Abstract
A few artefacts can be connected to mediaeval Syria, and more specifically Damascus, through their inscriptions because they mention the city as a place of manufacture or name an individual who lived there. This is notably the case for two hitherto neglected inscribed objects in the Musée du Louvre, dating to the Mamluk sultanate, which are studied in this article: an enamelled glass lamp and a metal drum. New identifications of their recipients, documented through historical sources, bring light to their particular stories and provide new references for studying the material and social culture during this period.
1 Introduction
Attributing specific artistic production to a precise centre is still an ongoing issue in the scholarship of the mediaeval Near East. In particular, the distinction between Egyptian and Syrian production for certain groups of glass, metalwork, and stonepaste ceramics during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods is still a field of debate, with the twin capitals of Cairo and Damascus both described as production centres in different sources. Although Cairo gained increasing commercial, intellectual, and political importance during this period and became the centre of the Mamluk Sultanate, Damascus visibly remained an important place of manufacture for high-quality products such as ceramics, enamelled glass objects, and inlaid metalware, as evidenced by several textual sources (Mols, 2006: pp. 150–8; Irwin, 1998; Milwright, 1999: pp. 506–7) and also by a few inscriptions on objects clearly indicating Damascene production.1
Moreover, other artefacts can also be securely connected to mediaeval Syria through their inscriptions, though less directly, because they refer to an individual who lived in Damascus or elsewhere in Syria.2 This is notably the case for two neglected objects preserved in the Musée du Louvre datable to the Mamluk Sultanate: one at the end of the seventh/thirteenth century, and the other to the early-tenth/sixteenth century, a glass lamp with delicate enamelled and gold decoration, and an intriguing metal drum, respectively. Both of these bear an inscription referring to an individual, hitherto unidentified but who obviously was not a member of the ruling military elite. Nevertheless, it is possible to shed more light on these individuals and their stories. It sometimes happens amidst repetitive mentions of military titles, long-lived popular poetic verses, or vows that suddenly an inscription, if properly studied, will reveal details on the precise historical and social context when the object was produced and used. These details allow us to reconstruct, at least in part, what Igor Kopytoff has called “the cultural biography of things” (Kopytoff, 1986). The two objects studied here provide fascinating information about mediaeval Syrian society and new documents and references for studying material and social culture in this late mediaeval period.3
2 Father and Son: The Merchant and the Preacher
The first object considered here is an enamelled and gilded glass lamp of fine quality (Fig. 1) (see Migeon, 1927: p. 140, fig. 302; Lamm, 1929–30: p. 428, pl. 190:1; Wiet, 1929: p. 181, no. D).4 It is the type usually called a mosque lamp, with a large rounded and ringed foot, a carenated body with three applied loops, and a large flared neck. Its decoration is mainly epigraphical with a large inscription in thuluth script, in reserve, outlined in red on a light blue background, which is repeated twice on its neck and body:
هذا ما اوقفه العبد المفتقر إلى عفو ربه الغني معتوق ابن محفوظ ابن معتوق ابن البزوري الو[ا]عظ البغدادي على تربة والده بجبل الصالحية تقبل اللّٰه منهما
Haḏā mā awqafahu al-ʿabd al-muftaqar ilā ʿafū rabbihi al-ġanī (?) Maʿtūq b. Maḥfūẓ b. Maʿtūq Ibn al-Buzūrī al-w[ā]ʿiẓ al-Baġdādī ʿalā turbat wālidihi bi-ǧabal al-ṣāliḥīya taqabbala Allah minhumā.
This has been bequeathed by the poor slave in the need for His wealthy Lord’s forgiveness Maʿtūq, son of Maḥfūẓ, son of Maʿtūq Ibn al-Buzūrī, the preacher, al-Baġdādī, for his father’s mausoleum on al-Ṣāliḥīya mount, may God welcome them both!
An enamelled glass lamp, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. MAO 487a
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© 2019 Musée du Louvre and Raphaël ChipaultSurprisingly, the inscription had not been fully interpreted since its first incomplete publication by Gaston Wiet, where the nisba “al-Buzūrī” was not deciphered (1929: p. 181, no. D), though Wiet obviously completed the reading shortly thereafter (1932: p. 124, app. no. 7).5 Yet, this nisba provides the key for the identification of the mentioned individual, and consequently for the precise dating of the lamp, which has been roughly dated to the first half of the eighth/fourteenth century thus far. The lamp, with its unique style of decoration, has remained vaguely attributed and was not considered in recent publications addressing the chronology of mediaeval Islamic glass production (Carboni and Whitehouse, 2001; Ward, 1998; 2012: p. 30).6
The individual who bequeathed this lamp, Maʿtūq, was the son of Abū Bakr Maḥfūẓ b. Maʿtūq al-Baġdādī, known as Ibn al-Buzūrī, who died on 8 ṣafar 694/28th December 1294 in Damascus. The father’s biography was recorded by the historian al-Ḏahabī, who had been his pupil in Damascus (al-Ḏahabī, 2000: vol. 52, pp. 231–2; Stern, 1957). Abū Bakr Maḥfūẓ, born after 630/1232–3, was trained as a scholar (mainly in hadith science) and became a historian. For pecuniary needs, he was also a merchant – actually one of the most important and wealthy merchants in Damascus – who travelled as far as India and China. In the father’s biography, his son Naǧm al-dīn Maʿtūq is also mentioned as a popular preacher (wāʿiẓ),7 thereby corroborating the reference to the latter’s occupation found in the lamp’s inscription. He held a position as a preacher at the Great Mosque in Damascus, and it is recorded that the father would sometimes listen to his son preaching.
