Abstract
One of the less studied works of the secretary of the Mamluk chancery al-Qalqashandī is the Maʾāthir, a book on the practice of secretaries in this chancery. The Maʾāthir provide ample insight into the ways the Caliphate and the Caliph are framed in the bureaucratic practice of the Mamluk empire. The specific approach to the framing of the Caliphate allows for a better understanding of the role of charismatic institutions in Islamic contexts; the role of charismatic objects is reconsidered. Thus, we will be able to rethink Weber’s notion of charismatic rule.
1 Introduction
We are often told in conventional studies since the second half of the twentieth century that “God’s Caliph” (Crone/Hinds 2003)1 is the formative idea of the Islamic polity and the framework to understand Islamic ideas of rulership. However, a close scrutiny of Islamic sources from premodern times the reveals a much more complex understanding of the legitimation of Muslim rulers.2
A new reading of Max Weber’s theory of charismatic rule allows for an approach not tinged by theological premises and a Eurocentric bias evident in current Weberian research. Being aware that his ideal types emerged in European contexts although Weber tried to incorporate findings from non-European ones in his theory marginalized by conventional Weberian research. Our case study will help rethink the mainstream Weberian ideas. Weber’s ideas are tinged by the of the emerging discipline of Islamic Studies claiming to discover the unchangeable nature of Islam and its core concepts, in our case the Caliphate as the supreme institution of the Islamic realm.
Weber based his ideas about Islam primarily on “the work of German Islamicists of the time, such as Carl Heinrich Becker, Julius Wellhausen, Ignaz Goldziher, and Joseph Kohler […] They were supplemented by the works of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje and probably one or another English or French author.”3 These ideas based on somewhat outdated secondary literature need to be reconsidered with consideration of the present state of the art. Weber’s theory of charisma will help to overcome the limitations of early Islamic Studies, esp., the concept of charisma will aid in leaving the theological concepts prevalent among Islamicists up to the present time.
Referring to Weber, we have to be aware that his “studies are subject to a heuristic Eurocentrism and they are not comprehensive cultural analyses.”4 Discussing sources that are not in the focus of Islamic Studies of the time of Weber will reconfigure the perspectives of research on Islam.5 This may cause a slightly different assessment of Weber’s accomplishment for the analysis of Islam when we turn to Weber’s concept of rulership.6 We will have to look at this aspect, esp., when analyzing the role of charismatic rulership.
What is meant by charisma in the context of this study? Charisma here refers to a power of praeternatural origin that is given to – in the Islamic case – the Prophet Muḥammad and transmitted to the persons chosen by the elites. Questions of leadership and authority have been of central concern to the elites. Although there is in Mamluk times a reconceptualization of the Caliphate as not the dominant force anymore charismatic rule still exists and may be termed – following Dabashi – called “perpetual charisma”7 that is needed to acquire a legitimate claim to be a ruler – supported by the elites.
These elites comprise – in the Mamluk realm – the ruling class of the Mamluks, the clerks of the bureaucracy linked to the Islamic scholars (esp. of Islamic law),8 religious virtuosi, Sufis, all these classes combining their authority emerging from their function with thaumaturgical capital imbuing them with additional resources of charism they are the building blocks of the Mamluk realm. How does this Mamluk charisma fit into the Weberian framework?
2 Max Weber, Rulership, and Charisma
To begin our analysis, we will look into the the types of the legitimacy of rulership by Max Weber.9 What is meant by rulership, rule, etc.? Rulership, Weber says, “is the chance that specific (or all) commands will be met with obedience on the part of a specifiable group or person.”10 Not every kind of power or influence being exercised is regarded as rulership. Individual instances of rulership (“authority”) can rely on various motives for the conformity with the will of the rulers. “Present in every genuine relationship of rule is a specific minimum of willingness to obey, hence an (outward or inner) interest in obedience.”11
The most important type for our analysis is the charismatic rule to be distinguished from traditional and legal rule. It is legitimized by the “special powers of the rulers”12 creating ‘followers’ of the rulers who will act according to the will of the rulers. The faithful may emerge as a different group relying on a different definition of the belief or variety of Islam enabling them create a new form of Islam with a different type of charisma. This inherently unstable rule changes in the process of routinization of charisma. In “Weber’s terms, charisma over time becomes an ‘everyday’ matter, and hence devoid of charisma, which sets up an inherent tension.”13
In the Islamic case the ‘special powers’ are derived from the prophet Muhammad and genealogies derived from his lineage. The ‘special powers’ are presented as a light (nūr) from God:
In the tradition we gave in the story of Adam when God extracted from his loins his progeny, He singled out the prophets by a light between their eyes. It is apparent – but God knows best – that it (i.e. the light) was commensurate with their levels and ranks in God’s view. If that be the case, then the light of Muhammad (saas) was greater, stronger, and more evident than that of all the rest. And this is a great and obvious distinction and indication of his nobility and high worth.14
The idea of the light of Muhammad (nūr muhammadī) became the sign of the charisma claimed by Sufi saints and other ‘enlightened’ persons endowed with thaumaturgical capital.15 The Caliph is the paradigmatic impersonation of this charisma. The routinization of the Caliphal charisma as demonstrated by the examples from al-Qalqashandī and the emergence of highly differentiated empires changed the configuration of types of rulership to influence of other types of charisma on the legitimation of rulership in post-Timurid empires.16
Although we may not find modern statutory law in pre-modern Islamic societies, Islamic law (fiqh) gives to the ʿulamāʾ, the scholars of Islamic law, the right to exercise and formulate the rule, thus, creating another type of legal rule than the one Weber assumed. The ʿulamāʾ and bureaucrats (like al-Qalqashandī) are allowed to give directions to rulers and the officials appointed by them. As Weber says: “every body of law is, in essence, a cosmos of abstract rules that normally have been established intentionally; that the administration of the law is the application of these cases to individual cases.”17 The administration of these rules “is the rational maintenance of interests anticipated by organizational orders within the bounds of legal rules.”18
Fiqh and the persons authorized to speak on behalf of fiqh, the scholars of Islamic law (fuqahāʾ) are the social, legal, and political body securing the ‘general specifiable principles’. The ‘cosmos of abstract rules’, i.e., fiqh also is a means to secure the routinization of the original charisma of Islam.
