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Petitions from the Ayyūbid period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

S. M. Stern
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During all periods of Islamic history, subjects with a grievance were free to address petitions to the ruler, one of whose traditional functions was to remedy injustice personally (al-naẓar fi'l-maẓālim). From Egypt we have a series of extant petitions from the Middle Ages. The practice of the Fāṭimids has been described in the detailed commentary accompanying my edition of three petitions from the time of that dynasty; the information which can be derived from the documents is there completed by accounts in literary sources. Here I publish all those petitions from the Ayyūbid period which are known to me. In another study I hope to perform the task carried out for the Fāṭimid period for the Mamlūk period also, comparing the detailed statements of the historians with the extant documents. For the Ayyūbid period there are no detailed descriptions of the procedure followed in submitting petitions, and the little which is known will be set out in the course of our discussion.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , February 1964 , pp. 1 - 32
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1964

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References

1 ‘Three petitions of the Fāṭimid period’, Orierns, XV, 1962, 172 ffGoogle Scholar.

2 ‘Petitions from the Mamlūk period: notes on the Mamlūk documents from Sinai’, in a future issue of BSOAS.

3 I am much obliged to the authorities of the Archivio di Stato in Pisa for putting at my disposal the photograph of this document. Amari's edition of the document is on the whole excellent; the only substantial error is the reading yaṣilūna in 1. 2 instead of the correct yuqabbilūna. The other misreadings are of no importance. In the superscription he reads al-mamālik instead of al-mamālīh; at the beginning of 1.10 the problematic name is reproduced by him as, and in 1. 15 he writes instead of.

4 The name of the city is erroneously written as Jazīrat Banī 'Umar. I am unable to decipher the name of the merchant—the first letter could perhaps be taken as the Syriac Mar ‘Master’, though as far as I know this was mainly used for ecclesiastics. Amari's suggestions are hardly convincing.

5 Būrī is a species of mullet (Mugil cephalus L.), from the eggs of which the baṭārīkh (whence French boutargue, Italian bottarga) is prepared. The Delta abounds in this fish, representations of which are frequent in old Egyptian monuments; see Keimer, L., ‘La boutargue dans I'Égypte ancienne’, Bulletin de l'Institut d'Égypte, XXI, 1938–1939, 215 ffGoogle Scholar. Keimer's study also contains many extracts from European travellers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and modern authorities. These can be supplemented from medieval Muslim writers: Yāqūt, (Mu'jam, I, 755Google Scholar; al-Mushtarik, 69) mentions the būrī fish; Ibn Baṭṭūta (I, 57, 60) states that the districts of al-Burlus, Nastaraw, and Damietta abounded in būrī, which was exported to Syria, Anatolia, and Cairo. The fish is also mentioned by al-Maqrīzī (I, 108, 181), who, as Yāqūt before him, derives its name from the town of Būra, north-west of Damietta (thus also the dictionaries: cf. Lane, Lexicon, s.v.); see, however, for possible Egyptian and Coptic antecedents of the word, Maspero, J. and Wiet, G., Matériaux pour servir à la géographic de I'Égypte, Cairo, 1919, 52–3Google Scholar, and Keimer, 235–6. For baṭārīkh see Dozy, , Supplément, s.v. baṭralch, and Keimer, , 237–8Google Scholar. Our text attests the exportation of būrī for about 1200, just as Ibn Baṭṭūta does for the middle of the fourteenth century, and the references collected by Keimer, 233, for more recent times.

6 In the heading itself al-maẓlūmīn stands for the correct al-maẓlūmūn; the same in 1. 4. Bi-kaihrati in 1. 11 seems to be used, somewhat awkwardly, instead of the elative bi-akthari. L. 13: the construction wa-lawlā… iliā is vulgar; cf. for similar uses of iliā Dozy, Supplément, s.v. In 1. 15 wa-jamī'u hum is ungrammatical, and so is laysa hum in 1. 17—though this is a common usage (cf. Dozy, s.v.). Amānīna in 1. 17 is a non-existent form, obviously instead of āminīna.

7 For the commercial relations of the Pisans with Cyprus we may refer to Heyd, W., Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen-âge, I, 360Google Scholar, and Hill [see next note], II, 42; for those of Venice to Heyd, , Histoire du commerce du Levant, I, 363–4Google Scholar.

8 For the history of Cyprus in this period see G. F. Hill, History of Cyprus, II. For the relations between the Crusaders and the Ayyūbids the general histories of the Crusades should be consulted: R. Röhricht, Geschichte des Kōnigreichs Jerusalem; R. Grousset, Histoire des Croisades.

9 For Beirut see Encyclopaedia of Islam, second ed., s.v. ‘Bayrūt’.

10 See Amari, Diplomi, second series, nos. xi and xii, with his commentary, and pp. liv–lv of his preface.

11 The beginning of this document is quoted in BSOAS, XXIII, 3, 1960, p. 441, n. 4Google Scholar; the full text will be given in an article ‘Two Ayyūbid decrees from Sinai’, to be included in a forthcoming volume Documents from Islamic chanceries edited by the present writer.

12 For Pisan and Venetian trade with Egypt cf. Heyd, I, 397 ff., and Amari's introduction to the Diplomi. p. lv. We see that there were awkward episodes, such as the arrest of the Pisan, and other Prankish, merchants in Alexandria in 612/1215–16.