The father’s mausoleum (turba), where the lamp was bequeathed, is also cited in his biographies, as well as in descriptions of Damascus and al-Ṣāliḥīya quarter (al-Nuʿaimī, 1990: vol. 2, p. 178 no. 240; ʿIlmāwī/ Sauvaire, 1895: p. 225; Ibn Ṭūlūn, 2013: vol. 1: pp. 425–6). The Turba al-Buzūrīya was situated on the Ǧabal Qāsiyūn, above the cotton market (Sūq al-Quṭn), in the centre of the Ṣāliḥīya district. At this time, al-Ṣāliḥīya had become an important place for religious education with the foundation of many madrasas, and in addition was also an important burial place due to the traditional reputation of holiness associated with the Qāsiyūn mount and the development of funerary madrasas (Meinecke, 1983; Miura, 1995).
Maḥfūẓ Ibn al-Buzūrī had bequeathed his library to his mausoleum shortly before his death, securing it and providing a place of study for scholars. Al-Ḏahabī also refers to this library (ḫizāna), stating that he observed there three volumes of Ibn al-Buzūrī’s historical work. The mausoleum and its library seem to have vanished at some point in the Modern period,8 though the Damascene scholar Ibn Kannān still references it in the early-eighteenth century (Ibn Kannān, 1947: p. 47). Nonetheless, a record of its library still exists – a philosophical manuscript, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in which the title page mentions a waqf endowment made by Maḥfūẓ b. Maʿtūq Ibn al-Buzūrī to his mausoleum’s library, in Muḥarram 894/December 1294, the month before his death.9 This mention of a waqf endowment was written in the manuscript by his son Maʿtūq, and begins with almost the same formulation as the one on the lamp (“haḏā mā awqafahu al-ʿabd al-muftaqar ilā raḥmat rabbihi al-ġanī Maḥfūẓ ibn Maʿtūq”). The lamp was likely deposited around the same date, shortly before Maḥfūẓ’s death, since, as in the manuscript, his name in the inscription is not preceded by the mention “al-marḥūm” which would be expected if he was deceased.
The lamp is then a moving testimony of both religious and filial piety, around two members of the civilian elite in late-seventh/thirteenth-century Damascus, and also a unique relic of a nonextant monument. Aside from its function as an interesting socio-historical document, it now becomes an important point of reference, firmly dated and located, that must be considered a key landmark for studying the development of enamelled and gilded glass, still a field needing further investigation.
With this in mind, its shape and decoration must be carefully examined. In fact, this lamp seems at first glance rather unique, with the enamelled decoration very specific in appearance and colour. The blue background of the two inscribed bands is an unusual light hue, closer to a greyish turquoise than the usual deep blue,10 and it is thick and very regularly applied. The other enamelled decorations are limited to thin lines in red and small strokes of blue, red, white, and yellow on the neck, slightly more complex but smaller highlights on the lower part of the body in alternating red and white “v” shapes, and floral buds using additional colours, deep and light blues, green, and pink. Whether due to their location or some technical failure in combination with the firing process, these coloured buds on the lower part of the body reveal irregular outlines and a bubbly appearance. Furthermore, this lamp’s green enamel shows component particularities not found in other pieces attributable to the mid-eighth/fourteenth century.11
The lamp otherwise displays several noteworthy characteristics. Firstly, it is smaller (27 cm high) compared to post-720/1320 lamps originating from important Cairene religious monuments, which are usually at least ten centimetres taller. Secondly, its three suspension loops have a specific shape, with flattened and rounded ends, much like pads, not found on looped (generally six) eighth/fourteenth-century Cairene lamps with curved and pointed ends. These two first morphological characteristics are typical of a few early Mamluk lamps, as already observed by Rachel Ward (2012: p. 59). Other decorative characteristics, including an elegant, fluid, and thin thuluth script, can be noted. The carefully designed inscription uses abundant calligraphical marks (diacritic or ornamental dots and other marks), absent on eighth/fourteenth-century Cairene lamps. Two other features not found on later Mamluk glass lamps are also observed. Firstly, on the lower part of the lamp is a motif with radiating lancets arising from intertwined stems and culminating in small florets reminiscent of metal vessel ornamentation (Fig. 2).12 Secondly, the upper border of the neck and the transitional zone between the body and the neck are decorated with friezes drawn with a red line of alternating small florets and scrolled bifid leaves, which are combined in the transitional zone with a knotted chain motif highlighted with enamel dots in some interstices (Fig. 3). This particular frieze of alternating florets and scrolled bifid leaves – Lamm called these “lotos bordure” (Lamm 1929–30) – seems to disappear after 715–20/1315–20 but can be traced throughout the period between the late-sixth/twelfth to the early-eighth/fourteenth centuries, in the decoration of monuments and objects, notably manuscripts, usually related to the Jazira and Syria, especially in Damascus.13
Detail of the radiating lancets, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. MAO 487a
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© 2019 Musée du Louvre and Raphaël ChipaultDetail of the ornament, transitional zone, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. MAO 487a
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© 2017 Musée du Louvre and Carine JuvinThese different characteristics in shape and decoration can be found jointly or separately in a few other lamps, some securely dated to the early years of the eighth/fourteenth century, thus constituting a relatively coherent group. However, the closest example is a lamp preserved in the British Museum, currently undated and consequently also neglected by scholarship (see Lane-Poole, 1886: pp. 249, 260; Wiet, 1929: p. 180, no. 167; Lamm, 1929–30: p. 427; Tait, 1991: p. 167; TEI no. 3827).14 It shares most of the previously highlighted characteristics of the Louvre lamp: the smaller size, the loops with pad-like ends, the careful inscription with abundant calligraphical marks on the body, the intertwined stems resulting in pointed lancets on the lower section, but also similar friezes of alternating florets and leaves traced in red enamel on the neck and the transitional zone, there again associated with a knotted chain motif (Fig. 4). Aside from the main inscription band containing the “light verse” (Q 24:35), the lamp bears another discrete inscription in reserve over a blue enamel ground, parted on the three flattened ends of the hanging loops (Fig. 5), which was read as follows:15
An enamelled glass lamp, British Museum, London, inv. no. 1875,0717.1
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© The Trustees of the British MuseumDetail of a hanging loop, British Museum, London, inv. no. 1875,0717.1
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© The Trustees of the British Museum and Venetia Porterمما عمل برسم المسجد بالتربة الصاحبية التقوية
It was made for the mosque in the mausoleum al-Ṣāḥibīya al-Taqwīya (=of al-Ṣāḥib Taqī al-dīn).