Another type of rule is merged with the other types of legitimization of rulership. It is the traditional rule, a type of rule with a legitimacy
based on and believed in, by virtue of the sanctity of long-established orders […] The ruler (or rulers) are determined by traditionally established regulation. They are obeyed by the virtue of the dignity attributed to them by tradition. […] Obedience is not to statutes, but to the person appointed by tradition.19
Later on, Weber constructs a concept of sultanism as a specific form of patrimonialism claiming that “the spheres of despotism and of grace are developed to extremes”20 without any form of rationalization. Thus, Weber sticks to his concept of the irrationality of Islamic rulership as the extreme form of despotism.21 This idea does not take care of the oscillation of the legitimacy of rule between charismatic types o, rationalization of charisma in the new Islamic empires in post-Timurid times and the resurgence of charisma in these times carrying along aspects of the traditional and rational types.
The tripartite distinction of the types of rule is difficult to apply in the Islamic case(s) and would probably need another intermediate ideal type – taking into account the current understanding of Islam.
The assumption of Oriental despotism promoted by Weber can be contrasted with the emergence of a social class of governmental functionaries that may well be typified by the figure of the (state) secretary, the kātib, who is well-versed in the discipline of adab often read as a secular force contrary to religious knowledge, but more easily understood as the product of cultural exchange created besides the leading personae like the Grand Vizier and other supreme functionaries – leaving aside the Caliph. We may rather call it, as Mayeur-Jaouen put it, “a multitude of encounters and exchanges coupled with a conscious, voluntary effort to create a pluralistic unity.”22
But: What is meant by adab? Again Mayeur-Jaouen gives a concise definition that adab is a polysemic notion influenced by Arabic, Persian, Greek, and Indian ideas and practices.
The notion of adab is at the very heart of Arab-Islamic culture. Born in the crucible of the Arabic and Persian civilization, nourished by Greek and Indian influences, this polysemic notion could cover a variegated range of meanings of good behavior, knowledge of manners, etiquette, rules and belles-lettres, and finally, literature.23
This kind of knowledge is part and parcel of the encyclopedias written by authors like al-Qalqashandī. Mamluk times are regarded as the heyday of pre-Timurid Muslim encyclopedism.24 Thus, a Mamluk author of encyclopedia like him will allow for valuable insights into the view of the Mamluk elite on the Caliphate and the related aspect of the Caliphal charisma.
3 al-Qalqashandī
Shihāb al-dīn a. l’-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Fazārī al-Qalqashandī (d. 1418 ce) was a legal scholar, and a secretary (kātib) in the dīwān al-inshāʾ of the Mamluk Empire in Cairo. Hence, he may be seen as a true representative of the Mamluk civilian elite of this empire. His position towards the role of the Caliph can be regarded as an expression of the dominant position in the learned elite, esp., the scribes (kuttāb).
