; and especially the detailed biography that his son, Raḍī al-Dīn al-Ghazzī, dedicated to him in his Buhjat al-nāẓirīn ilā tarājim al-muta'akhkhirīn min al-shāfiʽiyya al-bāriʽīn, (ed.) Abū Yaḥyā ʽAbdallāh al-Kundurī (Beirut, 2000), pp. 120–131.

⁵³ For instance, the aforementioned Shihāb al-Dīn al-Ghazzī first headed to Jerusalem to further his education, before moving on to his illustrious career in Damascus: al-Ghazzī, Buhjat al-nāẓirīn, pp. 122–123. Petry (‘Travel patterns’, pp. 65–66) argues for the salience of Jerusalem (and, on a lesser scale, of Hebron) as a meeting place for scholars within the Sultanate.

⁵⁴ Mujīr al-Dīn, al-Uns, ii, p. 376. And see the careers of Khayr al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ghazzī (d. 894/1489), a native of Gaza who served in several prestigious positions in Jerusalem for years, including chief Ḥanafī qāḍī: ibid., ii, pp. 357–359; Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ḥikrī (d. 782/1381), who served as qāḍī of Gaza and Jerusalem: Aḥmad b. ʿAlī ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr bi-abnāʾ al-ʿumr fī al-taʾrīkh, (ed.) Muḥammad ʽAbd al-Muʿīd Khān, nine vols (Beirut, 1986), ii, p. 40.

⁵⁵ Mujīr al-Dīn, al-Uns, ii, p. 259.

⁵⁶ Amitai and Raphael, ‘Bridges and roads’, pp. 185–190.

⁵⁷ Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, i, p. 363. Al-Sakhāwī (ibid., i, p. 366), himself a close associate of Shihāb al-Dīn, writes that, when he passed through Majdal, the latter met him and presented to him several of his works.

⁵⁸ Ibid., i, p. 363; Mujīr al-Dīn, al-Uns, ii, pp. 233–234.

⁵⁹ Nāṣir al-Dīn Manṣūr b. Aḥmad b. Zayyān al-Qaratāwī (b. circa 650/1252, d. after 742/1341) was the qāḍī of Qaratayyā, as was his father before him. He succeeded his father in this post when the latter died in 675/1276–1277 and served as a deputy to the qāḍī in Gaza. He later served as the qāḍī of Gaza, Hebron, Nablus, and ʽAjlūn. As he got to learn directly in Damascus from the great Shāfiʽī authority al-Nawawī and was long-lived, he became a highly desired teacher. In 742/1341, the renowned Shāfiʽī scholar, Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1369), learned from him in Gaza: ʽAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʽAlī al-Subkī, Muʽjam al-shuyūkh, (ed.) Bashshār ʽAwwād Maʽrūf et al. (Beirut, 2004), pp. 481–482. Another scholar from Qaratayyā was ʽAbdallāh b. ʽAlī al-Qaratāwī al-Laythī (b. before 848/1444–1445, d. after 900/1494). In 899/1494, he received in Mecca an ijāza from Shams al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī, a copy of which, in al-Sakhāwī's handwriting, is still extent: al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, v, pp. 32–33; ʽAbdallāh al-Ḥusaynī (ed.), Ijāza bi-khaṭṭ al-ḥāfiẓ Shams al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī (831h-902h) li-talmīdhihi Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qaratāwī (published by al-Alūka website). Al-Sakhāwī also mentions a scholar from Aṭriyā, a locality in the province of Gaza (perhaps a distortion of Qaratayyā), who also learned from him hadith in Mecca at the end of the ninth/fifteenth century: al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, vii, p. 244. On Qaratayyā, see Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muʽjam al-buldān, iv, p. 320.

⁶⁰ Ismāʽīl b. ʽUmar Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa'l-nihāya, (ed.) Maktab taḥqīq al-turāth, 14 vols (Beirut, 1993), xiv, p. 43.

⁶¹ Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, ii, p. 141, vi, p. 127, viii, p. 90; al-Subkī, Muʽjam al-shuyūkh, pp. 481–482; al-Birzālī, al-Muqtafī, i, p. 499; Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Jazarī, Ghāyat al-nihāya fī ṭabaqāt al-qurrā', (ed.) G. Bergstraesser, two vols (Beirut, 1982), i, p. 153; Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī, Durar al-ʿuqūd al-farīda fī tarājim al-aʿyān al-mufīda, (ed.) Maḥmūd al-Jalīlī, four vols (Beirut, 2002), iii, p. 134.