It was interpreted by Gaston Wiet as a lamp made for an Egyptian vizier (al-Ṣāḥib is a honorific epithet used for a vizier) named Taqī al-dīn, a Coptic convert to Islam who would have died in 716/1316, but his precise identity and the reasons for this attribution remain unclear, because Wiet did not provide any reference for this individual.16 This attribution thus lacked any firm evidence, and considering the strikingly close similarities between the British Museum and Louvre examples, its connection to late-seventh/thirteenth-century Damascus needed to be reconsidered.
In this light, a much more convincing identification can be suggested, namely, the mausoleum (turba) of al-ṣāḥib Taqī al-dīn Abū-l-Baqāʾ Tawba b. Muhāǧir al-Takrītī, vizier in Damascus under al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn, who died in Ǧumādā II 698/March 1299 and was buried in this mausoleum, located in the same al-Ṣāliḥīya district (al-Ḏahabī, 2000: vol. 52, p. 348; Ibn al-Ṣuqāʿī, 1974: p. 60, no. 90; al-Nuʿaymī, 1990: vol. 2, pp. 185–6, no. 251; al-ʿIlmāwī/ Sauvaire, 1895: pp. 230–2, 278–9; Ibn Ṭūlūn, 2013: vol. 1, pp. 215–7). This mausoleum, better known as Turba al-Takrītīya, is still extant and has been studied by Herzfeld (1946: pp. 58–61, fig. 82F, 107, 136–8), and again by Meinecke (1992: vol. II, p. 88, no. 9B/3). Its layout actually combines a mausoleum topped with a ribbed dome and a small masjid, thereby corroborating the inscription on the lamp, associating masjid and turba. This new attribution implies that the British Museum lamp would have been made approximately five years after the Louvre vessel17 for another mausoleum of the same al-Ṣāliḥīya district near Damascus. Therefore, the striking similarity between the two lamps is explained because they were probably made within the same workshop, whether in al-Ṣāliḥīya or Damascus. Given that the patrons or the monuments for these lamps had been part of the Damascene civilian milieu, it seems very likely that these lamps were locally produced. These two landmarks indicating Damascene production for enamelled and gilded glassware during the late-seventh/thirteenth century echo al-Qazwīnī’s reference to enamelled glass lamps observed in the Great Mosque of Damascus some twenty years earlier (Irvin, 1998: 25). They also provide a reference for comparative materials. As a result, a closely related group of early enamelled lamps can be assembled together, which share morphological and decorative characteristics, although with varying decorative details, e.g., diminutive size, loops with pad-like ends, sparse enamelled decoration, interlaced lancet motif, knots and chain patterns, and a frieze with a pattern of “alternating leaves.”
The first comparable lamp is the one inscribed with the name of the great emir Salār, nāʾib al-salṭana, in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo (Fig. 6).18 It may be linked to the Cairo-built funerary madrasa he founded in 703/1303,19 which must have been completed before his death in 710/1310. It is also smaller (H 25.5 cm), has three hanging loops with rounded and flattened pad-like ends, and similarly to the British Museum example, is enamelled with a floral pattern in blue and red. The decorative medallions on the body are framed by two chain-like friezes of a simpler design than those on the Louvre lamp but with the interstices filled with multicoloured enamel. Its neck bears a similar inscription with numerous calligraphical marks, also in reserve on a blue enamelled ground. Although likely intended for a Cairene monument, it may well have been ordered from a Damascene workshop, as was the case in 697/1297 for a brass candlestick made in Damascus by order of Sultan Lāǧīn for the Ibn Ṭūlūn Mosque in Cairo.20 It is worth mentioning that the emir Salār travelled to Damascus in 699/1300, a few months after the Mongol destruction (Eychenne, 2019: p. 402, quoting the Syrian historian al-Birzālī). He might have ordered a fine lamp (or several) for his mausoleum in Cairo on this occasion – an act which could have been made to support the city’s economic recovery.
A lamp made for Emir Salār, Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, inv. no. 281
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© Carine Juvin, 2019A second lamp21 made for Sultan Baibars II is again on a smaller scale and has similar loops with pad-like ends. Its enamelled decoration is sparse, especially in the lower section, but the inscriptions on the body and the neck follow a different style, drawn in blue and white enamel instead of the reserve, and much like the British Museum lamp, the inscription on the neck is surrounded by floral scrolls. The unusual and luxurious grape scroll design on the body’s lower section, drawn in red, reveals only small faint highlights of enamel in the centre of the large leaves. The lamp could have been made for the ḫānqāh-mausoleum built by Baibars II in Cairo, completed in 709/1309–10. Nevertheless, its wine scroll decoration also recalls the mosaic band decorating Baibars I’s mausoleum and Qalāwūn’s marble frieze in the Māristān Nūrī, both in Damascus. There is another lamp in the name of Baibars II22 of a similar size and presumably made for the same monument, which has quite different decoration (Fig. 7). Although retaining the three thick hanging loops, they lack the pad-like shape. The inscription on the neck, drawn in blue enamel, is equally elegant and fluid, corresponding to the aforementioned lamps. Some interlaced stems culminating in lancets cover the tall tapering (piedouche) foot.23 Its decoration is extremely delicate, again, with limited use of enamel strokes, though more developed than in the previous examples, with the notable presence of chinoiserie motifs – thin lotuses, peonies, and chrysanthemums – certainly one of the earliest appearances of this motif on a Mamluk object.