But even at a time in Arabic literary history when chancery interests assured prose a lofty status, there emerged a tendency, after the appearance of the Maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī (445–516/1054–1122 ce), to assess, compare and grade clerks and scribes according to their specific vocation in state treasury departments or in the Dīwān al-inshāʾ, all this in spite of the frequent transfer of scribes between the two categories of post. An illustrious figure such as Khalīl ibn Aybak Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ṣafadī (696–764/1297–1363) began his career as kātib darj (clerk of the roll) before being transferred to kātib dast (clerk of the bench). Others like al-Ḥarīrī himself and Muḥammad ibn Mukarram (ibn Manẓūr) (d. 711/1311), the compiler of the famous dictionary, Lisān al-ʾArab […], served as clerks in treasury departments. No less demarcated was the distinction between ʿulamāʾ (religious scholars) on the one hand and professional functionaries on the other. Chancery training and apprenticeship had become a rigorous exercise, with enormous demands on the trainee, especially if the latter had aspirations to the status of kuttāb al-dast (clerks of the bench) or ṣāḥib dīwān al-inshāʾ (head chancery clerk) after a period of initiation as clerk of the roll (darj) or of bayt al-māl (state treasury). Manuals, compendia, dictionaries and works of exegesis tell us a good deal about the vicissitudes of the belletristic tradition, […] One may suggest that the enormous output in this field was, within the framework of classical Arabism, a kind of defensive strategy against erosion, a quest for cultural survival in the context of the severe disruptions caused by […] subsequent Mongol incursions. The course of action was also the outcome of a process of decentralization and the emergence of peripheral states that had long since become a feature within the broad range of the Islamic dominions and that served as a natural magnet for migrating intellectuals.25
Still there is not only the belletristic tradition to be considered. The clerks, however, were also of influence of formulating the framework of rulership or the Caliphate.
The situation seemed to change after the Mongol invasion and the Mongols’ sack of Baghdad in 1258 ce. Stll there was continuity of the central focus on the chancery in the bureaucracies of the Mamluk empire26 Al-Qalqashandī is an excellent representative of the chancery of the Mamluks contemporary to the Mongol expansion.
4 Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā fī ṣināʿat al-inšāʾ27
Al-Qalqashandī is well-known for his huge encyclopaedia Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā fī ṣināʿat al-inšāʾ28 containing a wealth of information about penmanship, history, diplomatics, ethnographic information, etc, from Mamluk times.
The Ṣubḥ is organized in an introduction, ten chapters, and a final excursus on diverse issues. The introduction discusses general aspects of penmanship and the role of the secretary (kātib), the first chapter talks about theoretical and practical knowledge needed by a secretary, the second gives information about the geography and history of the lands of Islam, and the third describes the form of the documents used in the office. The fourth chapter explains the types of official correspondence (mukātabāt), the fifth deals with official appointments (wilāyāt), the sixth is on giving fiefs, the seventh is on oaths and related documents, the ninth covers peace treaties and other treaties, the tenth a variety of letters, and the final excursus discusses diverse issues like courier mail, pigeon post, etc.
5 al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāthir al-ināfa fī maʿālim al-ḫilāfa
Al-Qalqashandī’s work Maʾāthir al-ināfa fī maʿālim al-khilāfa is another – less studied29 – work on the knowledge needed by secretaries. The work is partly based on al-ʿUmarī’s Masālik al-amṣār,30 a geographical encyclopedia, an intertextual relation that indicates the intermingling of different textual genres, so that the assumption that certain genres can be attributed to certain positions, e.g. in the area of the discussion of rulership, does not seem tenable.
More interesting for our discussion – although al-Qalqashandī’s encyclopaedia Subh al-aʿshā also contains some examples of rulers in history – is the work Maʾāthir al-ināfa fī maʿālim al-khilāfa31 that provides insights in his theory of the Caliphate- This work can be described as a treatise on the role of the caliph,32 the personal qualities necessary for this office, the duties of the caliph, the documents issued by the chancery, and also a history of the caliphs which is undoubtedly the most extensive part of the work and also contains references to caliphal writings.33
The text is characterized by linguistic considerations, which identify it as a work of bureaucratic practice focusing on the pragmatic aspect of the argumentation needed to create texts. The text at hand is primarily concerned with the correct addressing of the caliph in the respective official letters, which is also served by extensive historical accounts.
What distinguishes the Maʾāthir from other works on the Caliphate is this sober presentation of the details of the caliph’s office and its definition. Al-Qalqashandī clarifies his pragmatic views saying that
the term khalīfa is applied to anyone who assumes authority (amr) over the believers (muʾminīn) – a clear reference to the title of the Caliph as (amīr al-muʾminīn), commander of the believers – in the general sense […], be it through the oath of loyalty (bayʿa) of the notables (ahl al-ḥall wa’l-ʿaqd) or be it through the appointment by his predecessor.34
The Caliphate is, thus, reduced to35 its formal aspects; there is no charisma needed to establish the function of the Caliph. It is formalized deduction of notions like amr (authority) supplemented by other elements like the oath of loyalty. A charismatic caliph is not needed. El-Merheb summarized this configuration as the ‘unnecessary Caliph.’
