This chapter examines the social and legal position of Jews in the medieval Muslim world as determined by readings of the Qur'an and Hadith.

The Sultanate was a global state that interacted with regimes in North, West and East Africa, Mediterranean Europe, Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula and Southwest Asia. Its ideology of diplomacy focused on maintenance of the balance of power extant during the formative stage of its founding: control over the Syrian Littoral and Red Sea nautical routes to South and East Asia. Senior officers appointed from Cairo ruled Syrian provincial capitals as viceroys, tying them directly to the imperial center. On the Red Sea coast of Arabia (Hijaz), the Hasanid Sharifs of Mecca exercised local political authority, but from Baybars’ reign were compelled to comply with the Sultanate’s commercial and fiduciary policies over the spice trade. Tensions in Southeastern Asia Minor heightened when objectives of territorial stasis advocated by the Mamluks clashed with aims of territorial conquest asserted by the Ottomans. Regional principalities pursued their own goals of autonomy with varying degrees of success. The international system of commerce, centered on Venetian and Mamluk exploitation of trade routes to Asia through the Red Sea, was decisively altered by the Portuguese entry to the Indian Ocean. When the Ottomans defeated the Cairo Sultanate, its centrality in the global environment was already diminished.

This chapter examines the historiographical depiction of Mukhtar b. Abi ‘Ubayd in the period between 61/681 and 67/687. It identifies four primary interpretive frameworks that pervade historical depictions of Mukhtar. The first framework highlights tensions between Arab tribal elites and non-Arabs (both clients and slaves) with Mukhtar representing the demands of non-Arab populations systematically denied status and financial benefits. The second centers on the religious dimensions of Mukhtar’s rebellion often equating his supporters with the Shi‘a. Some historians openly dispute the sincerity of Mukhtar’s religious claims, particularly his calls for avenging the family of the Prophet. The third interpretive framework places Mukhtar’s revolt within a broader regional struggle between the Umayyads in Syria and the Zubayrids in the ?ijaz. The fourth and final interpretive framework integrates Mukhtar into larger propagandist narratives that center on other historical figures or movements. The chapters finds no discernible differences between historical sources based on their genre (chronography vs. prosopography vs. biography).