A lamp made for Sultan Baibars II, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, inv. no. 4409
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© Les Arts Décoratifs and Jean Tholance.Further smaller lamps with typical loops and pad-like ends must also be mentioned. The first is in the name of al-Nāṣir Muhammad b. Qalāwūn (Fig. 8).24 Its decoration includes two friezes with the “alternating florets and leaves” pattern on the neck. It should be dated to the earlier part of his reign, presumably for his Cairene madrasa built between 698–703/1299–1303–4. Another fragmentary lamp in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, which could be also attributed to the madrasa of al-Nāṣir Muhammad b. Qalāwūn,25 uses similar friezes of alternating florets and leaves, a fully vocalized inscription, and limited enamel strokes. A third lamp in the Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin (Fig. 9),26 contains inscriptions limited to an anonymous sultan and repeats the title “al-ʿālim” on the body, while the decoration is less carefully drawn. Finally, a fourth lamp in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha,27 is undated and bears the same repetitive title, but has intertwined stems and lancets over the lower body.28
A lamp for al-Nāṣir Muhammad b. Qalāwūn, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, inv. no. EA1972.5
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© Ashmolean Museum, University of OxfordA lamp, Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin, inv. no. Gans 215
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© Museum für Islamische Kunst and Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, photo by Johannes KramerThe typical use of specific knotted patterns and the frieze of alternating florets and scrolled bifid leaves (sometimes in a more elaborated version) outlined in red, together with the limited use of enamelled decoration on the Louvre and the British Museum Damascene lamps can be linked to a few other fine glass objects of different shapes ornamented with figures. These comprise a lamp with horsemen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, reputed to have been found in a Syrian monastery,29 a bottle with polo players in Berlin (Fig. 10),30 a fine footed bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, supposedly bought by Charles Schefer from a barber in Damascus,31 and a sprinkler vase found in Qus.32 Moreover, archaeological finds also attest to the dispersion of related vessels both in Egypt and Syria. Several fragments with the comparable “alternating florets and leaves” pattern, chain motif, and knots, sometimes associated with small figures or fish, were unearthed in Egypt, mainly in Fustat (Lamm, 1929–30: pls. 147–150, pl. 165, no. 5; Kawatoko and Shindo, 2010: pl. 16, no. 6), while similar fragments were found in the Hama excavations (Riis and Poulsen, 1957: p. 89, fig. 271; p. 100, fig 308–10, pl. 2F).
A bottle with polo players, Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin, inv. no. I. 2573
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© Museum für Islamische Kunst and Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, photo by Johannes KramerUsing the Louvre and the British Museum lamps as reference points, this group represents an early Damascene production of enamelled and gilded glass lamps and fine vessels, already developed in the late-seventh/thirteenth century, and exported to Egypt. This production is characterised by what is usually a very carefully designed decoration, mixing some specific ornamental motifs with smaller figures, but open to formal innovation for royal orders, as exemplified notably by the two lamps made for Sultan Baybars II. As Cairo became prominent under the Mamluk Sultanate, and the capital’s demand for enamelled lamps to furbish numerous religious and secular new buildings was exponential, the Egyptian metropolis may have become the main production centre for gilded and enamelled glass by 715–20/1315–20, especially for mosque lamps. During this process, the decoration with thin red lines became more loosely drawn, while some technical improvements allowed for objects of larger size and for increased use of enamels, a development pattern which was discussed by Rachel Ward (2012). Further analysis of the glass and enamel technology for this group of objects compared to later eighth/fourteenth-century objects could possibly allow us to determine differences between Cairene and Damascene products.
3 The Sufi’s Drum
The second Damascene case study is a metal drum in the Louvre Museum (Fig. 11).33 It has an unusual tronconical bowl shape with a narrow flat base but is slightly smaller (D 22.6 cm) than other preserved Mamluk drums (D between 25–8 cm).34 Similarly, it has four loops for ropes to secure the drum to a belt. Between these loops, sixteen rivets are regularly placed to fix the skin.35 The simply engraved decoration is divided into three horizontal registers. The upper register, the widest, contains four inscribed cartouches separated by four circular medallions – two medallions are filled with a Y-shaped motif and the other two frame a pen-box emblem (Fig. 12). The middle register comprises a frieze of crossing elongated half-palmettes much like a chain motif, while florets emerging from a triangular form on the lower register are placed in staggered rows on a plain background. At first glance, the drum’s decoration and epigraphy style allows for an attribution during the late Mamluk period. It evokes many metal objects of second-tier quality, lacking any inlaid decoration, commonly attributed to the ninth/fifteenth century. The closest examples with similar decorative motifs are a dish in the name of the emir Saif al-dīn Ḫuškaldī, a lunchbox in the name of the emir Taimur, and a lunchbox made for the ḫawāǧā Ǧamāl al-dīn Yūsuf al-Ḥalabī.36 Unfortunately, none of these individuals have to date been identified, so they do not provide a precise date for these objects.