13 Crete was acquired by the Venetians in 1204.

14 See Gottschalk, H. L., Al-Malik al-Kāmil von Egypten und seine Zeit, Wiesbaden, 1958, 43Google Scholar; Repertoire des inscriptions arabes, nos. 4201 and 4203. Gottschalk erroneously gives Sanjar Shāh the title Mu'īn al-Dīn. If this were correct, we would be saved a lot of trouble since we could definitely date the petition under the reign of Mu'izz al-Dīn Maḥmūd; but in fact the sources clearly say that Sanjar Shāh bore the title Mu'izz al-Dīn, the same as his son Maḥmūd. In 586/1190 Sanjar Shah quarrelled with Saladin (Ibn al-Athïr, XII, 34–5) and in 589/1193 and 595/1198 he attacked Ayyūbid territories in the Jazïra. In contrast to his father, Mu'izz al-Dīn was a faithful follower of the Ayyūbids. This may seem to favour dating the petition under his reign, but the argument is by no means decisive. Mu'izz al-Dīn II died in 648/1250 (Ibn Shaddād, , as quoted in Revue des Études Islamiques, VIII, 1934, 121Google Scholar; al-Ṣafadī, , al-Wāfī bi'lwafayāt, III, 140—here erroneously ‘Muḥammad’)Google Scholar. E. Zambaur's date 639, for which no authority is given (Manuel de généalogie et de chronologie, 226–7) is obviously erroneous. (In his genealogical table the date ‘d. 605’ slipped from Mu'izz al-Dīn I to M. II.)

15 See, in addition to al-Athīr, Ibn, Wāṣil, Ibn, Mufarrij al-kurūb, III, 172Google Scholar; al-'Adīm, Ibn, sub anno 605, transl. inGoogle ScholarRevue de l'Orient Latin, V, 1897, 44–5Google Scholar; al-Jawzī, Sibṭ Ibn, Mir'āt al-zamān, sub anno 603Google Scholar, in the Hyderabad ed. of vol. VIII, p. 529 (al-‘Ādil's role not mentioned); Abu'l-Fidā’, Istanbul, 1286, III, 113; Ibn al-Furāt, quoted by Röhricht and Cahen, C., La Syrie du nord a I'époqne des Croisades, p. 614, n. 45Google Scholar; al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, I, 116Google Scholar; Taghribirdī, Ibn, al-Nujūm al-ẓāhira, VI, 192Google Scholar(sub anno 603, from Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī), 196 (sub anno 605). Cf. also Röhricht, , Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem, 697Google Scholar; Grousset, , Histoire des Croisades, III, 187–9Google Scholar.

16 Ibn al-Athīr, XII, 181.

17 ‘He [the ruler of Acre] excused himself by saying: “I have no authority over the people of Cyprus since they resort to the Franks of Constantinople”. Subsequently, however, the people of Cyprus went to Constantinople on account of a famine which occurred and made it difficult for them to find food; thus the rule over Cyprus reverted to the ruler of Acre. Al-'Ādil sent again a message, but this was of no avail, so that he marched at the head of his army and acted with regard to Acre as we have described. Upon this its ruler acceded to his demand and sent the prisoners.’ Röhricht and Grousset, in paraphrasing Ibn al-Athīr's passage, pass over its difficulties. I cannot make head or tail of it.

18 Amari refers to the passage of Ibn al-Athir in order to provide a background for the petition.

19 Walter of Montbéliard, who was regent (bailiff) of Cyprus during Hugh's minority, quarrelled with the king when he came of age and, fleeing from Cyprus, took up his residence in Syria. He engaged in warfare on his own account and in 607/1211 he raided Egypt with his own ships, sailing from Acre to the Egyptian coast near Damietta. Marching from there overland to Būra (the eponymous town of the būrī fish, according to the Arab writers), he captured prisoners and booty. Of Muslim sources, this raid is mentioned by Abū Shāma, al-Dhayl ‘ala'l-rawdatayn, in Recueil des historiens des Croisades, vol. V, p. 155Google Scholar= ed. Cairo 1947 (under the title of Tarājim rijāl al-qarnayn al-sadis wa'l-sābi'), p. 77; for references to Frankish authorities, see Röhricht, , Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem, p. 703, n. 5Google Scholar; Hill, II, 77, note. In this case, the Cyprus government was certainly innocent, since they were in no way responsible for the actions of the ex-bailiff. But it is not impossible that the Muslims would, at least at first, make no such fine distinctions and make reprisals against Cyprus merchants—or merchants suspected of coming from Cyprus—for deeds done by the former bailiff of Cyprus. The Muslim chronicler, for one, ascribes the raid to ‘the bailiff of Cyprus’ (al-bāl al-Qubrusī), without qualifying that he no longer held this position. After all, the raid of 604 was carried out while Walter was still the regent of Cyprus, and some of the ships taking part in his private expedition were presumably manned by Cypriots. Incidentally, Cahen, C. (La Syrie du nord à l'époque des Croisades, p. 614Google Scholar, n. 45) erroneously states that Abū Shāma puts ‘the Cypriot raid’ in the year 605. Cahen identifies this raid with the one mentioned by Ibn al-Athīr; the correct date being 607, when Walter was in exile, this is hardly possible. I ought perhaps to mention that Frankish-Ayyūbid relations under ‘Ādil II (635–7/1238–40) do not seem to allow the dating of the document to his reign.