In al-Qalqashandī we36 find a simple tripartite division on the caliph of God (khalīfat allāh): 1) The designation as khalīfa because he is understood as khalīfat allāh, i.e. as God’s representative on earth. Here al-Qalqashandī explicitly follows on from al-Māwardī and his Ahkām as-sultānīya.37 2) the second designation uses khalīfa rasūl allāh, because the person in question is a successor to the Prophet Muḥammad. 3) that the quality of being khalīfa is based on the fact that there was a khalīfa before this khalīfa. “It is said: X is the khalīfa of Y, one after the other, until you reach Abū Bakr,”38 who was the first to be called khalīfa rasūl allāh, successor to the Messenger of God.39 Here, too, we find a rather pragmatic-rational approach to the concept of the Caliphate. However, the religious aspect is carried along in the reference to the first successor of the Prophet Muḥammad. The function of the caliph/ruler may necessitate to construct a genealogy going back to the Prophet Muḥammad to inherit the prophetic charisma either towards the person of the Prophet Muḥammad or the larger tribal association of the Quraysh the prophet belonged to – an often contested endeavor After this tri-partite approach to the Caliphate, al-Qalqashandī, the secretary, continues to describe what the nisba, the adjectival description of belonging to a place, a group or even a function, is to the term khalīfa, caliph: “One says ḫalafī as one forms ḥanafī as nisba to [Abū] Ḥanīfa. The expression of the common people dirham khalīfī, i.e. caliph dirham, is wrong.”40 Hence, the term khalīfa is treated in a disenchanted way like similar grammatical phenomena. The underlying concept of charisma of the caliph (khalīfa) thus becomes a technical term in everyday bureaucratic practice, which is to be used in the grammatically correct form.
It seems to be evident that the charisma is reduced to some numismatic evidence Mamluk coins bear the names of the sultans, the name of Abbasid Caliphs in the Mamluk realm appear by name only in the beginning of the Mamluk rule and during few other moments of Mamluk history. During other periods of Mamluk rule only the function of the Caliph is referred to by a title. For the rest of the Mamluk rule there are no references to the Caliph on coins.41 The sultans are dominating the coinage of the Mamluks not the Caliphs.
Of significance for our topic is the section on oaths of allegiance (bayʿāt), which states, among other things, that there are three ways of formulating this obeisance. The first is that X swears to the Commander of the Faithful with a certain amount of wording to be observed. The final wording of the paragraph is particularly interesting: “After this manner is the oath of homage (mubāyaʿa) composed in our time (zamān), which is made to the sultan (sulṭān).”42
The sultan is placed on an equal footing with the caliph in terms of legitimacy. The caliph is thus maintained as a function framed in references to metaphysical properties, but the sultan as an earthly ruler is formally and bureaucratically freed from his precedence, which only needs to be followed according to custom.
There is a second form of the oath of loyalty, which differs in its formulation. The formulation to be used is given with several references to the Islamic genealogy of the caliph, which is traced back to the Prophet.43 The third form of the oath of loyalty is less elaborate in its introduction but also contains numerous religious references.44 The fourth form also has a distinct introductory character. This form of the oath is introduced with “Praise be to God!”45 This was the usual format at the time of al-Qalqashandī.46
We see here the containment of the Caliphate under the control of the Mamluk sultan by the requirements of the Mamluk bureaucracy. In other words, we notice a casualization of the charisma, which opens up the space for the re-emergence of a messianic charisma as well (see below).
6 Mubāyaʿa
Notwithstanding the need for control of the Caliphate, the text of a mubāyaʿa lends itself easily to understand the framing of the Abbasid caliph in Mamluk times.
This is a copy of a pledge of allegiance I composed because of the death of the Caliph before him: Praise be to God who made the Muhammadan community the highest rank of pride, of the most noble origin, and of the best ancestry. He made the rank of the Caliph the highest rank and the most distinguished in its status. He singled out an excellent branch of the Quraysh. He created from it the Imams and the Caliphs. He chose the Abbasid family [among the Quraysh] for this purpose. […] He renewed the principles (rusūm) of the Imamate that has been obliterated and has been done away with. […] the decision makers (ahl al-ḥall waʾl-ʿaqd) and the people who decide (al-muʿtazimīn biʾl-iʿtibār wa’l-ʿārifīn bi-ʾl-naqd) among the judges (quḑāt) and scholars (ʿulamāʾ) gathered, the [Mamluk] Amirs (umarāʾ) and other officers, the notables (aʿyān) of the dynasty (dawla) and the Wezirs/Viziers, the pious people (ahl al-khayr) and the devout/virtuous (ṣulaḥāʾ), the people of knowledge (raʾy) and those who give advice (nuṣaḥāʾ) gave advice on this [pledge of allegiance] and agreed with it. […] And the people of choice (ikhtiyār) pledge allegiance.47
The list of the people who have to agree on the oath of allegiance is quite impressive marking the control of the position of the caliph by the elite of the Mamluk empire.
