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Coptic conversion to Islam under the Baḥrī mamlūks, 692–755/1293–1354

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Donald P. Little
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Extract

The generalization that it was during the Mamlūk period that the Copts were reduced to a small minority in Egypt is a familiar one which has been frequently repeated since Gaston Wiet broached it some 50 years ago. Using this generalization as a point of departure, I intend to review the evidence in the Arabic sources which touches upon the actual process of conversion which occurred during the period 692–755/1293–1354, attempting to discover, if possible, the extent of conversion during those years and the causes which lay behind it. The dates that I have chosen are not altogether arbitrary since they correspond, as we shall see, to certain demarcations in the history of conversion noted by Mamlūk historians themselves; furthermore, I have deliberately excluded the period of the Crusades from consideration in the belief that this period should be studied separately in order to determine whether the Mamlūks' involvement in the Crusades affected their policy toward the indigenous Christians of Egypt to any appreciable extent. Although my findings in this article tend to support Wiet's generalization, I hope to offer richer, more detailed documentation for it than has been offered heretofore and, in so doing, to contribute to our understanding of Mamlūk social history.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , October 1976 , pp. 552 - 569
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1976

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References

1 ‘Kibṭ’, El, 11, 996, 998Google Scholar: ‘The government of the Mamlūks gave the coup de grâce to Christianity in Egypt, which ceased to mean anything but a number of individuals. This period which extends from 648 to 923 (1250–1517) saw the completion of the ruin of the churches and the convents, the reduction of the number of Christians to the present-day proportion and the disappearance of the Coptic language…. It can be estimated that by the viiith (xivth) [century] the Christians were barely, as in our times, a tenth of the total population of Egypt’. Cf. Perlmann, M., ‘Notes on anti-Christian propaganda in the Mamlūk empire’, BSOAS, x, 4, 1942, 843CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Lapidus, Ira M., ‘The conversion of Egypt to Islam’, Israel Oriental Studies, 11, 1972, 262 (this article stops short of the Mamlūk period).Google Scholar

2 This task has already been begun with the unpublished M.A. thesis of Northrup, Linda S., Muslim-Christian relations during the reign of the Mamlūk sultan al-Malik al-Manṣūr Qalā'ūn (McGill University, 1974)Google Scholar, wherein it is shown that this sultan's policy toward the indigenous Christians of Egypt was virtually independent of his involvement in the Crusades.

3 The subject of Coptic conversion under the Mamlūks has been discussed in the studies of Wiet and Perlmann cited above, as well as in such works as the following: Weil, Gustav, Geschichte des Abbasidenchalifats in Egypten, I, Stuttgart, 1860Google Scholar; Muir, William, The Mameluke or slave dynasty of Egypt, London, 1896Google Scholar; Butcher, E. L., The story of the Church in Egypt, II, London, 1897Google Scholar; Lane-Poole, Stanley, A history of Egypt in the Middle Ages, London, 1914Google Scholar; Hanotaux, G. (ed.), Histoire de la nation égyptienne, IV. L'Égypte arabe, par 6. Wiet, Paris, 1937Google Scholar; Laoust, H., Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques d'Ibn Taimīya, Cairo, 1939Google Scholar; Tagher, Jacques, Aqbāṭ wa-Muslimūn, Cairo, 1951Google Scholar; Atiya, Aziz S., History of Eastern Christianity, Notre Dame, Ind., 1968Google Scholar; Bosworth, C. E., ‘Christian and Jewish religious dignitaries in Mamlūk Egypt and Syria’, IJMES, III, 1, 1972, 59–74, 3, 1972, 199–216; and elsewhere.Google Scholar

4 This propaganda and its relation to conversion have been studied in the above-mentioned article by Perlmann; for the earlier Hamlūk period see Sivan, Emmanuel, L'Islam et la Croisade, Paris, 1968.Google Scholar

