In the Sultan’s Salon: Learning, Religion, and Rulership at the Mamluk Court of Qāniṣawh al-Ghawrī (r. 1501–1516) (2 vols) (Islamic History and Civilization, 169) (Arabic Edition)

Book info: In the Sultan’s Salon: Learning, Religion, and Rulership at the Mamluk Court of Qāniṣawh al-Ghawrī (r. 1501–1516) (2 vols) (Islamic History and Civilization, 169) (Arabic Edition) (Hardcover, 1340 pages) – Brill, 2021. Language: English.

Christian Mauder’s In the Sultan’s Salon builds on his award-winning research and constitutes the first detailed study of the Egyptian court culture of the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517). Based mainly on understudied Arabic manuscript sources describing the learned salons of the Mamluk Sultan al-Ghawrī, In the Sultan’s Salon presents the first theoretical conceptualization of the term “court” that can be fruitfully applied to premodern Islamic societies. It uses this conceptualization to demonstrate that al-Ghawrī’s court functioned as a transregionally interconnected center of dynamic intellectual exchange, theological debate, and performance of rule that triggered novel developments in Islamic scholarly, religious, and political culture. Editorial Reviews Review "In the Sultan’s Salon offers a paradigm-shifting analysis of the court of the penultimate sultan of Cairo. Driven by a well-informed theoretical reflection, Mauder’s thorough study of three courtly majālis works invites us to radically rethink Egypt’s royal court as a nexus of cosmopolitanism, innovation and transregional elite formation. A must-read!" - Jo Van Steenbergen, Research Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Ghent University
"Christian Mauder’s book is a fascinating study of late Mamluk court life. A breathtaking variety of sources are used to provide a pioneering, carefully documented and highly readable account of the scholarly salons of the Mamluk Sultan al-Ghawrī. The study is a model for the integration of social, political, intellectual and religious history." - Khaled El-Rouayheb, James Richard Jewett Professor of Islamic Intellectual History, Harvard University
"Theoretically and philologically informed, this book invites us to rethink late Mamluk history and elegantly puts the ruler’s court on our agenda. A pleasure to read!" - Konrad Hirschler, Professor of Middle Eastern History, Freie Universität Berlin About the Author Christian Mauder, Ph.D. (2017), University of Göttingen, is Associate Professor in the Study of Religions at the University of Bergen. His numerous publications on the religious, intellectual, and cultural history of the Islamic world include the monograph Gelehrte Krieger: Die Mamluken als Träger arabischsprachiger Bildung nach al-Ṣafadī, al-Maqrīzī und weiteren Quellen (Olms, 2012).