The reference in al-Qalqashandī to the occult sciences shows up in this passing remark: “the most important trait of it48 is justice (ʿadāla), together with piety (taqwā), observing God in the occult (sirr waʾn-najwā).”49
In a bayʿa for the Caliph in Cairo, we read50 about Abū al-Rabīʿ Sulaymān al-Mustakfī bi’llāh51 (1301–1340/41 ce):
Praise be to God who appointed the ruler (ḥākim) to rule among His subjects – and He is the wisest of the rulers! Praise be to God who took the right of the family (al-bayt) of His Prophet from the hands of the evildoers. Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds, then [279]: Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds, Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds: He – when he took his servant [Sulaymān] abī Rabīʿ al-imām al-Mustakfī bi’llāh, the Commander of the faithful – may God exalt his place of rest and give him in exchange for the land (dār) of Islam the abode of peace (dār al-salām) […] where the Lord honors him with being close to Him […] not in the Abbasid lineage, not among all the other persons, not in the house of al-Mustarshid152, not among other houses of Caliphs […] is the one (wāḥid). Where is this one? […] He is the Imām. He is, Praise be to God, the one in whom is concentrated the entitlement to the heritage (mīrāth) of his pure forefathers […] He is the son of him who was moved to his Lord […] it is agreed upon that he fulfils the preconditions of the Caliphate humbly towards God. He is a member of the house that will rule until the day of resurrection. […] He is the representative (nāʾib) of God on His earth […] He takes over the position of the messenger of God, God bless him and grant him salvation, and [is] his successor (khalīfa) and the son of his uncle153 […] He was moved to the thrones of Paradise (janna) from the throne of the Caliphate […] His is the claim for the successorship of the messenger of God, God bless him and grant him salvation, without contention […] The commander of the faithful (amīr al-muʾminīn) by what God, the Allmighty, let him gain from the heritage of prophethood what was granted to his grandfather […] God let [the rule] of the commander of the faithful last.54
Although this quotation is riddled with esoteric terminology and discusses the way the inheritance from the prophet Muḥammad it means that his charisma is forced to pass onto the persons the elites decided to be suitable as the next leader.
Having discussed the concept of charisma in al-Qalqashandī’s writings we may turn to the intricate relation of texts and material culture. Recent research demonstrated that there is a similar structure to be found in his encyclopedia Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā and the framing of Mamlūk carpets.55 This may lead us to reflect on material objects and charisma.56 There may be an overall sub-structure of charisma at work in pre-modern Islamic societies from the level of the Caliphate to talismans used by common people that allow for spaces where charisma pops up again and again and al-Qalqashandī was part of this sub-structure.57 The charisma of the Caliph is thus linked to the charisma of occultism since the occult legitimization of leadership creates an intersection of the charismatic aspect of the Caliphate and the objects imbued with charismatic power like talismans, the mantle of the prophet (burda) and others.
As Veddeler says:
For a number of years, there has been a discussion in archaeology and anthropology about agency, and whether objects have the capacity to act […] On the premise that objects can be perceived as actors within a common cultural space, some objects stand out as more powerful agents than others. How has such extraordinary power been understood and controlled? We will use the term ‘charismatic objects’ to distinguish objects that can arouse awe.58
The prime ‘extraordinary power’ perceived in charismatic objects in Islamic contexts is called baraka instead of awe. This kind of charisma was recently described by Knight59 during a visit to many shrines (dargāh) in Delhi:
The dargahs are sites for heavy concentrations of baraka, which conveys multiple ideas. The term clumsily appears in English translation as “blessings,” which fails to capture everything that happens at the shrines and doesn’t feel very Deleuzian: the pursuit of blessings suggests a celestial hierarchy distributing golden chips from above. If you’ve been blessed, we have to ask: Blessed by what? Who sent the blessings down upon you, and from where? Because God is supposed to be the real source of baraka, its heaven-to-earth flow inevitably signals a divine transcendence; baraka enters into this world as a flow from outside the world, necessarily a higher plane superior to the world. The flow of baraka maps an ontological hierarchy. But in Islamic studies, scholarship has problematized the rendering of baraka as mere “blessings” and called for a rethinking of baraka as something else, a force or energy that circulates between special places, materials, scripts, and actions on a shared plane, flowing in routes that won’t always trace back to the golden chip distributor. Baraka is not a feeling of “bliss” or “beatitude.” It’s a force. The Force.
When Muhammad spits into a fatigued camel’s mouth and gives it the energy to run, the prophetic saliva achieves a baraka transmission. The camel body in turn transmits baraka to other bodies when men slaughter it and distribute its baraka-infused meat among their community. The Prophet did not limit baraka as strictly a flow from his own body: the hadith corpus, the literary body reporting his words and actions, describes baraka as locatable in specific plants, animals, days, months, and words. Baraka exists in a circulation between bodies that alters their conditions and powers, and the flow takes place right here on our plane. With or without an origin that transcends the world and establishes vertical hierarchies between planes of being, baraka also exists as a materially accessible flow in the world, moving horizontally across this plane.60
This – I have to admit: lengthy – quotation provides an insight into contemporary and historical views of baraka as a locatable/non-locatable ‘extraordinary power’ flowing between objects and bodies.
