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IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 616: Narrative Construction and Historiographical Legitimacies in 15th-Century Cairo Sultanate

Tuesday 2 July 2019, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:Kenneth Goudie, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews
Moderator/Chair:Gowaart van den Bossche, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, Aga Khan University, London
Paper 616-aThe Office of the Ustādār: Producing a Socio-Political Space in Ibn Ḥağar’s Historiographical Narratives
(Language: English)
Zacharie Mochtari de Pierrepont, Vakgroep Talen en Culturen, Universiteit Gent
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Paper 616-bHistoriography in the Service of the Polity: Analyzing Ibn Arabshāh's Narrative Construction of the 1438 Revolts against Sultan Jaqmaq
(Language: English)
Mustafa Banister, Vakgroep Talen en Culturen, Universiteit Gent
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Paper 616-cChanging Legitimacies and Maintained Order: A Preliminary Sketch on Ibn Taghrībirdī's Narrative Representation of Sultan Ṭaṭar's Reign
(Language: English)
Rihab Ben Othmen, Vakgroep Talen en Culturen, Universiteit Gent
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Paper 616-dA Tale of Two Dawādārs: Al-Biqāʿī’s Depiction of Sultan Īnāl’s Court
(Language: English)
Kenneth Goudie, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Abstract

Representing the results of the second stage of the ERC project MMS-II: The Mamlukisation of the Mamluk Sultanate, this panel presents several case studies focusing on the literary, narratological, and intertextual analyses of various Arabic historiographical works produced in the period c.1410-1470. The panel asks what happens to modern understandings of the Cairo Sultanate in the 15th century - which has emerged as a period of political and cultural transformation - if the texts are considered not as observers of that transformation, but as historical actors actively involved in it. By focusing on narrative constructions and discursive strategies in these texts, and how historiography was used to legitimise visions of the past, this panel seeks to reorient our understanding of the agency of these texts.