A drum, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. MAO 94
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© RMN – Grand Palais and Musée du Louvre and Jean-Gilles BerizziDetail of the upper ornamentation, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. MAO 94
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© RMN – Grand Palais and Musée du Louvre and Jean-Gilles BerizziThe inscription, in an intricate and thin thuluth script, was read some decades ago by Jean David-Weill, a former curator of the Islamic art collection in the Louvre (1945–68) and a distinguished epigraphist:
مما عمل برسم العبد الفقير الراجي عفو ربه القدير نوح ابن خالد القيرواني ابن الشيخ محمد بن الشيخ سيما خليل الصمادي يرجو المغفرة
Mimmā ʿumila bi-rasm al-ʿabd al-faqīr al-rāǧī ʿafū rabbihi al-qadīr Nūḥ ibn Ḫālid al-Qairawānī ibn al-šayḫ Muhammad ibn al-šayḫ Sīmā (?) Ḫalīl al-Ṣamādī yarǧū al-maġfira.
This has been made for the poor slave who seeks for the forgiveness of his mighty Lord, Nūḥ son of Ḫālid al-Qairawānī, son of (disciple of) the shaykh Muhammad son of the shaykh […] Ḫalīl al-Ṣamādī who seeks for forgiveness.
No attempt to identify these names has been made thus far, and the drum has been regarded as an instrument of military equipment or possibly for hawking. The first individual to be named, Nūḥ ibn Ḫālid al-Qairawānī, remains unknown, but the second, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ḫalīl al-Ṣamādī, can be firmly identified through historical sources, leading us well away from a military or hunting function. Instead of a tribal shaykh as may have been surmised, Šams al-dīn Muhammad ibn Ḫalīl al-Ṣamādī was a well-known Sufi shaykh, and more precisely the head of the Ṣamādīya (or Ṣumādīya) order in Damascus, at the time of Sultan Qāniṣauh al-Ġaurī’s reign (906–22/1501–16) and during the early period of Ottoman domination, until he died at an advanced age in 948/1541. Therefore, the first individual mentioned in the drum’s inscription must be interpreted as a disciple (this is a possible meaning for the term “ibn” within a Sufi context) of this prominent Sufi shaykh.
The Ṣamādīya Sufi order, related to the Qādirīya main order, was primarily established in Damascus, but had an impact in other places throughout Syria, with branches also settled in Palestine, notably in Jerusalem and Nablus (Meier, 1999: pp. 283–307; Geoffroy, 1995: pp. 227–8, 417). The ancestor of the family order originated from Ṣamād in the Hawran, seemingly in the seventh/thirteenth century. The settlement of the family order in Damascus is firmly established by the ninth/fifteenth century, and the Ṣamādīya disciples gathered in the Umayyad Great Mosque every Friday. According to the tenth/sixteenth-century Syrian historian Ibn Ṭūlūn, a zāwīya al-Ṣamādīya was founded in the al-Ṣāliḥīya district, by a disciple of Muhammad b. Ḫalīl al-Ṣamāḍī as early as 915/1509 (Ibn Ṭūlūn, 2013: vol. 1, p. 420). The monument seems to have disappeared at an unknown date.37 However, a masjid and zāwīya Ṣamādīya remains in Damascus intra muros, near Bāb Ṣaġīr, which was founded in 932/1525–6 by the shaykh Muhammad b. Ḫalīl himself, and restored in 1054/1644 under the shaykh Ibrāhīm b. Muslim al-Ṣamādī (Ṭalas, 1943: pp. 236–7; Gaube, 1978: pp. 108–9; al-Shihābī, 1997: pp. 101–2). Inside this zāwīya is a mausoleum housing four graves, two are believed to be for Shaykh Muhammad b. Ḫalīl and his son and successor as the Ṣamādīya shaykh, Muhammad.38 As a matter of fact, this Sufi order is renowned for its extensive use of drums during ritual ceremonies. The German Orientalist Fritz Meier considered the drum to occupy a central position, and therefore, had been the hallmark of the order (1999: p. 297). It was used during the ḏikr and samāʿ ceremonies, associated with dance performances, and contributed in the search for mystical ecstasy.
According to the Syrian historian Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, the Ṣamādīya order kept and treasured a relic drum made of yellow copper (ṭablbāz39 min nuhās aṣfar) once owned by their ancestor Muslim, Sālim, or Musallam, who would have played it during the capture of Acre by the Mamluks against the Crusaders in 690/1291. This old relic drum was still occasionally brought forth during the tenth/sixteenth century (1999: pp. 297–301, from Ibn al-Ḥanbalī, 1972–4: vol. 2,1, pp. 168–9, no. 426). Moreover, this very drum was linked with a miracle. A governor of Damascus once forbade an ancestor of Muhammad b. Ḫalīl to play the drum inside the Umayyad Great Mosque on Friday following the prayer. The drum miraculously returned to the mosque while an invisible hand beat it, and moving through the mosque space, it finally struck one of the pillars (Meier, 1999: pp. 300–1, from al-Ġazzī, 1997: vol. 2, pp. 30–1 no. 703; Ibn al-ʿImād, 1995: vol. 10, pp. 393–4).