Far beyond the Mamluk context thaumaturgical aspects of social life are discernable until early modernity and even today. Contrary to the Weberian – Eurocentric – assumption of an ongoing disenchantment of society we may assume the continuity of a charismatic universe subterraneously moving on – also in Europe.61
The ‘unnecessary’ Caliphate of Mamluk times seems to convey the message that the Caliphate became less important and its charisma was lost. But there are other societal sectors where charisma was vivid and revived.62
Hence, al-Qalqashandī marks an intermediate moment between the urban societies of the Mamluk empire and the emerging post-Timurid empires (Ottomans, Safavids, Mongols/Uzbeks, Moghul)63 and is related to the intellectual subculture marked by the influence of occultism.
Biography
Rüdiger Lohlker is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Vienna since 2003. He taught at the Universities of Göttingen, Kiel, and Giessen (Germany) at the Northwest University, Xi’an, pr China; He was head of a course for spiritual care in prisons and hospitals. His research fields are Jihadism, Salafism, Islam online, Indonesian Islam, Sufism, and Science Studies. His most important publications are:
Die Salafisten. Aufstand der Frommen, Saudi-Arabien und Gewalt (2017); Zwischen Wiener Wald und Moslemkutten (Alp-)Träumereien eines weißen älteren Mitteleuropäers (2021); Humanitarian Islam (ed. with Katharina Ivanyi) (2023); Agents of Violence (ed. with Katharina Ivanyi) (2024).
Acknowledgment
Thanks to Nikola Pantić for his insights and comments on the draft of the article.
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Heidemann, Stephan, Das Aleppiner Kalifat A. D. 1261: Vom Ende des Kalifates in Bagdad über Aleppo zu den Restaurationen in Kairo. Leiden et al.: Brill 1994.
Kathīr, Ibn, The Life of the Prophet Muhammad: Al-Sīra al-nabawiyya. Vol. 1. Reading: Garnet Publishing 5 2006.
al-Jammāl, Līnā, “Ṭayy bisāṭ al-ḥadīṯ: al-ḫātima fī mawsūʿat al-Qalqashandī al-adabʿīya wa’l-busṭu al-mamlūkīya,” in al-Abḥāṯ 71i–ii (2023), pp. 172–191.
Kafesoglu, Ibrahim, “Kalkasandiʾnin bilinmeyen bir esseri: Meâsirü ’l- Inâfe,” in Tarih Dergisi 8 (1956), pp. 99–104.
Knight, Michael Muhammad, Sufi Deleuze: Secretions of Islamic Atheism. New York: Fordham University Press 2023.
Levtzion, Nehemia, “Aspects of Islamization: Weber’s Observations on Islam Reconsidered,” in Max Weber & Islam, ed. by Toby E. Huff and Wolfgang Schluchter. London and New York: Routledge 1999, pp. 153–161.
Lohlker, Rüdiger, Geschichte des islamischen Denkens über Herrschaft. Vienna: facultas 2024 (i. pr.).
Lohlker, Rüdiger, “Al-ʿUmarīs Bericht über Indien: Eine Studie zur arabisch-islamischen Geographie des 14. Jahrhunderts,” in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (2006), pp. 339–367.
Lohlker, Rüdiger, Urkunden über Landvergabe aus der Fatimiden- und Bujidenzeit: Aus dem K. Subh al-aʿshā des al-Qalqašandī. Egelsbach et al.: Hänsel-Hohenhausen 1995.
Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine, “Introduction,” in Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine (ed.), Adab and Modernity: A ‘Civilising Process’? (Sixteenth-Twenty-First Century). Leiden and Boston: Brill 2020, pp. 1–45.
al-Musawi, Muhsin, “Pre-Modern Belletristic Prose,” in Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, ed. by Roger Allen and D. S. Richards, Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press 2006, pp. 101–133.
Pantić, Nikola, Sufism in Ottoman Damascus: Religion, Magic, and the Eighteenth Century of the Holy. London and New York: Routledge 2024.
al-Qalqashandī, Shihābaddīn a. l’-ʿAbbās Aḥmad, Maʾāṯir al-ināfa fī maʿālim al-ḫilāfa. Vol.1 and Vol. 2, ed. by ʿAbdassattār Aḥmad Farrāǧ. Beirut: ʿĀlam al-kutub, 2006.
al-Qalqashandī, Shihāb al-dīn Ahmad b. ʿAlī, Kitāb Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā. Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-amirīya, 1911.
Saif, Liana et al. (eds.), Islamic Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice. Leiden and Boston: Brill 2020.
Savage-Smith, Emily, Magic and Divination in Early Islam. Aldershot and Burlington, VT, Ashgate Variorum 2004.
Schluchter, Wolfgang, “Hindrances to Modernity: Max Weber on Islam,” in Max Weber & Islam, ed. by Toby E. Huff and Wolfgang Schluchter. London and New York: Routledge 1999, pp. 53–138.
Schultz, Warren C., “Mamluk Coins, Mamluk Politics and the Limits of the Numismatic Evidence,” in Developing Perspectives: in Mamluk History Essays in Honor of Amalia Levano, ed. By Yuval Ben-Bassat, Leiden and Boston: Brill 2017, pp. 245–268.