⁶² Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, iii, p. 142.

⁶³ Further attestation to the presence of distinguished scholars, beyond that of the narrative sources, is found in the epigraphic evidence. For instance, we have at least two tomb inscriptions of scholars who lived in Gaza during the eighth/fourteenth century: one, Muḥammad b. Ṭarīf (d. 784/1383), was a faqīh and muḥaddith, whose tomb shrine later came to be identified as a pilgrimage destination (mazār). Sharon, in his short entry on the inscription, writes that Ibn Ḥajar mentions a scholar by this name, but that the dates of his birth and death are missing from the biography (in al-Durar al-kāmina, iv, p. 79; cf. Sharon, CIAP, iv, p. 123). However, in another work by Ibn Ḥajar, Muḥammad b. Ṭarīf is mentioned briefly as a man known for his righteousness (kāna yudhkaru bi'l-khayr wa'l-ṣalāḥ), his death date matching the one on the inscription: Ibn Ḥajar, Inbāʾ al-ghumr, ii, p. 117; cf. al-Ṭabbāʽ, Itḥāf, ii, p. 152. The second scholar mentioned in an inscription is Muḥammad b. Khalīl al-ʽUrḍī (d. 814/1411), whose elaborate tombstone, according to Sharon, is a ‘testimony to the high esteem in which he was held’. Al-ʽUrḍī, whose nisba connects him to a village in the Syrian steppe, from where his father originated, was in fact a native of Gaza, as al-Maqrīzī, who met him there several times, states. We also have evidence that his father endowed several stalls in Gaza's livestock market (sūq al-ghanam) and a house (bayt) in town as waqf for the benefit of his progeny in the year 781/1379–1380. Al-ʽUrḍī was himself a distinguished scholar of fiqh and medicine: Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 146–147; Ṣāliḥiyya, Sijill arāḍī alwiya, p. 304; al-Maqrīzī, Durar al-ʽuqūd, iii, pp. 134–135. It is telling that, while their tomb inscriptions bear evidence to their local importance, both scholars are scarcely mentioned in the sources, surely in comparison with some of their Gazan peers (mentioned below).

⁶⁴ Ibn Ḥajar, al-Durar al-kāmina, iii, p. 116; al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, iv, p. 204, ix, p. 177; al-Fāsī, Dhayl al-taqyīd fī ruwāt al-sunan wa'l-asānīd, (ed.) Kamāl Yūsuf al-Ḥawt, two vols (Beirut, 1990), i, pp. 321, 439, ii, p. 192. He also composed an abridgement of al-Dhahabī's Ta'rīkh al-Islām: Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʽiyya, (ed.) ʽAbd al-ʽAlīm Khān, four vols (Hyderabad, 1978–1980), iii, p. 212.

⁶⁵ Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā' al-ghumr, iii, pp. 40–41 (quoting Ibn Ḥijjī); Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʽiyya, iv, p. 100. Indeed, Muḥammad went on to have an illustrious career in Damascus, where he became a renowned Shāfiʽī scholar, served for many years as deputy to the qāḍī, and held several teaching positions. He was very close to the renowned jurist, Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī: the two learned together in a madrasa and remained close friends ever after. Muḥammad composed a five-volume work on Shāfiʽī jurisprudence, entitled Maydān al-fursān, which was evidently quite popular: it was abridged by a certain Badr al-Dīn al-Hikkārī already several years after the author's lifetime. Al-ʽUthmānī, the qāḍī of Safed who authored a biographical dictionary of Shāfiʽī scholars, also writes of his close relationship with Muḥammad, which occurred when the two studied together in Damascus: ʽAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʽAlī al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʽiyya al-kubrā, (ed.) ʽAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥilū and Maḥmūd Muḥammad al-Ṭanāḥī, 10 vols (Cairo, 1964–1976), ix, pp. 155–156; Muḥammad b. ʽAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿUthmānī, Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ al-kubrā, MS Princeton University Library, Garrett Collection 692, folios 136a–b.