20 Ibn Shīth (see next note) writes on p. 38, speaking of the Ayyūbids: ‘Afterwards the rulers raised themselves above demanding a long string of titles and invocations in letters and were satisfied if they were addressed by their entourage and most of the people with the following words at the beginning of the letters: “The slave kisses the earth and reports”—without any further title or invocation. They were quite pleased by brevity in being addressed, since this relieved them from much tedium’. To judge from the extant specimens, this statement did not apply to petitions by ordinary subjects. Incidentally, we may quote for the phraseology a contemporary example from another province of Islam: see al-Nasafī's biography of the sultan Jalāl al-Dīn, ed. Houdas, 129: yuqabbilu'l-arda wa-yunhī.

21 b., 'Abd al-RahīmShīth, 'Alī b., Ma'ālim al-kitāba, ed. al-Bāshā, Q., Beirut, 1913Google Scholar. Seybold, C. F. has shown (ZDMG, LXX, 1916, 565 ffGoogle Scholar.) that according to an article on the author in al-Ṣafadī's al-Wāfī bi'l-wafayāt he was born in Asnā (near Qūṣ) in 557/1162–3, was secretary of al-Mu'azzam 'Isā, and died in 625/1228. Obituary notices on him are also found in Abū Shāma, al-Dhayl, ed. Cairo (as above, p. 6, n. 19), 153; al-Dhahabī, , Ta'rīkh al-Islām, sub anno 625 (MS Bodleian, I, 654, fol. 53v)Google Scholar; Taghrībirdī, Ibn, al-Nujūm al-ẓāhira, VI, 270, 271Google Scholar; al-'Imād, Ibn, Shadharāt al-dhahab, V, 117Google Scholar. Al-Dhahabī's paragraph reads as follows:

22 ‘There is space left between the tarjama and the basmala in letters written from one of higher rank to one of lower rank; in letters written to great men the tarjama is near the basmala’ (p. 46).

23 p. 32.

24 Ibn Shīth gives elaborate rules about the ending of letters (pp. 49–50, 51), grading the variations of the type ‘and to the exalted opinion belongs the favour’, etc., according to the rank of the addressee. The phrase ‘and the opinion is the highest, if God wills’ appears as a middling grade. These passages refer, however, to documents emanating from the chancery—this becomes clear especially from p. 51. It is curious that in petitions addressed to the sultan the final formula used is one which in outgoing correspondence is of middle importance only. We may also compare the phrase al-ārā' al-'āliya or al-sharīfa used in addressing the ruler: fa-in ḥasuna fī'l-āra'i'l-'āliya ‘if it pleases the exalted opinions’, i.e. ‘your majesty’; bayna yadayi'l-ārā'i'l-sharīfa ‘before the noble opinions’, i.e. ‘before your majesty’—al-Nābulusī, Luma' ed. Cahen, , Bulletin d'Études Orientates (Damascus), XVI, 1958–1960, (pub.) 1961, 37, 50Google Scholar.

25 The Director of the Archivio di Stato in Pisa has very kindly confirmed that there is no writing on the verso of the document.

26 I have discussed the problem of how the absence of endorsement in the documents should be explained, in the article on the Fāṭimid petitions quoted above (p. 1, n. 1), 205–6.

27 Atiya, A. S., The Arabic manuscripts of Mount Sinai: a hand-list of the Arabic manuscripts and scrolls microfilmed at the library of the monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, Baltimore, 1955Google Scholar; Stern, S. M., ‘A Fāṭimid decree of the year 524/1130’, BSOAS, XXIII, 3, 1960, 439 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ernst, H., Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden des Sinai-Klosters, Wiesbaden, 1960Google Scholar. I am indebted to the authorities of the Manchester University Library for the prints made from the set of microfilms (duplicates of those taken by the American expedition) in the Library's possession. Some of Atiya's indications about the documents are erroneous and have been corrected by the above studies, or are, in so far as the Ayyūbid documents are concerned, (tacitly) corrected in the present article.

28 In the Middle Ages the faddān was equal to 400 sq. qaṣaba, i.e. 6,368 sq. metres; cf. Hinz, W., Islamische Masse und Gewichte, 65Google Scholar.

29 The dictionaries register also the alternative forms rubwa and ribwa. ‘Roboe’ may represent either rabwa or rubwa, while Rabino writes ‘Ribouah’.