5 For this episode I have relied mainly ou al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd al-jumān, Topkapi Sarayi Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fols. 159a–60aGoogle Scholar, who gives the fuller account. The version of al-Maqrīzī, , Kitāb al-khiṭaṭ, II, Cairo, 1325/1907–1908, 402–4Google Scholar, is an abridgement of al-'Aynī's source (who was undoubtedly the historian al-Yūsufī (d. 759/1358); see Little, , ‘The recovery of a lost source for Baḥrī Mamlūk history’, JAOS, XCIV, 1, 1974, 45)Google Scholar. A translation of al-Maqrīzī's version can be found in Butcher, , Church, II, 178–81Google Scholar, and Wüstenfeld, F., Macrizi's Geschichte der Capten, Göttingen, 1845, 71–4Google Scholar. I have not been able to consult Malan, S. S., A short history of the Copts and of their Church, London, 1873Google Scholar, which contains extensive translations of al-Maqrīzī's résumé of Coptic history in al-Khiṭaṭ.

6 Al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 159b.Google Scholar

7 ibid.

8 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Khiṭaṭ, 11, 402.Google Scholar

9 Al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 160a.Google Scholar

10 ibid.; al-Maqrīzī, , al-Khiṭaṭ, 11, 403–4.Google Scholar

11 ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 160a; for the biography of Amīn al-Mulk, see al-Ṣafadī, , A'yān al-'aṣr wa-a'wān al-naṣr, Atif Efendi MS 1809, fols. 237b–40aGoogle Scholar, and al-'Asqalānī, Ibn Ḥajar, al-Durar al-kāmina, II, Cairo, 1386/1966, 357–9.Google Scholar

12 There are two independent accounts of this episode. The fullest and most detailed version is in al-Yūnīnī, , Dhayl mir'āt al-zamān, Topkapi Sarayi Ahmet III MS 2907/E–5, fols. 197b–98aGoogle Scholar, the source of which was probably the historian al-Jazarī (d. 739/1338) (see Little, , An introduction to Mamlūk historiography, Wiesbaden, 1970, 57–61)Google Scholar; adaptations of this account occur in al-Dawādārī, Ibn, Kanz al-durar, IX., ed. Roemer, H. R., Cairo, 1960, 47–51Google Scholar; the anonymous chronicle edited by Zetterstéen, K. V., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Mamlūkensultane, Leiden, 1919, 84–9Google Scholar; and Abī, Mufaḍḍal ibn ‘l-Faḍā'il, al-Nahj al-sadīd, ed. and trans. Bloohet, E., Histoire des sultans mamlouks, Paris, 1928, 544–6Google Scholar. The other account is fullest in al-Maqrīzī, , Kitāb al-sulūk, I, ed. Ziada, M. M., Cairo, 1358/1939, 909–13, 914–15Google Scholar, trans, by Quatremère, M., Histoire des sultans mamlouks de l'Egypte, II, pt. II, Paris, 1845, 177–80Google Scholar, for which there is an adaptation in the same author's al-Khiṭaṭ, II, 404–5Google Scholar, and al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 208a–bGoogle Scholar; cf. al-Nuwayrī, , Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab, Leiden MS Or. 2a, fols. 108b–11aGoogle Scholar. Unless otherwise indicated, I have relied on common elements in the accounts of al-Yūnīnī and al-Maqrīrī (al-Sulūk).

13 By whom is probably meant the vizier of the Ḥafṣid ruler of Tunisia and eastern Algeria; see al-Dawādārī, Ibn, Kanz, IX, 43.Google Scholar

14 Al-Yūnīnī, , Dhayl, fol. 197b.Google Scholar

15 ibid.

16 ibid., fol. 198a.

17 Nihāyat al-arab, Leiden MS Or. 2n, fol. 109a; al-Stdūk, II, Cairo, 1378/1958, 922–4Google Scholar; Quatremère, , Histoire, II, pt. II, 178–89.Google Scholar

18 For a discussion of the ‘Covenant of ‘Umar’ see Fattal, Antoine, Le statul légal des nonmusulmans en pays d'Islam, Beirut, 1958, 60–9.Google Scholar

19 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 912.Google Scholar

20 Al-Yūnīnī, , Dhayl, Ahmet III MS 2907/E–5, fol. 198a.Google Scholar

21 ibid. According to al-Ṣafadī, A'yān, Atif Efendi MS 1809, fol. 237b, ‘When al-Jāshnakīr sought to convert the Christians to Islam, al-Ṣāḥib Amīn al-Dīn and al-Ṣāḥib Shams al-Din Ghabriyāl went into hiding for about a month, but when they grew tired of this they came out from hiding and were converted’.