⁶⁶ Al-Sakhāwī (al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, ix, p. 177), who seems to be the only source to mention this intriguing episode, writes that, when a certain ‘al-Raḥbī al-Khārijī’ rebelled (taḥarraka) and tried to extort monies from the inhabitants of Gaza, it was Ibn al-Aʽsar who organised the opposition (which ultimately failed). It seems likely that this episode was part of the 815/1412 fighting between Mamluk factions throughout the Sultanate, which ended with al-Mu'ayyad Shaykh's ascent to the throne; ‘al-Raḥbī’ should be read as ‘al-Rajabī’ and thus that the person in question is the emir Īnāl al-Rajabī, who, in 815/1412, took control of Gaza. Otherwise, it might be that different events are being conflated by al-Sakhāwī, such as the ‘rebellion’ of ‘al-Sufyānī’ mentioned by al-Maqrīzī, on which see J. van Steenbergen, ‘Revisiting the Mamlūk empire: political action, relationships of power, entangled networks, and the Sultanate of Cairo in late medieval Syro-Egypt’, in The Mamluk Sultanate from the Perspective of Regional and World History, (eds.) S. Conermann and B. J. Walker (Gottingen, 2019), pp. 83–85.

⁶⁷ Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, ix, pp. 176–177.

⁶⁸ Ibid., vii, pp. 61–62. Ibn al-Ḥimṣī was an important teacher in Gaza, who raised several students: ibid., i, p. 312, ii, p. 178, iii, p. 157, vi, p. 259, viii, p. 286; al-Malaṭī, al-Majmaʽ al-mufannan, p. 115.

⁶⁹ Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, ix, p. 51.

⁷⁰ Ibid., vii, p. 62, 1x, p. 91.

⁷¹ Ibid., ix, p. 91.

⁷² A fine illustration of this is that it was al-Iyāsī who made the acquaintance between the governor Īnāl and the local Ḥanafī faqīh, ʽAlī b. Aḥmad al-Baghdādī al-Ghazzī, who went on to become Īnāl's imām (on this, see above): ibid., x, p. 92. It is interesting to note that al-Iyāsī had a mamlūk of his own—a certain Shams al-Dīn, evidently a learned man, as al-Sakhāwī mentions him narrating hadith to scholars who passed through Gaza on at least two occasions: ibid., iv, p. 127, ix, p. 41.

⁷³ Ibid., x, p. 91.

⁷⁴ Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā' al-ghumr, ii, p. 91; Abū al-Maḥāsin Yūsuf Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira fī mulūk Miṣr wa'l-Qāhira, 16 vols (Cairo, 1929–1972), xi, p. 228. The later source specifically states that the appointment of a Ḥanafī qāḍī to Gaza (and concomitantly to Jerusalem as well) was ‘one of the innovations of [the sultan] al-Malik al-Ẓāhir [Barqūq], and prior to that there was no Ḥanafī qāḍī in Jerusalem, nor in Gaza’. He also states that both qāḍīs—both of foreign, Anatolian (rūmī), and Persian (ʽajamī) origins—were appointed due to the intervention of Akmal al-Dīn al-Bābartī: he was the shaykh of the Shaykhūniyya khānqāh in Cairo, in which both held posts as resident students. The next Ḥanafī qāḍī appointed in Gaza was also from Anatolia, and one of the students of the Shaykhūniyya: Taqī al-Dīn b. ʽAbd al-Qādir al-Tamīmī al-Dārī al-Ghazzī, al-Ṭabaqāt al-saniyya fi tarājim al-Ḥanafiyya, (ed.) ʽAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥilū, four vols (Riyad, 1983–1989), iii, p. 247.

⁷⁵ Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, x, p. 91.

⁷⁶ Ibid., v, p. 188, viii, p. 264, x, p. 92.

⁷⁷ Ibid., x, p. 92.

⁷⁸ Al-Ṭabbāʽ, Itḥāf, iv, p. 31.