Indeed, the practice of playing drums in a religious context had been the subject of many controversies, and the practices of the Ṣamādīya order were attacked in a book written in 860/1456 by another Damascene Sufi, Ibrāhīm b. ʿAli al-Dairī (Meier, 1999: p. 302; Geoffroy, 1995: pp. 276, 417). Nevertheless, some religious scholars, for instance al-Ġazalī, defended the practice of playing drums or singing, comparing these acts with drums and trumpets accompanying pilgrims to Mecca, and regarding it as a practice that encouraged the person’s heart on the mystical path (Meier, 1999: pp. 302–4; Geoffroy, 1995: pp. 416–8). The drums remained in use with at least one other well-known Sufi order, the Mevlevi, originally based in Anatolia, which spread across the Near East. Another way of legitimising the practice of playing the drums during ḏikr ceremonies was to connect them with their military use during battles or parades. This was most probably the purpose in the legend linking the Ṣāmādiyya ancestor with the capture of Acre, thus implying a connection of the drum with both the lesser jihad and the greater (spiritual) jihad (Meier, 1999: p. 304), but drums also could be used in other circumstances, demonstrating that the Ṣamādīya order was well connected with the local power. The historian Ibn Ṭūlūn mentions that in 917/1511, Muhammad ibn Ḫalīl officially escorted with his “ṣamādī drums” a rebel Arab chief who wanted to declare his loyalty to the Damascene governor, again, suggesting a spiritual power with a military touch (Ibn Ṭūlūn, 1998: p. 287).40
As a result, the Louvre drum is now revealed as a fascinating testimony to the practice and history of a Syrian Sufi order. In fact, it is not an isolated example, as two other drums also can be connected to the Ṣamādīya order.41 The first drum is known to have been in the collection of the French Orientalist Eustache de Lorey, who lived in Damascus during the early-twentieth century (he was the director of the French Archaeological Institute in the 1920s). Its whereabouts are unknown, but fortunately, it was described by Gaston Wiet (1932: p. 220, app. no. 277).42 An initial inscription in Kufic indicates that the drum was produced for the Mamluk emir Saif al-dīn Arġūn Šāh (d. 778/1376), but a later engraved inscription was added containing “bi-rasm al-šaiḫ Ḫalīl al-Ṣamādī” (“intended for the šaiḫ Ḫalīl al-Ṣamādī”), to be plausibly interpreted as Shaykh Muhammad’s father. It is an interesting example of reusing a military drum for a religious purpose. Could it be the result of a gift from this emir or his family to the Sufi order, and therefore, an illustration of the special connection between the order and the military elite,43 or an indication of the practice of collecting old drums inside the order?
The second drum associated with the Ṣamādīya was found in Palestine, more specifically, in Bethsaida, north of the Sea of Galilee, during the course of road work at the end of the 1980s (Fig. 13).44 The drum is similar in shape to the Louvre example, but the quality of the inscription and the engraved decoration is poorer. It could originate during the same period at the very end of the Mamluk Sultanate or later in the tenth/sixteenth century. It was first published by Rami Arav (1993) and then by Reuven Amitai-Preiss with corrections (1997). In both publications, the inscription, engraved in a loosely drawn curvilinear script, was given as: “mimma ʿumila bi-rasm al-faqīr Wafāʾ ibn šaiḫ Abī Bakr al-ʿAbbādī” and, consequently, Amitai-Preiss proposed a link to a member of the local ʿAbbād bedouin sub-tribe. Nevertheless, the reading of the last part of the name, the nisba, is faulty: al-ʿAbbādī must be corrected as al-Ṣamādī, the initial letter being evidently a ṣad, and the mīm reduced to a very tiny sublinear olive shape, similarly to the inscription on the Louvre drum. The individual cited on the drum remains unknown, but as previously mentioned, the Ṣamādīya order had spread to Palestine. Additionally, the epithet al-faqīr is more typical for a Sufi member than a tribesman, while the name Wafā is “exceedingly rare” in the Mamluk historical sources, as noted by Amitai-Preiss, and could reflect the influence of the Wafā Sufi order, which had propagated in Syria-Palestine since the eighth/fourteenth century.45
A drum found in Bethsaida, detail of the inscription, Israel Antiquities Authority, inv. no. 95-3549
Citation: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 4, 1 (2023) ; 10.1163/26666286-12340040
© Israel Antiquities Authority, photo by Mariana SalzbergerThis third specimen, as is the case with the Louvre drum, indicates that aside from reused drums, new ones were specifically commissioned by members of the Sufi order, possibly at the end of their initiation period, for their personal use. On the Louvre example, the name of the recipient is curiously associated with the pen-box emblem. It should not necessarily be interpreted as the mark of a specific administrative – and even less a military – occupation, since it seems that this emblem became widespread amongst the civilian milieu during the late Mamluk period.46 The Ṣamādīya order survived until the eighteenth century at least, but its history and decline in the nineteenth century is not well documented. Some of their drums must have been kept inside the order’s zāwīya in Damascus or by some families, until at least two of them were sold during the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth centuries. Further investigation may lead to the discovery of other specimens.
4 Conclusion
The two hitherto neglected objects studied here share the same specificity – they are related to the less investigated civilian and religious social milieu during the Mamluk period, and particularly linked to Damascus and its educational and religious life, framed by its two major centres, the Umayyad Great Mosque and the Ṣāliḥīya district. On the fringes of royal and princely life, these objects provide, thanks to their inscriptions, a precious glimpse into the urban society of mediaeval Damascus, complementing the textual sources. It is in fact relatively rare to connect mediaeval objects with well recorded members in a civilian environment, and thereby, contextualizing them so precisely. Hopefully, further investigation of other inscribed objects, whether containing names of recipients or poetic verses, will contribute to a better understanding of the material and social culture of the large and influential civilian society, and will be able to recount other informative stories. In addition, the new identification of the named recipients of these objects contributes to our knowledge on the development of enamelled glass vessels and metalwork, and provides more precise chronological and geographical data for similar production.
About the Author
Carine Juvin is curator for the Mediaeval Near and Middle East at the Musée du Louvre, Islamic Art Department. She also taught Islamic art history at Ecole du Louvre, Paris, and Strasbourg Universities. Her research focuses on Arabic epigraphy and calligraphy and the material culture of the mediaeval Near and Middle East.