Van Berkel, Maaike, “Opening up a world of knowledge: Mamluk encyclopaedias and their readers,” in Jason König and Greg Woolf (eds.), Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press 2013, pp. 357–375.
Veddeler, Marianne, “The Charismastic Power of Objects,” in Zanette Glørstad et al. (eds.), Charismatic Objects: From Roman Times to the Middle Ages. Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2018, pp. 9–29.
Weber, Max, Economy and Society: A New Translation, ed. and transl. by Keith Tribe. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press 2019.
We are not discussing the book of Crone/Hinds. It is used as an example of a reductionist reading of the role of the idea of the caliphate in Islamic history.
Cf. Rüdiger Rüdiger Lohlker, Geschichte des islamischen Denkens über Herrschaft. Vienna: facultas, 2024 for a detailed analysis.
Wolfgang Schluchter, “Hindrances to Modernity: Max Weber on Islam,” in Max Weber & Islam, ed. by Toby E. Huff and Wolfgang Schluchter. London and New York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 53–138: 59.
Schluchter, Hindrances, p. 64.
For a comprehensive discussion of charisma in Muslim societies cf. Jonathan E. Brockopp, “Constructing Muslim Charisma,” in Routledge International Handbook of Charisma, ed. by José Pedro Zúquete. London and New York: Routledge, 2021, pp. 163–174.
Eisenstadt is quite negative in his assessment: “Weber was probably wrong in many […] details of the description of Islam.” (S. N. Eisenstadt, “Weber’s Analysis of Islam and the Specific Pattern of Islamic Civilization,” in Max Weber & Islam, ed. by Toby E. Huff and Wolfgang Schluchter. London and New York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 291–294: 291. Cf. Nehemia Levtzion, “Aspects of Islamization: Weber’s Observations on Islam Reconsidered,” in Max Weber & Islam, ed. by Toby E. Huff and Wolfgang Schluchter. London and New York: Routledge, 1999, pp 153–161.
Hamid Dabashi, Authority in Islam: From the Rise of Muhammad to the Establishment of the Umayyads. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1989, p. 120.
For the specific claim to charismatic authority of this group Jonathan E. Brockopp, “Theorizing Charismatic Authority in Early Islamid Law,” in Comparative Islamic Studies 1ii (2005), pp. 129–158.
Cf. the chapter on the typology of rulership in Max Weber, Economy and Society: A New Translation, ed. and transl. by Keith Tribe, Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 2019, pp. 338–449.
Weber, Economy, p. 338.
Weber, Economy, p. 338.
Weber, Economy, p. 336.
Weber, Economy, pp. 337.
Ibn Kathīr, The Life of the Prophet Muhammad: Al-Sīra al-nabawiyya. Vol. 1. Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2006⁵, p. 229.
Cf. Claude Addas, La maison muhammadienne: Aperçus de la dévotion au Prophète en mystique musulmane. Paris: Gallimard, 2015.
Cf. Lohlker, Geschichte for this development.
Weber, Economy, p. 343.
Weber, Economy, p. 343.
Weber, Economy, p. 354.
Weber, Economy, p. 361.
A parallel idea is Weber’s concept of ‘kadijustiz’ as an approach to the application of fiqh by judges with no regard to the practical rationality of the actions of judges and scholars of Islamic law. Weber is in line with most of the discipline of Islamic Studies of his time.
Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, “Introduction,” in eadem (ed.), Adab and Modernity: A ‘Civilising Process’? (Sixteenth-Twenty-First Century). Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020, pp. 1–45: 6.
Mayeur-Jaouen, Adab and Modernity, p. ix.
Maaike Van Berkel. “Opening up a world of knowledge: Mamluk encyclopaedias and their readers,” in Jason König and Greg Woolf (eds.), Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 357–375.
Muhsin al-Musawi, “Pre-Modern Belletristic Prose,” in Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, ed. by Roger Allen and D. S. Richards, Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 101–133: 101–102.
Muhsin al-Musawi, Pre-Modern. p. 102.
We are referring to the edition al-Qalqashandī 1911.
We are referring to the edition al-Qalqashandī 1911.
Cf. for one of the few more detailed studies Khansa’a Hasan Mohammed Al-A’arajee, “The Historical Novel of Al-Qalqashandi through his book (Maʾather Al-Inafa in Maʾalem Al-khilafa) (756–821 ah/1355–1418 ad),” in Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies 14 (58i), (2023), pp. 287–318.
Cf. Rüdiger Lohlker, “Al-ʿUmarīs Bericht über Indien: Eine Studie zur arabisch-islamischen Geographie des 14. Jahrhunderts,” in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (2006), pp. 339–367.
Shihābaddīn a. l’-ʿAbbās Aḥmad al-Qalqashandī, Maʾāthir al-ināfa fī maʿālim al-ḫilāfa. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, ed. by ʿAbdassattār Aḥmad Farrāǧ. Beirut: ʿĀlam al-kutub, 2006. Cf. Ibrahim Kafesoglu, “Kalkasandiʾnin bilinmeyen bir esseri: Meâsirü ’l- Inâfe,” in Tarih Dergisi 8 (1956), pp. 99–104.