30 ‘Montem Sina et monasterium S. Mariae situm in pede ipsius montis cum omnibus pertinentiis suis. Loca quae nominantur Roboe, Fucra et Liiah cum omnibus pertinentiis eorundem. Raythou cum palmariis et terris eiusdem. In civitate Aegypti domos et extra civitatem casale unum. Iuxta Mare Rubrum decem miliaria terrae. Faran cum terris et palmariis eius.’ (There follows a long list of properties in more distant countries.) This list recurs in a document dated 1226, confirming the previous one. The full text of both documents is printed from the Vatican registers by Pitra, , Analecta novissima; spicilegia Solesmensis altera continuatio, I (De epistulis et registris Romanorum pontificum), 1885, nos. 7 and 35 (pp. 562–3 and 589–90), andGoogle ScholarHofmann, G., Sinai und Rom, Rome, 1927, nos. 1 and 6 (pp. 30 ff. and 35 ff. =Google ScholarOrientalia Christiana, IX, 3, 242 ff. and 247 ff.). The text of a further confirmation by Gregory IX is preserved in the monastery and was published by K. A. [P.] Uspenskiy, in the account of his second journey, 267 ff. (with references to it in the account of his first journey, 135, 192, 243; for the full titles of these accounts see below, p. 12, n. 31), and after him byGoogle ScholarChabot, J. B., in Revue de l'Orient Chrétien, V, 3, 1900, 494–7Google Scholar. For a commentary on this list see Röhricht, R., ‘Studien zur mittelalterlichen Geographie und Topographic Syriens’, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palaestina-Vereins, X, 1887, 237–8Google Scholar, who has, however, little to say about the names which concern us here. I do not think that ‘the monastery of St. Mary’ refers to the small monastery called St. Mary in the Wādī'I-Lejā, a few miles from the main monastery (Weill, R., La presqu'île du Sinai, Paris, 1908, 200Google Scholar; cf. also the next note); it is more natural to refer this to the main monastery ‘at the foot of Mount Sinai’, which at this time was still dedicated to the Virgin; it was only later that the title of St. Catherine supplanted the original one. ‘Roboe’ is dealt with in the text. As for Fucra and Liiah, Röhricht has nothing substantial to say, and Weill's proposals of identification are unacceptable. Liiah could perhaps stand for Lejā, the valley to the west of the Jabal Mūsā, where the monastery has various properties. [Subsequently I notice that B. Moritz in his Beiträge (see below, p. 23, n. 62) quotes from al-Sakhāwī, , al-Tibr al-masbūk, Būlāq, 1896, 124Google Scholar, a list, drawn up in the middle of the fifteenth century, of churches belonging to the monastery, which mentions ‘three churches in Wādī'l-Lajāh and al-Rabwa, and one in Wādī'l-Fuqayra’; Moritz identifies these names, no doubt correctly, with Roboe, Liiah, and Fucra.]

31 Rabino, H. L., Le monastère de Sainte-Catherine du Mont Sinaï, Cairo, 1938, 9 and 37Google Scholar, ‘Deir er-Ribouah (Couvent des Douze Apôtres) ou Chalet du Roi’, 4 km. from the main monastery, with a garden and a well. Pococke, R. calls this monastery that of ‘The apostles St. Peter and St. Paul’: Description of the East, London, 1743, I, 149Google Scholar. This is obviously the monastery described by Nectarius (see below, p. 22, n. 57) as lying to the south of the monastery of the Blessed Virgin of [i.e. built by a monk called] David, named Monastery of the Holy Apostles, ‘with water and a garden’ (‘Epitome’, 164). It is described in the two travel books by Uspenskiy, K. A. [P.]: Pervoe puteshestvie v Sinayskiy Monastry v 1845 gody Archimadrita Porfiriya Uspenskavo, St. Petersburg, 1856, 191–3, 243–4Google Scholar, cf. also 182, 189; Vtoroe puteshestvie Arch. P. Usp. v Sinayskiy Mon. 1850 gody, St. Petersburg, 1856, 167Google Scholar, and sketch-map at the end of the volume. Uspenskiy states that this ruined monastery (called by him ‘of St. Peter and Paul’ in the first, ‘of the Holy Apostles’ in the second, volume) is at the foot of the rock of Rabba. The name ‘Monastery of the Twelve Apostles’, or ‘of the Apostles’ is given on the maps of the Ordnance Survey of the peninsula of Sinai and in the Account of the Survey, 1869, 207. Palmer, E. H. also mentions the monastery (The desert of the Exodus, Cambridge, 1871, 119–20)Google Scholar: ‘At the left-hand side, at the mouth of the Wády [W. Lejá], there is a ruined convent dedicated to the Twelve Apostles’, and refers to the rock: ‘The fine mountain at the entrance to Wády Lejá on the west side, at the foot of which stands the ruined convent of the Twelve Apostles, is called Jebel er Rabbeh’. The place where the ‘church of the Apostles’ stands is called al-Rabba also in Na“ūm Shuqayr's Arabic history of Sinai, (Ta'rīkh Sīnā, 226–7)Google Scholar. One is inclined to consider al-Rabba as a deformation of al-Rabwa, though Rabino's spelling seems to suggest that the original form is also current. Uspenskiy's and Palmer's attempt to connect it with either Bethrabbi or Gethrabbi occurring in Nilus's and Ammonius's accounts of Sinai, respectively, would then fall to the ground. (Uspenskiy's derivation of Rabba from Horeb, 182, is of course absurd.) The monastery is also described by Weill, 200, and occurs on his map, 199. (Weill's identification of Roboe with the Wadi Gharbe—201, 219, 238—which is unconvincing in itself since it is based on a far-fetched comparison of names, turns out to be definitely erroneous.) [Cf. also the fifteenth-century reference to al-Rabwa added to the preceding note.]

32 I am advised by experts of Greek paleography that the entry belongs to the late Middle Ages, and is therefore not contemporary with the documents, whereas the Arabic entry seems to be contemporary. The form in singular accusative gives no sense; I wonder if it is not a misspelling for τ⋯ν ⋯γ⋯ων ⋯ποοτόλων, ‘of the Holy Apostles’.

33 Line 1 is the signature of the ruler. Lines 10–13 are written on the margin; the words ayyadahu'llāh in 1. 13 have been added between the lines.