⁷⁹ Sharon, CIAP, iv, p. 166. Another intriguing piece of information is that Birdibak was a young mamlūk of the emir Īnāl when the latter was governor of Gaza in the 830s (h.). At the time, al-Iyāsī was one of the leading Ḥanafī scholars in town, if not the most prominent one, and al-Iyāsī was certainly acquainted with Īnāl (on this, see above, notes 37, 70). The madrasa al-Birdibakiyya was endowed with substantial awqāf, all of which were plots of lands and real-estate holdings in Gaza and its surroundings: Muḥammad ʿUthmān Saʿīd al-Khaṭīb, ‘The Islamic Awqaf (Endowments) in Palestine During Mamluki Period (648-923H/1250-1517A.D)’ (unpublished MA thesis, al-Yarmūk University, 2007), pp. 311, 318, 324.

⁸⁰ According to the waqf registry, in 791/1389, al-Iyāsī endowed stalls (dakākīn) in the livestock market (sūq al-ghanam) and in the market of al-Shajāʿiyya, the revenues of which were intended for himself and his descendants: Ṣāliḥiyya, Sijill arāḍī alwiya, p. 280.

⁸¹ Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, ii, p. 141. Ibn ʽUthmān was probably born in either Hebron or Jerusalem, and settled in Gaza, where he spent most of his life. He gained a vast education, learning from some of the greatest authorities of his age, and evidence of his prodigious learning is that the great Ibn Ḥajar learned from him several works in Gaza on diverse topics such as hadith, Sufism, and fiqh. Among his students, we may also mention the Meccan scholar, Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Fāsī. Ibn ʽUthmān became extremely influential and popular and was venerated as a saint. Al-Sakhāwī (ibid., ii, p. 141) accuses him of holding the controversial monist views of Ibn al-ʽArabī: Aḥmad Ibn Ḥajar al-ʽAsqalānī, al-Majmaʽ al-mu'assis li'l-muʽjam al-mufahris, (ed.) Yūsuf b. ʽAbd al-Raḥmān al-Marʽashlī, four vols (Beirut, 1992–4), i, pp. 445–450; al-Fāsī, Dhayl al-taqyīd, i, p. 390.

⁸² Ṣāliḥiyya, Sijill arāḍī alwiya, pp. 258–259; Sharon, CIAP, iv, pp. 134–143, 155–156, 159–161.

⁸³ Other building activities initiated by religious scholars are also known in Mamluk Gaza: the aforementioned Ibn al-Ḥimṣī apparently established a market (qaysāriyya; Sadek, Die Mamlukische Architektur, pp. 288–292, 312); Zayn al-Dīn ʽAbd al-Bāsiṭ ibn Khalīl (d. 854/1451), though not an inhabitant of Gaza, established there a madrasa, part of a network of madrasas he founded throughout the Sultanate: Daisuke Igarashi, ‘Madrasahs, their Shaykhs, and the civilian founder: the Bāsiṭīyah Madrasahs in the Mamlūk era’, Orient XLVIII (2013), p. 83.

⁸⁴ The Ottoman waqf registry provides numerous examples of such family-oriented endowments set by members of the Gazan civilian elite, be they scholars or otherwise. See, for example, al-Khaṭīb, ‘The Islamic Awqaf’, pp. 215–220.

⁸⁵ He learned from Ibn al-Ḥimṣī, among others: al-Malaṭī, al-Majmaʽ, p. 115.

⁸⁶ Ibid.

⁸⁷ See, for example, al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, ii, p. 188, iii, p. 222, vii, p. 184, viii, p. 264, ix, p. 45, x, p. 237; al-Ṣafadī, Aʽyān, v, pp. 282–283.

⁸⁸ J. E. Gilbert, ‘Institutionalization of Muslim scholarship and professionalization of the ʽUlamā' in medieval Damascus’, Studia Islamica LII (1980), pp. 105–134; Lapidus, Muslim Cities, pp. 107–113.

⁸⁹ L. Fernandes, ‘Mamluk politics and education: the evidence from two fourteenth century waqfiyya’, Annales islamologiques xxiii (1987), pp. 87–98.

⁹⁰ It is also telling that, while the Shāfiʽī qāḍī of Gaza was an appointment of the chief qāḍī of Damascus, the Ḥanafī qāḍī was appointed directly by the Cairo court: Aḥmad b. ʽAlī al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ al-aʽshā fī ṣināʽat al-inshā', (ed.) Muḥammad Ḥusayn Shams al-Dīn, 15 vols (Beirut, 1987), iv, p. 205.