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Notes
For metalwork of the seventh/thirteenth century, see Raby (2012: pp. 58–64), notably a ewer in the name of Ṣalaḥ al-dīn Yūsuf II, made in Damascus in 657/1258 by Ḥusayn b. Muhammad al-Mauṣilī (inv. no. OA 7428) kept in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. For metal objects and door fittings in the Mamluk period, see Mols (2006: pp. 155–6); two ceramic vessels also should be mentioned, namely a seventh/thirteenth-century lustre-painted blue vase (inv. no. LNS 188C) in the Sabah Collection, Kuwait, and a ninth/fifteenth-century small bowl painted in blue on a white ground (inv. no. MAO 363) in the Louvre Museum.
This is the case for a few late Mamluk metal objects made for civilians, see Juvin (2021: pp. 310–3, nos. 3, 8, 16, 32–3, 40–1, 43–4).
The research results for these two objects were presented in the Conference on inscribed objects organized in Paris in November 2017 (see the editors’ introduction) and in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, in 2018.
The lamp (inv. no. MAO 487) in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, is a bequest of André Maggiar, 1973. According to a note in the inventory records, the lamp would have been brought from Egypt by the donor’s great-grandfather, the “ambassador” Koenig, to be identified as Mathieu Auguste Koenig Bey (1802–65), a state official under the Egyptian Viceroy Saʿīd (1854–63).
In this rather confidential short note focusing on some other Mamluk lamps, Wiet briefly stated that this lamp is “probably in the name of Maḥfūẓ ibn Maʿtūq Baġdādī Buzūrī,” although without a precise date. It is possibly through this publication, though he does not mention it, that Michael Meinecke refers en passant to the Louvre lamp in the course of an entry on the Buzūrī mausoleum in Damascus (Meinecke, 1992: p. 78, no. 10/2). The information remains unnoticed, even in the Louvre files. I discovered these references after completing the reading when checking if the turba, al-Buzūrīya, was included in Meinecke’s survey of Mamluk monuments.
The earliest datable enamelled glass lamp cited is the one made for the great emir Salār, c.702–10/ 1303–10, see below for a discussion of this lamp.
On the special function of a wāʿiz, as opposed to the ḫātib, see Berkey (2000) and Kühn (2019: pp. 44–5, 390–7).
It is not found in the survey of al-Ṣāliḥīya monuments by Meinecke (1983).
The shelfmark: Marsh 28, a copy of the commentaries by Ibn al-Ṭayyib on Porphyre’s Isagogè (Kitāb tafsīr Īsāġūǧī, copied in the first half of the fifth/eleventh century), see Stern (1957).
This result seems to be due to the presence of carbon in the blue enamel, obtained with lapis-lazuli, according to a Raman spectroscopy conducted on a few Mamluk lamps in the Louvre, see Colomban et al. (2012: p. 1979).
These irregularities include a soda-based glass for the enamel, also containing lapis-lazuli, while the other eighth/fourteenth-century analysed pieces have a lead-based glass and cobalt pigment, see Colomban et al. (2012: p. 1981).
Intertwined stems leading to florets and lancets, as well as knotted motifs, are commonly found on Mosul school and Ayyubid metal vessels, including the Blacas Ewer (inv. no. 1866,1229.61) from the British Museum, made in Mosul in 629/1232; a ewer in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (inv. no. AD 4413); the Louvre ewer made in Damascus in 657/1258 by Ḥusayn b. Muhammad al-Mauṣilī (inv. no. OA7428); and a ewer in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, made for the Rasulid sultan Yūsuf I in 674/1275–6 by the latter’s son ʿAli b. Ḥusayn b. Muhammad al-Mauṣilī (inv. no. AD 4412).
An early model for the “alternating florets and scrolled leaves” pattern appears on the top final of carved stone decoration above the mihrab in the shrine of Imam Yaḥyā ibn al-Qāsim, Mosul, dated 636/1239. Another carved example is found on the outer walls of the Torumtay Türbe (Gökmedrese) in Amasya, dated c.677/1278. A schematic version of this pattern appears on the border of a carved roundel in the Turbat al-ʿIzziyya in Damascus, possibly around 654/1256, see Herzfeld (1946: pp. 36, 55, fig. 56). It also appears as the frame for a painted inscription in the entrance hall of the Bimāristān al-Nūrī in Damascus, probably datable to its 682/1283–4 renovation, see Hillenbrand (1999: p. 133, pl. 3.17). The alternating frieze is also engraved on a metal bottle (inv. no. OA 7485) in the Louvre, possibly dating to the late-sixth/twelfth or early-seventh/thirteenth centuries, which has been attributed to Mosul or Iran, and on a late-sixth/twelfth-century metal bucket, once in the Stora Collection, see Pope and Ackerman (1938: vol. XIII, pl. 1291 B). Finally, it is found, employed as architectural ornamentation, in three miniature paintings generally attributed to Syria; a manuscript of al-Ḥarīrī’s Maqāmāt (Arabe 6094, f. 93a) dated 619/1222–3 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; an undated Kalila wa Dimna (Arabe 3465, f. 12b), also in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, closely related in style to the previous manuscript; and in the “Elephant Clock” folio of al-Ǧazarī’s Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (inv. no.57.51.23), dated 715/1315 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Lane-Poole considered the lamp (inv. no. 1875,0717.1; H. 27 cm) in the British Museum to be a Damascene product, possibly according to its reputed provenance.
I extend my thanks to Dr Venetia Porter for providing me with photographs of this inscription in three parts, allowing me to verify the reading published by Wiet, probably after van Berchem who corrected the first reading by Lane-Poole, see Migeon (1927, p. 140).