34 5 Ramaḍān 606 corresponds to 3 March 1210.

35 For the division of the Ayyūbid territories by al-'Ādil cf. Gottschalk, H. L., Al-Malik al-Kāmil von Egypten und seine Zeit, 22 ffGoogle Scholar. The Pisans corresponded at the same time with al-'Ādil and with al-Kāmil, as has been pointed out by Amari (Diplomi, no. XX and second series, nos. xxi and xxiii, with Amari's commentary; cf. also his preface, p. liv); we have seen above (p. 5) that other documents published by Amari (second series, nos. xi an d xii) show that al-'Ādil in a similar way issued decrees in the lifetime of Saladin in periods in which he acted as Saladin's lieutenant in Egypt.

36 There is a famous anecdote, recurring in most biographical notices about Nūr al-Dīn, which describes the foundation of the Palace of Justice in connexion with the financial extortions of Nūr al-Dīn's great general Shīrkūh, Saladin's uncle: see al-Athīr's, Ibn history of the Atabeks of Mosul (in Recueil des historiens arabes des Croisades, II), 305–6; whenceGoogle ScholarShāma, Abū, Kitāb al-rawḍatayn, I, 8Google Scholar; Wāṣil, Ibn, Mufarrij al-kurūb, I, 268–9Google Scholar; al-Jawzī, Sibṭ Ibn, Mir'āt al-zamān, VIII, 309Google Scholar. Sauvaget, J., Alep, Paris, 1941, 126Google Scholar, in describing Nūr al-Dīn's rule in Aleppo, attributes to him the foundation of the Palace of Justice in that city; the authority quoted by him (note 423) is, however, Ibn al-Athīr, who refers to the foundation of the Palace of Justice in Damascus, not in Aleppo; moreover, the anecdote implies that the dār al-'adl in Damascus, the establishment of which it describes, was the first of its kind. It is of course possible that Nūr al-Dīn established a dār al-'adl also in Aleppo (possibly after the Damascus one); there is, however, no definite proof for this, since the authority quoted in Sauvaget's note 424, who attributes the actual edifice of the Palace of Justice under the Citadel in Aleppo to Nūr al-Dīn, is contradicted by the other authorities, who attribute the actual building to the thirteenth century. (There are frequent references to the dār al-'adl of Aleppo from the later Ayyūbid period.) At any rate it may be useful to quote Sauvaget's excellent formulation of the function of the Palace of Justice: ‘Le scrupule avec lequel Nour ad-Din s'acquittait de ses devoirs de chef d'État lui inspira une initiative que les régimes suivants ne purent se dispenser de suivre: conjointement au tribunal du cadi, qu'abritait toujours la Grande-Mosquée, il institua un Palais de Justice (Dâr al-'Adl) ou il venait en personne tenir audience deux foix la semaine. C'était une veritable cour d'appel, ouverte à tous, ou le souverain mettait au service de l'équité lc poids de son autorité légale, inaccessible à la vénalité et à la complaisance. Un bâtiment fut spécialement construit pour le recevoir: on le placa naturellement au pied de la Citadelle, devant la résidence souveraine dont il constituait en quelque sorte une annexe publique’.

37 Ed. A. Schultens, Leiden 1732, 9–10; Recueil des historiens des Croisades, Historiens orientaux, in, 15–16. Quoted after Conder's, C. R. translation, The life of Saladin by Behâ ed-dîn, 14–15Google Scholar (with some corrections).

38 This is a mosaic of various traditions; I am unable to say from where it comes in its present form.

39 E. Tyan's Histoire de l'organisation judiciaire en pays d'Islam, which contains a full account of the procedures of ‘redressing grievances’, has no further information for the Ayyūbid period.

40 Ṣāhib is an Arabic, dastūr a Persian title applied to viziers; the Turkish words inanj, etc., meaning ‘confident, fortunate, great, wise’, appear frequently in this period as titles.

41 One is tempted to identify this amīr as Ṣalāh al-Dīn Ahmad al-Irbilī, scion of a noble family in Irbil, who in the year 606 entered the service of al-Kāmil and became an intimate of the ruler (see Gottschalk, p. 155, n. 1); the title Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn is not, however, rare enough to allow a certain identification.

42 Shamā'il is a rare name, so that we may identify the jāndār mentioned here with Shamā'il the jāndār who distinguished himself in 615/1219 when he swam past the Frankish ships blockading Damietta and succeeded in entering the town; he was promoted, under the title 'Alam al-Dīn, to the post of commander of the regiment of the jāndārs and governor of Cairo (see al-Maqrizi, , Khiṭaṭ, ed. Wiet, , IV, 51 and n. 1Google Scholar; Gottschalk, 83–1). The jāndārs were bodyguards of the ruler and had among other duties the tasks of presenting ambassadors and of taking over messages carried by the post (cf. the article ḏjāndār in the Encyclopaedia of Islam); thus it is natural that they should be used for carrying the ‘message’ of the ruler to the chancery.

43 Tafel, G. L. F. and Thomas, G. M., Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig (in the series ‘Fontes Rerum Austriacarum’, second section, ‘Diplomataria et Acta’, XII–XIV, Vienna, 1856–1857), no. 294 (n, 336 ff.)Google Scholar.