22 This official ‘was attached to the person of the sultan, on whose behalf he supervised the work of the kuttāb and checked all accounts’. Rabie, Hassanein, The financial system of Egypt, London, 1972, 157.Google Scholar

23 ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 208b.

24 Al-Sulūk, 1, 912–13.Google Scholar

25 See Brinner, W. M., S.v. ḥarfū, EI, second ed., III, 206Google Scholar. See also Lapidus, I. M., Muslim cities in the later Middle Ages, Cambridge, Mass., 1967, 177–83.Google Scholar

26 Al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 208b.Google Scholar

27 ibid.; cf. al-Maqrīzī, , al-Salūk, 1, 914–15.Google Scholar

28 See Little, , Introduction, 24.Google Scholar

29 Nihāyat al-arab, Leiden MS Or. 2n, fol. 109b; cf. Perlmann, , ‘Notes’, 858.Google Scholar

30 This incident is discussed by al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, 1, 941–3Google Scholar; Quatremère, , Histoire, II, pt. II, 213–14.Google Scholar

31 Approximately 100,000 dirhams' worth according to al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 224b.Google Scholar

32 ibid.; of. al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, I, 942.Google Scholar

33 Al-Sulūk, I, 942.Google Scholar

34 See the notes of Quatremère on this term, Histoire, II, pt. II, 66–7.Google Scholar

35 For the biography of this minister without portfolio to Baybars see al-Ṣafadī, , A'yān, Atif Efendi MS 1809, fol. 140bGoogle Scholar, and Ḥajar, Ibn, al-Durar, I, 248–9, and II, 50.Google Scholar

36 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 950–1Google Scholar, and al-Khiṭaṭ, II, 405Google Scholar; al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 228bGoogle Scholar; and Atiya, A. S., ‘Egypt and Aragon, embassies and diplomatic correspondence between 1300 and 1330 A.d.', Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, XXIII, 7, 1938, 20–5.Google Scholar

37 Al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 228b.Google Scholar

38 Kathir, Ibn, al-Bidāya wa ‘l-nihāya, XIV, Cairo, 1358/1939, 53–4Google Scholar; al-Hādī, Ihn ‘Abd, al-'Uqūd al-durriyya min manāqib Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad ibn Taymiyya, Cairo, 1356/1938, 279–82Google Scholar; al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 272b.Google Scholar

39 Al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 275a.Google Scholar

40 This episode is reported in al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 136–6Google Scholar, and in slightly less detail in Ḥajar, Ibn, al-Durar, III, 214–15.Google Scholar

41 Biographies are found in al-Ṣafadī, , A'yānGoogle Scholar, Atif Efendi MS 1809, fols. 354b–5a, and Ḥajar, Ibn, al-Durar, III, 214–15.Google Scholar

42 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 135Google Scholar; of. Ḥajar, Ibn, al-Durar, III, 215.Google Scholar

43 Rabie, , Financial system, 143Google Scholar. Holding the office at this time was Akram ibn Hibat Allāh Karīm al-Dīn al-Kabīr al-Qibṭī: al-Dawādārī, Ibn, Kanz, IX, 282Google Scholar. He had been converted to Islam against his will by Baybars al-Jāshnakīr: al-Ṣafadī, , A'yān, Atif Efendi MS 1809, fol. 275bGoogle Scholar. For a sketch of this figure see Briuner, , ‘Ibn al-Sadīd’, EI, second ed., III, 923–4.Google Scholar

44 After being dismissed from the vizierate in 713/1313, al-Sahib Amīn al-Mulk ibn al-Ghannām, whose two conversions we have already noted, was appointed nāẓir al-nuẓẓār: al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 124–5.Google Scholar

45 This office was held by Fakhr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Faḍl Allāh al-Qibṭī, who, when told he would have to be converted to Islam, tried to commit suicide but later became a strict and pious Muslim: al-Ṣafadī, , A'yān, Atif Efendi MS 1809, fols. 516b–17bGoogle Scholar; cf. Ḥajar, Ibn, al-Durar, IV, 255–6Google Scholar. According to al-Dawādārī, Ibn, Kanz, IX, 282Google Scholar, he, along with Karīm al-Dīn al-Kabīr, was among the four pillars of al-Malik al-Nāṣir's state in 714/1314. The other two had been Muslims since birth.