⁹¹ For instance, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʽUmar al-Ghazzī, known as Ibn al-Maghribī (b. 830/1427), and his brother and namesake (b. 820/1417) were sons of a Mālikī scholar who originated from the Maghreb. Both were born in Gaza and learned from al-Iyāsī, switching to the Ḥanafī madhhab and continuing to illustrious careers. The younger brother was also appointed as qāḍī of Gaza at some point: al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, viii, pp. 263–265.

⁹² This issue merits further study and seems more complicated than a simple matter of Shāfiʽī scholars accusing their peers who converted to Ḥanafīsm (or other madhāhib) as pursuing paid positions. This is implied from the case of Ibn al-Aʽsar (mentioned above), who switched from the Shāfiʽī to the Ḥanafī madhhab. As al-Sakhāwī writes, ‘the one who advised him to become a Ḥanafī was his shaykh, Ibn Khalaf”, himself a Shāfiʽī. Scholars were also accused of switching to other madhāhib for the sake of gaining employment. Writers of biographical dictionaries are at times extremely critical of this tendency, even ridiculing their subjects: Ibn Taghrī Birdī writes of Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ṣaltī (d. 807/1404), who served as qāḍī in several towns in Bilād al-Shām (Gaza, Damascus, Baalbek, Ḥimṣ, and Hamah), constantly switching affiliation according to the available positions, that ‘he did not act well as qāḍī, and how could he, as every short period he would switch to another madhhab for the sake of gaining employment?!’ See Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm, xiii, p. 39. In the fatāwā compilation of the renowned tenth/sixteenth-century Gazan scholar, Abū Ṣāliḥ al-Timurtāshī (d. 1004/1595), one fatwā is devoted to the question of whether it is permissible for a Ḥanafī to pray behind an imām who was appointed by the ruler after presenting himself as a Ḥanafī, though it turned out that he was really a Shāfiʽī (the answer being yes, with some reservations). This legal question represents the spread of such practices, in this case already well into the Ottoman period: al-Timurtāshī, al-Fatāwā al-timurtāshiyya min al-waqā'iʽ al-ghazziyya, MS National Library of Israel, Yahuda Collection 495, folio 4.

⁹³ Levanoni, A., ‘Who were the “salt of the earth” in fifteenth-century Egypt?’ Mamlūk Studies Review XIV (2010), pp. 63–83Google Scholar; Yosef, K., ‘Language and style in Mamluk historiography’, in New Readings in Arabic Historiography from Late Medieval Egypt and Syria, (eds.) van Steenbergen, J. and Termonia, M. (Leiden, 2021), pp. 112–164CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁴ Al-Sakhāwī mentions him as the teacher of at least 10 scholars, who were generally either Ḥanafīs from Gaza or scholars passing through town: al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw' al-lāmiʽ, i, p. 49, ii, p. 162, v, p. 188, vi, p. 81, vii, pp. 203, 289, viii, pp. 170, 263–264, ix, p. 178.

⁹⁵ Berkey, J., ʿMamluk religious policyʾ, Mamlūk Studies Review XIII.2 (2009), pp. 7–22Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ Amitai, R., ʿPolitical and civilian elites in Mamluk Palestine (1260–1516): some preliminary commentsʾ, in Die Interaktion von Herrschern und Elited in imperialen Ordnungen des Mittelalters, (ed.) Drews, W. (Berlin, 2018), pp. 130–132Google Scholar.

⁹⁷ A comparison between the development of Qūṣ and that of Gaza under Mamluk rule is beyond the scope of the current study and I hope to conduct it elsewhere. While the two towns operated in extremely different climates (Qūṣ, for example, served as a projection of Muslim-Sunni power in a predominantly Christian region), they also had much in common. One may think, for example, of the role of the towns in keeping local nomadic tribes in check: while it does not seem that Mamluk control was challenged by such tribes in the Gaza region as it was in Upper Egypt, contemporary sources do suggest that Mamluk presence in Gaza was imperative to keep local tribal factions under control. On this, see the comments made by al-ʿUmarī translated in Amitai, ‘Development of a Muslim city’, pp. 8–9. On Qūṣ, see Garcin, J.-C., Un centre musulman de la Haute-Égypte medieval: Qūṣ (Cairo, 1974)Google Scholar.