Al-Qalqašandī mentioned shortly three positions on the term lediglich ein kurzer Verweis auf drei Positionen zur Bezeichnung ḫalīfat allāh. He doesn’t elaborate on it in detail. The lengthy discussions in thr secondary literature on these issues are not relevant anymore in Mamluk times. I am following Mohamed El-Merheb, Political Thought in the Mamluk Period: The Unnecessary Caliph. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022, pp. 20–21 in this respect.
One of the few remarks on this work in secondary literature is to be found in El-Merheb, Political Thought, p. 20 referring to al-Qalqashandī’s short discussion on the concept of God’s Caliph (cf. above).
al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāthir Vol. 1, p. 13.
Cf. El-Merheb: Political Thought.
I am following El-Merheb: Political Thought, p. 20.
Without assuming a continuity of these works to his time, al-Qalqashandī also quotes other works, al-Māwardī was an important point of reference for a legal scholar – al-Māwardī is quoted when al-Qalqashandī discusses formal aspects of public offices.
al-Qalqašandī. Maʾāthir Vol. 1, p. 21.
For this tripartite division cf. al-Qalqashandī, Maʾāthir Bd. 1, pp. 20 et seq.
al-Qalqashandī, Maʾāthir Bd. 1, p. 21.
Warren C. Schultz, “Mamluk Coins, Mamluk Politics and the Limits of the Numismatic Evidence,” in Developing Perspectives: in Mamluk History Essays in Honor of Amalia Levano, ed. y Yuval Ben-Bassat, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017, pp. 245–268: 253–254
al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāṯir vol. 2, p. 266.
al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāṯir vol. 2, pp. 266–274.
al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāṯir vol. 2, pp. 274–294.
For this form cf. al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāṯir vol. 2, pp. 295–315 with some examples composed by al-Qalqašandī himself.
al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāṯir vol. 2, p. 295.
al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāṯir vol. 2, p. 296.
the Caliphate.
al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāṯir vol. 2, p. 307. In the case of al-Qalqashandī and his references to occult literature this translation may be justified.
al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāṯir vol. 2, p. 278.
Cf. Stephan Heidemann, Das Aleppiner Kalifat A.D. 1261: Vom Ende des Kalifates in Bagdad über Aleppo zu den Restaurationen in Kairo. Leiden et al.: Brill, 1994.
Al-Mustarshid biʾllāh (r. 1092–1135 ce), Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad.
ʿAbbās, the eponym of the Abbasid dynasty, was the uncle of the prophet Muhammad.
al-Qalqashandī: Maʾāṯir vol. 2, pp. 279–290.
Līnā al-Jammāl, “Ṭayy bisāṭ al-ḥadīṯ: al-ḫātima fī mawsūʿat al-Qalqashandī al-adabʿīya wa’l-busṭu al-mamlūkīya,” in al-Abḥāṯ 71i–ii (2023), pp. 172–191. However, this is not to be discussed here.
Cf. for the Islamic case the role of talismans and other objects that play a role in the occult sciences Liana Saif et al. (eds.), Islamic Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020 and Emily Savage-Smith, Magic and Divination in Early Islam. Aldershot and Burlington, VT, Ashgate Variorum, 2004 (with many interesting examples from this still underresearched field).
Gardiner links al-Qalqashandī to a number of occult texts through a sub-chapter in his Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā (Noah Gardiner, “The Occultist Encyclopaedism of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī,” in Mamluk Studies Review 20 (2017), pp. 3–38: 11–12). For the wider context in Mamluk times cf. Noah Gardiner, Esotericism in a manuscript culture: Aḥmad al-Būnī and his readers through the Mamlūk period. Diss phil. Univ. of Michigan, 2014.
Marianne Veddeler, “The Charismatic Power of Objects,” in Zanette Glørstad et al. (eds.), Charismatic Objects: From Roman Times to the Midlle Ages, Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2018, pp. 9–29: 9.
From a Deleuzian perspective.
Michael Muhammad Knight, Sufi Deleuze: Secretions of Islamic Atheism. New York: Fordham University Press, 2023. p. 3.
For Ottoman Damascus of the 18th century ce cf. Nikola Pantić, Sufism in Ottoman Damascus: Religion, Magic, and the Eighteenth Century of the Holy. London and New York: Routledge. 2024.
Al-Sayyid al-Sharīf Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdullāh al-Husaynī, known as al-Akhlātī (1320/21–1397 ce) was an obscure person among Mamluk, Ottoman, and Timurid intellectuals and well known as a master of the occult sciences and regarded as a kind of messianic figure (İlker Evrim Binbaş, Intellectual Networks in Timurid Iran: Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī and the Islamicate Republic of Letters. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 114–140, who called him “the prophet of Cairo”).
Cf. Lohlker, Geschichte.