For details on converted Coptic viziers, see Wiet (1927) and Little (1976).
Ibn al-Ṣuqāʿī mentions that the mausoleum burned during the Mongol invasion of Damascus in 699/1300 (1974: p. 60, no. 90), see also al-ʿIlmāwī/ Sauvaire (1895: p. 278); for another mention by al-Yunīnī, see Eychenne (2019: p. 394), so the lamp could also date from a refurbishment just after this event. For a detailed reconstruction of these events in Damascus, notably in al-Ṣāliḥīya, and further information on the vizier Taqī al-dīn, see Eychenne (2019: especially pp. 394, 405, fig. 3, p. 412).
The vessel (inv. no. 281) is held in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo. In this article, I did not include two lamps previously attributed to the late-seventh/thirteenth century following a review of their dating by Ward (2012, p. 74, note 7); the first in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, bearing the name of al-Ašraf Ḫalīl (inv. no. 264) and the second in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, for the tomb of Aydakin (inv. no. 17.190.985).
The monument is a double funerary madrasa, with twin mausolea for emirs Salār and Sanǧar, extant in Cairo.
The candlestick (inv. no. 128) is in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, see Wiet (1932: pp. 7–8, pl. XXX).
The lamp (inv. no. C322-1900, H. 29 cm) is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
The lamp (inv. no. 4409, H. 30 cm) is in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.
This is the first appearance of a mosque lamp with a tapered foot.
The vessel (inv. no. EA1972.5; H. 29.6 cm) is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
The lamp (inv. no. 4070) in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, was attributed by Wiet according to its fragmentary inscription (1932: pp. 137–8, pl. XII).
The lamp (inv. no. Gans 215) is in Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin.
The lamp (inv. no. GL.297-1997) in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, bears an inscription containing titles for an anonymous emir.
The same lancets motif is again found on the lower part of a small lamp (inv. no. 37.614, H. 27.5 cm) with six-pointed loops made for Karīm al-dīn’s ḫānqāh, around 710–23/1310–23, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It is also found on a fragmentary lamp (inv. nos. 4069, 5878, 5879) with an inscription repeating “al-ʿālim” in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, see Wiet (1932: pp. 136–7, pl. XVII). The later use of this lancet motif is not known. There is also an unusual lamp in the Czartoryski Museum, Krakow, see Sarre and Martin (1912: vol. 1, cat. 2118, vol. 2, pl. 174) and see Wiet (1929: p. 179, no. 164). However, it seems to have disappeared and is now only available through the archive: see https://zbiory.mnk.pl/en/search-result/catalog/558421 (last accessed on 08-30-2021). The lamp has loops with pad-like ends, but its decoration seems alien to the whole group. The inscriptions are Quranic, the “light verse” (Q 24:35) on the body and (Q 9:18) on the neck, while on the lower body, there is a six-petalled rosette in a medallion framed with a circular inscription that cannot be deciphered, as well as some elaborate enamelled floral decoration.
For the lamp (inv. no. 330-1900) in the Victoria and Albert Museum, see Carboni and Whitehouse (2001: p. 227).
The lamp (inv. no. I. 2573) is in the Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin.
For the lamp (inv. no. 91.1.1538) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, see Canby et al. (2011: p. 161).
For the vase (inv. no. 23967) in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, see Ward (1998: p. 21, 158, fig. 6.5). Its relation to a governor of Qus named Badr al-dīn (d. 722/1322) was refuted by the historian J. C. Garcin for a historical reason: the title is not relevant for a governor (1976, p. 196, note 1).
The drum (inv. no. MAO 94) in the Musée du Louvre was a gift of Soleyman Nassery in 1950 and formerly had been in the Hubert de Ganay Collection.
Additional preserved Mamluk drums are in the Louvre (inv. no. OA 3780); Royal Armoury, Stockholm (inv. no. 2557); Topkapı Sarayı, Istanbul (inv. no. 8/944); Museum for Islamic Art, Berlin (inv. no. I. 10/62); Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg (inv. no. E
The present skin is a modern addition.
The vessel (inv. nos. 8256, 3953, 8453) is in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, see Wiet for illustrations (1932: pls. LV, LXVI, LXVIII).
Ibn Kannān, writing in the early-eighteenth century, makes no reference to the monument in his description of al-Ṣāliḥīya (1947).
See a description of the masjid and zāwīya al-Ṣamādīya on the website for the Awqaf Directory in Damascus: http://awqaf-damas.com/ [Last accessed on January 8, 2021].
The word ṭablbāz is generally used for a small hawking drum. Another word used for small drums connected to the military fanfare (ṭablkḫāna) was naqqāra; see the study by Ibrāhīm ʿAbd al-ʿĀl (2020) for the same identification and commentaries on the Louvre drum, that I initially presented in 2017.
This Arab chief came from the Hawran, the origin region for the Ṣamādī ancestor, which was also possibly the reason for Shaykh Muhammad’s intervention.
To my knowledge, the other Mamluk drums listed in note 32 do not bear any inscription connecting them to a Sufi order, with their inscriptions always alluding to a Mamluk emir instead.
The drum appears in a photograph of De Lorey in his Damascus office, but its details cannot be seen. I thank Dr Elodie Vigouroux for suggesting this unpublished picture kept in the Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO) archives.
For connections between Sufi and military ceremonials under the Mamluks, see McGregor (2013).
The drum (inv. no. 95-3549) is kept by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The Wafāʾīya is related to the Šhāḏilīya order, and not to the Qādirīya. For more details on the Wafāʾiyya order, see McGregor (2004).
This practice was manifested through a late Mamluk candlestick made for a civilian of prominent social status but without any official position (Juvin, 2021).