46 In 713/1313 this office was assigned to two men concurrently, both of whom were converts: Akram ibn Khaṭīra Karīm al-Dīn al-Ṣaghīr al-Qibṭī and As'ad ibn Amīn al-Mulk Taqī al-Dīn al-Aḥwal: al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 124Google Scholar. For biographies, for the former see al-Ṣafadī, , A'yān, fols. 95a–6aGoogle Scholar, and Ḥajar, Ibn, al-Durar, I, 428–9Google Scholar; for the latter, who was converted by the amir who employed him, see Ḥajar, Ibn, al-Durar, I, 383.Google Scholar

47 On this point of. Sublet, Jacqueline (ed.), Tālī kitāb wafayāt al-a'yān, by al-Suqā'ī, Ibn, Damascus, 1974, pp. xv–xviGoogle Scholar, and Richards, Donald, ‘The Coptic bureaucracy under the Mamlūks’, Collogue international sur l'histoire du Caire, 1969, Le Caire, 1972, 377–8.Google Scholar

48 Nihāyat al-arab, Dār al-Kutub, Cairo MS 549 ma'ārif ‘āmma, xxx, 90–1.Google Scholar

49 Little, , Introduction, 24.Google Scholar

50 Nihāyat al-arab, al-Kutub, Dār MS 549 ma'ārif'āmma, xxx, 91Google Scholar; this passage is reproduced by Ziada in his edition of al-Maqrīzī, 's al-Sulūk, II, 154–5Google Scholar. n. 7, and is discussed by Rabie, , Financial system, 55–6Google Scholar, and ‘The size and value of the iqṭā' in Egypt’, in Cook, M. A. (ed.), Studies in the economic history of the Middle East, London, 1970, 138Google Scholar. This Taqī al-Muslimānī is of course the al-Aḥwal, Taqī al-Dīn mentioned on p. 560, n. 46Google Scholar, above, as Nāẓir al-Dawla.

51 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 173Google Scholar; but al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 317aGoogle Scholar, gives a totally different reason for his dismissal which is unrelated to the Christians.

52 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 158.Google Scholar

53 This incident is discussed most fully by al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 182–3Google Scholar; al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 321a, has a shorter version.Google Scholar

54 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 182.Google Scholar

55 See notes 43 and 46 above.

56 Al-Sulūk, II, 183.Google Scholar

57 ibid., 208.

58 The fullest accounts of these riots are found in al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fols. 334a–7bGoogle Scholar, and al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 216–28Google Scholar, and al-Khiṭaṭ, II, 425–33Google Scholar (Wüstenfeld, , Macrizi's Geschichte, 121–56)Google Scholar; close summaries of the version in al-Khiṭaṭ are found in Butcher, , Church, II, 187–200Google Scholar, and Tritton, A. S., The caliphs and their non-Muslim subjects, London, 1930, 61–77Google Scholar. There is also a detailed account in al-Nuwayrī, , Nihāyat al-arabGoogle Scholar, al-Kutub, Dār MS 549 ma'ārif ‘āmma, XXXI, 4–8Google Scholar, to which al-Muqrī, , Nathr al-jumān fī tarājim al-a'yān, Chester Beatty MS 4113, fols. 141a–7b, seems closely relatedGoogle Scholar. The contemporary Coptic historian Abī, Ibn ‘l-Faḍā'il, al-Ndhj al-sadīdGoogle Scholar, in Kortantamer, Samira, Ägypten und Syrien zwischen 1317 und 1341 in der Chronik des Mufaḍḍal b. Abī l-Faḍā'il, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1973, 14–15 (Arabic)Google Scholar, gives a short account of the riots which is unfortunately based on Muslim sources. I have relied mainly on al-'Aynī and al-Maqrīzī.

59 Al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 335a.Google Scholar

60 ibid.

61 ibid., fol. 337a.

