Mustafa Banister presents a thorough investigation of a forgotten dynasty: the Cairene descendants of the Abbasid family. He uncovers the public and private lives of the 18 men invested as caliphs during the period of 'Mamluk' rule in Egypt and Syria (1250-1517) and reveals a nuanced understanding of the Abbasid Caliphate according to elite members of Syro-Egyptian society. In doing so, he addresses the function of the caliph and his office amidst the breakdown and recreation of each new socio-political order of the sultanate.

The Caliphate has persevered as an important institution in Middle Eastern society through to the present day. During the span of Mamluk rule in Egypt and Syria (1261-1517), the sultans invested 17 men as Abbasid caliphs. This book uncovers their public and private lives and examines how they were viewed by various sectors of society.

Mamluk Cairo, a Crossroads for Embassies offers an up-to-date insight into the diplomacy and diplomatics of the Mamluk sultanate with Muslim and non-Muslim powers. This rich volume covers the whole chronological span of the sultanate as well as the various areas of the diplomatic relations established by (or with) the Mamluk sultanate. Twenty-six essays are divided in geographical sections that broadly respect the political division of the world as the Mamluk chancery perceived it. In addition, two introductory essays provide the present stage of research in the fields of, respectively, diplomatics and diplomacy. With contributions by Frédéric Bauden, Lotfi Ben Miled, Michele Bernardini, Bárbara Boloix Gallardo, Anne F. Broadbridge, Mounira Chapoutot-Remadi, Stephan Conermann, Nicholas Coureas, Malika Dekkiche, Rémi Dewière, Kristof D’hulster, Marie Favereau, Gladys Frantz-Murphy, Yehoshua Frenkel, Hend Gilli-Elewy, Ludvik Kalus, Anna Kollatz, Julien Loiseau, Maria Filomena Lopes de Barros, John L. Meloy, Pierre Moukarzel, Lucian Reinfandt, Alessandro Rizzo, Éric Vallet, Valentina Vezzoli and Patrick Wing.

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)

A Turning Point in Mamluk History deals with the process of decline of the Mamluk state (1250-1517). Its main thesis is that the origins of this process are to be found in the third reign of al-Nāsir Muḥammad Ibn Qalāwūn, more specifically in the changes he effected in the Mamluk system. The Mamluk army was the first to be confronted with these changes, whose impact on the social and political life of the Mamluk elite was already felt during al-Nāsir's own lifetime. The author follows their course of development to the end of autonomous Mamluk rule and reveals the transformation they wrought in the Mamluk code of values and political concepts. A final chapter deals with the overall economic decline of the Mamluk state and establishes the link of its various causes—demographic decline, monetary crises, the collapse of agriculture and industry—with Mamluk government misrule. Here it is al-Nāsir's expenditure policy and its repercussions on the economy which reveal his reign as a point of no return.

What is a caliphate? Who can be caliph? And how are contemporary ideologues such as ISIS reviving - and abusing - the term today? In the first modern account of a subject of critical importance today, acclaimed historian Hugh Kennedy answers these questions by chronicling the rich history of the caliphate, from the death of Muhammad to the present. At its height, the caliphate stretched from Spain to China and was the most powerful political entity in western Eurasia. In an era when Paris and London boasted a few thousand inhabitants, Baghdad and Cairo were sophisticated centres of trade and culture, and the Ummayad and Abbasid caliphates were distinguished by extraordinary advances in science, medicine and architecture. By ending with the recent re-emergence of caliphal ideology within fundamentalist Islam, The Caliphate underscores why it is crucial that we understand this form of Islamic government before groups such as ISIS distort its practice completely.

A study of Islamic law and political power in the Ottoman Empires richest provincial cityWhat did Islamic law mean in the early modern period, a world of great Muslim empires? Often portrayed as the quintessential jurists law, to a large extent it was developed by scholars outside the purview of the state. However, for the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, justice was the ultimate duty of the monarch, and Islamic law was a tool of legitimation and governance. James E. Baldwin examines how the interplay of these two conceptions of Islamic law religious scholarship and royal justice undergirded legal practice in Cairo, the largest and richest city in the Ottoman provinces. Through detailed studies of the various formal and informal dispute resolution institutions and practices that formed the fabric of law in Ottoman Cairo, his book contributes to key questions concerning the relationship between the shariaa and political power, the plurality of Islamic legal practice, and the nature of centre-periphery relations in the Ottoman Empire.Key featuresOffers a new interpretation of the relationship between Islamic law and political powerPresents law as the key nexus connecting Egypt with the imperial capital Istanbul during the period of Ottoman decentralizationStudies judicial institutions such as the governors Diwan and the imperial council that have received little attention in previous scholarshipIntegrates the study of legal records with an analysis of how legal practice was represented in contemporary chroniclesProvides transcriptions and translations of a range of Ottoman legal documents