44 Latrie, J. M. J. L. de Mas, Traités de paix et de commerce concernant les relations des Chrétiens avec les Arabes de l'Afriqne septentrionale au moyen-âge, Paris, 1864–1872, appendix, p. 72Google Scholar. Gemelodin may well be the amīr Jamāl al-Dīn Mūsā b. Yaghmūr, for whose career see Cahen's note 19 to al-Nābulusī's Luma' (as above, p. 9, n. 24), p. 14.

45 See above, p. 1, n. 2.

46 See for the titles of Atiya's and Ernst's books above, p. 10, n. 27.

47 The note, which was partly left undeciphered by the editor, reads as follows:I take the opportunity to fill in the lacunae left by the editor and to correct one or two erroneous readings. Line 17: omit the sign of lacunae, since the letters which stand there were cancelled by the scribe (he obviously repeated the letters from the preceding word). For read(dotted in original). LI. 20–1: read ‘in treating them one should take a road to follow the track of which is approved’. The entry under 1. 27 (imtathala'l-mamlūk…) is not to be translated in the imperative, but as a statement: ‘The servant has obeyed the command…’; it is followed by the words in the same hand-writing: Balabān al-Dimyāṭī… [one undeciphered word].

48 See Busse, H., Untersuchungen zum islamischen Kanzleiwesen an Hand turkmenischer und safawidischer Urkunden, Cairo, 1959, nos. 1 and 2, and pp. 69 ffGoogle Scholar.

49 In my forthcoming book Fatimid decrees, section 9 of the diplomatic commentary. For the corroboratio, i.e. the reference to the signature in the body of the decree (11. 9–10: ‘after the noble signature had been set thereover’) see my remarks in the study of the ‘Two Ayyūbid decrees from Sinai’ (above, p. 5, n. 11).

50 In soliciting the favour of the authorities the monks often appeal to the beneficial effects of their presence for the Muslim pilgrims. They presumably entertained in al-Ṭūur pilgrims who travelled to the Ḥijāz by sea. Some Muslims would also pay a visit to the holy mountain. Some references in the ḥadīth seem to show that Sinai was the object of pilgrimages in the early Islamic period (see Lammens, H., ‘Les sanctuaires préislamites dans I'Arabie occidentale’, Mélanges de I'Université Saint-Joseph, Beyrouth, xi, 2, 1926, 109)Google Scholar. According to B. Moritz, in modern times Sinai used to be visited by some Muslim pilgrims on their way back from the pilgrimage overland through the northern part of the peninsula; see his Der Sinaikult in heidnischer Zeit (Abhandlungen, Gesellschaft, der K.Göttingen, der Wissenschaften zu, Phil.-hist. KI., NF, xvi, 2), 1916, 61Google Scholar. A systematic study would perhaps yield more precise information.

51 Al-'Ādil's rivals, al-Afḍal and al-Ẓāhir, evacuated Damascus at the beginning of Muḥarram 598, upon which the city was occupied by al-'Ādil, who later went to Ḥamāt and there made peace with his rivals and returned to Damascus. See Wāṣil, Ibn, Mufarrij al-kurūb, III, 129 ff., 132 ff.Google Scholar; Taghrībirdī, Ibn, al-Nujūm al-ẓāhira, VI, 180Google Scholar. The exact dates of these movements are not known, but it was certainly either on his way to, or on his return from, Ḥamāt that al-'Ādil issued the decree in question while making a halt at Ḥims.

52 It is unlikely that they had lost the document, since ten years later they again complained of the ‘lack’ of the document, and it would be too much to assume that they repeatedly lost important documents. Obviously what happened was that owing to one reason or another the document had not been handed over to the monastery for keeping, as it ought to have been, so that the monastery had no legal proof of the ruler's decision.

53 The text of the petition addressed to al-Kāmil follows closely the one which had been addressed to al-'Ādil and which is reproduced in the clerk's report on the back of the petition; the monks only wanted to obtain a confirmation of al-'Ādil's decision.

54 The phrase ‘the noble knowledge encompasses’ (with the word for ‘knowledge’ in the singular or the plural) belongs to the courtly language of th e period; cf. for example wa-qad aḥāṭati'l-'ulūmu'l-sharīfa in a letter from al-Afḍal to the caliph quoted by Wāsil, Ibn, Mufarrij al-kurūb, III, 5Google Scholar; an yuḥīṭa ‘ilmuhu'l-sharīf and li-tuḥīṭa'l-'ulūmu'l-sharīfa, in al-Nābulusī's Luma’ ed. Cahen (as above, p. 9, n. 24), 6, 7, and 39.

55 The line where the paper has been cut is, unfortunately, not entirely legible. I am a little uncertain about the term kātib al-'Arab: is this the secretary responsible for ‘Bedouin affairs’— a somewhat unexpected office ? Have we to supply the lacuna to the effect that the decree issued by al-'Ādil was not handed over to the petitioners but remained in the hands of the secretary of the Arabs ?

56 p. 11, n. 30. 57 Ἐπιτομ⋯ τ⋯ς ίεροκοσμικ⋯ς ίστορίας, Venice, 1805, 211 = 192–3. Fo r this book cf. my article ‘A Fāṭimid decree of the year 524/1130’, BSOAS, XXIII, 3, 1960, 440 ffGoogle Scholar.