62 ibid.; al-Nuwayrī, , Nihāyat al-arabGoogle Scholar, al-Kutub, Dār MS 549 ma'ārif ‘āmmo, XXXI, 7Google Scholar (this version is reproduced in al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk (ed. Ziada), II, 959–62)Google Scholar; and al-Muqrī, , Nathr al-jumān, fol. 145b.Google Scholar

63 ‘Iqd, Ahmet in MS 2912/4, fol. 337b.

64 Al-Sulūk, II, 227.Google Scholar

65 ibid., II, 227, 254.

66 Nihāyat al-arab, al-Kutub, Dār MS 549 ma'ārif ‘āmma, XXXI, 8Google Scholar; of. al-Muqrī, , Nathr, fol. 146b.Google Scholar

67 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 253–4Google Scholar. Popular unrest was also a key factor in this incident. A Mamlūk detachment sent to Minya was stoned by a crowd protesting against the functionaries (mubāshirīn) of the town. After the Mamlūks had dispersed the crowd by charging it, they found that 360 blue (Christian) turbans had been left behind in the melée! It was then that they decided to destroy the churches.

68 ibid., 11, 640.

69 ibid., 11, 656.

70 ibid., 11, 895.

71 ibid., 11, 900–1.

72 Al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Ahmet III MS 2912/4, fol. 369a.Google Scholar

73 Birdī, Ibn Taghrī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira, IX, Cairo, [1942], 109Google Scholar; but the phrase, ‘following al-Nāṣir's good example’, is not found in al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, 11, 375.Google Scholar

74 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, 11, 334.Google Scholar

75 al-Muhadhdhab, Ibn Hiläl al-Dawla was converted min taḥta ‘l-sayfGoogle Scholar according to al-Dawādāri, Ibn, Kanz, IX, 395Google Scholar; the sultan required Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-Nashw to be converted only when he promoted him to the supervision of his son's finances: al-Ṣafadī, Atif Efendi MS 1809, A'yān, fol. 286a, and Ḥajar, Ibn, al-Durar, 111, 43.Google Scholar

76 This was a brother of al-Nashw—Rizq Allāh: al-Ṣafadī, Atif Efendi MS 1809, A'yān, fol. 187b, and Ḥajar, Ibn, al-Durar, 11, 200.Google Scholar

77 Al-Yūsufī, , Nuzhat al-nāẓir fī sīrat al-Malik al-Nāsir, Aya Sofya MS 3434, fol. 159a–bGoogle Scholar; al-'Aynī, , ‘Iqd, Topkapi Sarayi Ahmet III MS 2911/c34, fol. 27b; cf. al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, 11, 424–5.Google Scholar

78 The major source for this episode is al-Maqrīzī, , most fully in al-Sulūk, 11, 921–7Google Scholar; also al-Khiṭaṭ, 11, 405–6Google Scholar, from which Butcher, , Church, 11, 208–10Google Scholar, translates a major portion; of. Wüstenfeld, , Macrizi's Geschichte, 77–81Google Scholar. As Perlmann, , ‘Notes’, 855–6Google Scholar, points out, Ibn Taghrī Birdī dates the episode in 753/1352 and Ibn lyās in 759/1358, but as I have shown elsewhere, Introduction, 87–94Google Scholar, these two historians are not reliable for Baḥrī Mamlūk history. That the episode did occur in 755/1354 is corroborated by a report by the contemporary historian al-Kutubī (d. 764/1363), ‘Uyūn al-tawārīkh, Cambridge University Library MS Add. 2923 (9), fol. 140a.

79 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Ṣubḥ, 11, 922.Google Scholar

80 The text of the decree is preserved in al-Qalqashandī, , al-Ṣubḥ al-a'shā, XIII, Cairo n.d. 378–87.Google Scholar

81 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, 11, 925.Google Scholar

82 ibid., 11, 924.

83 ibid., 11, 921, and al-Khiṭaṭ, 11, 405.Google Scholar

84 ibid., 11, 927.

85 See Wiet, , ‘Kibṭ’, 996Google Scholar, for the dates of later purges.

86 In the same year Jews and Christians were also denied the right to practise medicine, even though ‘the Copts attempted unsuccessfully to have this measure rescinded’: al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, 11, 925.Google Scholar