58 See my article quoted in the preceding note, 443.

59 ‘Les archevêques du Sinaī’, Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale, Université Saint-Joseph, Beyrouth, II, 1907, 417–18Google Scholar.

60 Le monastère de Sainte-Catherine du, Mont Sinaī, 83 (Nectarius's passage is not quite accurately epitomized). Amantos, K. in his Σύντομος ίστορία τ⋯ς ίερ⋯ς μόνης το⋯ Σινά, Salonika, 1953, 83Google Scholar, refers, for some information about Simeon, , to his own Σιναϊτικ⋯ μνημεῖα ⋯νέκδοτα, Athens, 1928Google Scholar, and to Dmitrievski's, τυπικά, III, 394Google Scholar, neither of which is available to me.

61 See Weill, R., La presqu'île du Sinai, 93 ff.Google Scholar, and the article ‘al-Ṭūr’ in the Encyclopaedia of Islam.

62 See Weill, 194 ff.; Moritz, B., Beiträge zur Geschichte des Sinaiklosters im Mittelalter nach arabischen Quellen (Wissensehaften, Abhandlungen der K. Preussischen Akademie der Phil.-hist. KI., Jahrg. 1918, Nr. 4), 1918, 56–7Google Scholar; and for recent times Rabino, 8, who mentions a garden and hermitage belonging to the monastery. Färän also figures in the list of the monastery's properties contained in the papal bulls discussed above, p. 11, n. 30.

63 Al-Maqrizī (see below, n. 67) prescribes the spelling with dh, and in fact the name is no doubt derived from the proper name 'Āidh which according to Moritz, B., Der Sinaikult (as above, p. 19, n. 50), 21Google Scholar, is still one of the most common names among the Bedouins of Egypt and the Ḥijaz. The form 'Āid is common not only in literary sources, but is also the spelling of the documents. For the sake of simplicity I write consistently 'Āidh whatever the spelling of the particular authority.

64 Ed. Moberg, A., in Weil, G. (ed.), Festschrift Edward Sachau, Berlin, 1915, 411, cf. p. 417, n. 3Google Scholar, where the slightly misleading statement that the name denotes a ‘district’ ought to be emended.

65 Al-Ta'rīf bi'l-muṣtalaḥ al-sharīf, 76, 78 (mentioning the ‘'Ā'idh of the Ḥijāz’).

66 Subḥ al-a'shā, I, 133.

67 Al-Bayan wa'l-i'rāb ‘ammā, bi-arḍ Miṣr min al-A'rāb, ed. Wüstenfeld, F. (El-Macrizi's Abhandlung über die in Aegypten eingewanderten arabischen Stämme), 14, 43 (prescribes the spelling with dh). [See alsoGoogle Scholaral-Qalqashandī, , Qala'id al-jumān fi'l-ta'rif bi-qabā'il 'Arab al-zamān, ed. al-Ibyārī, I., Cairo, 1963, 64–5Google Scholar, who quotes al-Ḥamdānī, Ibn Khaldūn, and Ib n Faḍl Allāh's Masālik al-abṣār.]

68 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Sulūk, II, 816, 843, 867, 892Google Scholar; Ibn Iyas, index (p. 82).

69 Jomier, J., Le maḥmal, Cairo, 1953, 118–19Google Scholar.

70 von Oppenheim, M., Die Beduinen, II, 136, 138Google Scholar.

71 Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden des Sinai-Klosters. Note 3 appended to the translation of no. xii contains a valuable collection of references to the 'Ā'idh on which I have drawn in these pages. His translation of the passage quoted here seems to me, however, to give no sense. I assume that a previous decree prohibited the export of corn to Syria; the Bedouins used this as a pretext to rob the caravan. (The document has, I think, ajlāb ‘loads’, not ajlāf.)

72 In his Beiträge of 1918 (p. 37) Moritz refers in connexion with the expression ‘al-'Ā'idh in al-Raqqa’ to al-Maqrīzī, and thus seems to abandon tacitly his suggestion in Der Sinaikull of 1916 (p. 11) to read al-Rāya = Raithou, al-Ṭūr.

73 Ernst in his note to no. xxxvii refers to studies on the Awlād 'Alī, which are, however, irrelevant, since they deal with entirely different tribes, though of th e same name. Moritz, , Beiträge, 57Google Scholar, states on the basis of a passage in a MS of the monastery (not quoted in detail) that the Ṣawāliḥa, a well-known small tribe of the peninsula in modern times (mentioned, incidentally, a few lines below) are descended from the Awlād 'Alī. If the Awlād 'Alī are indeed a clan of the 'Ā'idh, the problem of the descent of the ṣawāliḥa—for which see Oppen-heim, M. von, Die Beduinen, II, 156—would be solved. Incidentally, the Ṣadriyyūn mentioned in nos. x (in 1. 19 read: ya'tamiduna adhiyyatahum), xvi, and xvii, are inhabitants of, or Bedouins living near, Ṣadr, an Ayyūbid fortress the ruins of which are called Qal'at Gindī, for which seeGoogle ScholarBarthou, J., ‘Description d'une fortresse de Saladin decouverte au Sinai’, Syria, III, 1922, 44–57Google Scholar, and G. Wiet, ‘Les inscriptions de la Qal'ah Guindi’, ibid., 58–65, 145–52. This is confirmed by the unpublished decree, Atiya, no. 29, in which officials of Ṣadr are included among the addressees.

74 Shuqayr, Na”üm, Ta'rīkh Sina, 515–16Google Scholar.

75 Al-Khiṭaṭ al-jadīda, XIV, 3–5. 'Ammar's, A. M. book The people of Sharqiyya, Cairo, 1944, 29, 33, 34, 38, 43Google Scholar, quoted by Ernst in his note on the 'Ā'idh, adds nothing of substance.

76 See von Oppenheim, M., Die Beduinen, II, 82–3, 88, also 62, 219Google Scholar.

77 Above, p. 23, n. 65.

78 All the necessary information about the ‘message’ has been given in the commentary on the preceding document, pp. 15 ff.

79 The Ayyūbid method of signing with the dynastic motto has also been dealt with above, p. 19.

80 For the practice of the registration of decrees and the registration marks entered on them see my FāṬimid decrees, diplomatic commentary, section 10.

81 In 1. 27 is a curious spelling for At the end of 1. 51 the sentence is incomplete; the missing words are added at the end of the document, 1. 56.

82 The lacuna could be filled as mutarjama with the help of similar passages in FāṬimid decrees where the superscription of the petition is referred to in similar terms; see FāṬimid decrees, diplomatic commentary, section 2, concerning the petition.

83 The end of the preceding word, damaged by the loss of a piece from the paper, is definitely… ālī, so that we cannot supply Hajl; perhaps Hajl's father was also named: [Hajl b…. ]ālī, though this is not the case in the petition of 609.

84 Al-muqṭa' ‘holder of a fief (iqṭa')'. ‘The holders of fiefs on the coast and Faran’, or ‘of the coast’ alone, appear among the addressees of decrees no. i (in Ernst's edition), 1. 53; no. ii, 11. 59–60; no. v, 1. 40; no. x, 1. 10 (vocalized wmuqṭ'y) and 11. 41–2; no. xvi, 11. 19 and 27; no. xix, 11. 10–11; no. xxi, 11. 73–4 (vocalized wmqt'ī; the word bihi between al-saḥil and Fārān can hardly be correct—it is probably an error and has to be deleted from the text); no. xxii, 1. 76: wa-sāḥili'l-Ṭūr wa-muqta'īhi (vocalized: wmuqt'īh) wa-Fārān (this must mean: ‘[the officials] of the coast of al-Ṭūr, and its fief-holders, and the fief-holders of Fārān'); and no. xxiv, 1. 121 (the formula as in the preceding document). Ernst consistently reads maqṭa'ay al-sāḥil and translates ‘the two sections of al-SāṬil and Fārān’.

85 The syntax of the complicated sentence is somewhat uncertain. I assume that mā in 1. 20 refers to bi-tawqī etc. in 11. 5 ff.

86 The Office of Supervision (dīwān al-naẓar) was the chief organ of Ayyūbid administration; for some of the problems in connexion with it, see Cahen's note in his edition of al-Nābulusī's Luma' (as above, p. 9, n. 24), p. 30, note. For the formula ‘Let cognizance be taken …’ in 1. 35, see Fāṭimid decrees, diplomatic commentary, section 7.

87 This Iqbāl may be identical with the amīr Mujāhid al-Dīn Iqbāl, who quarrelled with al-Kāmil and about 618/1221–2 escaped from Egypt in order to seek refuge in Syria; see Gottschalk, , Al-Malik al-Kāmil, 118Google Scholar.

88 The scribe has forgotten the end of the sentence, which was supplied at the end of the document (11. 56–7): ‘such matters are registered, if God wills. Written on this twelfth day of the month of Ramaḍān the honoured, in the year six hundred and nine’. This addition was obviously made a few days after the writing of the body of the document, on account of which the date was repeated in a revised form (12 Ramaḍān instead of ‘the first ten days of Ramaḍān’). For the corroboratio cf. above, p. 19, n. 49.

89 This formula is already used in Fāṭimid decrees. Ibn Shith (23) also quotes this formula of instruction: ‘if he adds that it be registered in the dīwān, where such matters are registered’ (bi-an yuthbata fi'l-dīwāni bi-ḥaythu yuthbatu mithluh). The formula recurs in the Mamlūk period, cf. for instance Sinai document no. i, ed. Ernst, 11. 55–6 (where the editor has completely misunderstood its sense). [Cf. Fāṭimid decrees, diplomatic commentary, beginning of section 10, and ‘Two Ayyūbid decrees’ (as above, p. 5, n. 11), near the end.]

90 For the dīwān al-naẓar see above, p. 29, n. 86.

91 Nazzala is synonymous with athbata; cf. Fāṭimid decrees, diplomatic commentary, section 10, and the article on Mamlūk petitions referred to above, p. 1, n. 2.

92 The name of the ruler was often added to the names of dīwāns as an adjective—we shall presently encounter the Office of Fiefs of al-'Ādil (dīwān al-iqṭapos;āt al-'ādīlī).

93 The inspection departments of various offices are often mentioned in the registration marks of the documents published in Fāṭimid decrees.

94 For similar mottoes used by clerks cf. Fāṭimid decrees, ch. 10, diplomatic commentary, section 10.

95 Entries [2] and [3] refer to similar offices, [2] to that of al-'Ādil, who was the suzerain of the Ayyūbid empire, [3] to that of al-Kāmil, his lieutenant in Egypt. It is not clear how the competence of these offices was divided.