Sinai; Commerce; Red Sea; Mamluk period; St Catherine Monastery
Research Center/Unit :
Transitions - Transitions - Unité de recherches sur le Moyen Âge et la première Modernité - ULiège
Disciplines :
Classical & oriental studies
Author, co-author :
Bauden, Frédéric ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences de l'antiquité > Langue arabe et études islamiques - Histoire de l'art musulman
Language :
English
Title :
Bandar al-Ṭūr: A Port on the Red Sea and Its Development in the Ninth/Fifteenth Century
Li GUO, Commerce, Culture, and Community in a Red Sea Port in the Thirteenth Century: The Arabic Documents from Quseir, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004, 92.
Roxani Eleni MARGARITI, Aden and the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port, Chapel Hill, 2007.
Shlomo Dov GOITEIN and Mordechai Akiva FRIEDMAN, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza (‘India Book’), Leiden and Boston, 2008.
John L. MELOY, Imperial Power and Maritime Trade: Mecca and Cairo in the Later Middle Ages, Chicago, 2010; rev. ed. Chicago, 2015.
See also John L. Meloy, "Imperial Strategy and Political Exigency: The Red Sea Spice Trade and the Mamluk Sultanate in the Fifteenth Century," Journal of the American Oriental Society 123 (2003): 1-19;
John L. Meloy, "Money and Sovereignty in Mecca: Issues of the Sharifs in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 53 (2010): 712-738;
John L. Meloy, "Mecca Entangled," in: The Mamluk Sultanate from the Perspective of Regional and World History: Economic, Social, and Cultural Development in an Era of Increasing International Interaction and Competition, ed. Reuven Amitai and Stephan Conermann, Göttingen, 2019, 453-478.
Éric VALLET, L’Arabie marchande. État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen (626–858/ 1229–1454), Paris, 2010.
Al-Hasan b. 'Alī al-Husaynī, A Medieval Administrative and Fiscal Treatise from the Yemen: The Rasulid MulakhkhaS al-fitan of al-Hasan b. 'Alī al-Husaynī, ed. Gerald Rex Smith, Manchester, 2006.
See also Claude CAHEN and R. B. SERJEANT, "A Fiscal Survey of the Medieval Yemen. Notes Preparatory to a Critical Edition of the Mulahhas al-Fitan of al-Hasan b. 'Alī al-Šarīf al-Husaynī," Arabica 4 (1957): 23-33.
See, for instance, Patrick WING, "Indian Ocean Trade and Sultanic Authority: The Nāzir of Jedda and the Mamluk Political Economy," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 57 (2014): 55-75;
For the Roman period, see Federico DE ROMANIS, The Indo-Roman Pepper Trade and the Muziris Papyrus, Oxford, 2020.
For the Byzantine and early Islamic period, see Timothy POWER, The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate, AD 500–1000, Cairo and New York, 2012.
"The fact that after all these years, except for some general synthetic accounts, we still await a monograph devoted to Red Sea trade speaks volumes about the current state of knowledge in the field. The major obstacle lies obviously in sources." GUO, Commerce, 92.
For the archaeological study of the site, see Katherine STRANGE BURKE, The Sheikh’s House at Quseir al-Qadim: Documenting a Thirteenth-Century Red Sea Port, Chicago, 2021.
For GUO's book, see fn. 1. He published the preliminary results in two articles: Li GUO, "Arabic Documents from the Red Sea Port of Quseir in the Seventh/Thirteenth Century, Part 1: Business Letters," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 58 (1999): 161-190;
Li Guo, "Arabic Documents from the Red Sea Port of Quseir in the Seventh/Thirteenth Century, Part 2: Shipping Notes and Account Records," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 60 (2001): 81-116.
Some of GUO's editions and translations were criticized by Mordechai FRIEDMAN (see his review in Journal of the American Oriental Society 126 (2006): 401-409)
Werner DIEM (see his review in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 158 (2008): 164-170).
Andreas KAPLONY, Fünfundzwanzig arabische Geschäftsdokumente aus dem Rotmeer-Hafen al-Qusayr al-Qadīm (7./13. Jh.), Leiden and Boston, 2014. In contrast with the assertion made in the title, the book only comprises 23 documents, 9 of which had previously been published by Guo.
Bernhard MORITZ was the first to publish some of the documents in his Beiträge zur Geschichte des Sinaiklosters im Mittelalter nach arabischen Quellen, Berlin, 1918.
A handlist of those that were microfilmed by an American mission in 1950 was published by Aziz Suryal ATIYA, The Arabic Manuscripts of Mount Sinai: A Handlist of Arabic Manuscripts and Scrolls Microfilmed in the Library of the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, Baltimore, 1955.
Horst-Adolf HEIN, Beiträge zur ayyubidischen Diplomatik, Freiburg, 1971;
Hans ERNST, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden des Sinai-Klosters, Wiesbaden, 1960;
Zaynab Muhammad MahfūZ HANĀ, "al-Tatawwur al-Dīblūmāsī li-marāsīm dīwān al-inshā' bi-Dayr Sānt Kātrīn min al-Qarn al-khāmis ilá al-qarn al-'āshir al-hijrī," unpublished MA thesis, 2 vols., Cairo University, 1970;
Klaus SCHWARZ, Osmanische Sultansurkunden des Sinai-Klosters in türkischer Sprache, Freiburg, 1970;
Robert HUMBSCH, Beiträge zur Geschichte des osmanischen Ägyptens nach arabischen Sultans- und Statthalterurkunden des Sinai-Klosters, Freiburg, 1976.
For a brief outline of the documents from the Mamluk period, see Frédéric BAUDEN, "Mamluk Era Documentary Studies: The State of the Art," Mamlūk Studies Review IX, no. 1 (2005): 37-41.
Donald S. RICHARDS, Mamluk Administrative Documents from St. Catherine’s Monastery, Louvain, Paris, Walpole, MA, 2011.
On the shift from the name of Aylah to 'Aqabat Aylah, then simply 'Aqabah, see Donald WHIT-COMB, "The Town and Name of 'Aqaba: An Inquiry into the Settlement History from an Archaeological Perspective," Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan VI (1997), 359-363.
The distance as the crow flies is 50 km. See Mutsuo Kawatoko, ed., A Port City Site on the Sinai Peninsula: Al-Tūr. The 11th Expedition in 1994 (A Summary Report), Tokyo, 1995, 77. In 1581, it took the French pilgrim Jean Palerne at least three days to cover the distance between the monastery and the port, which he estimated to fifty "mil" (between 80 and 100 km).
See Jean Palerne, Voyage en Égypte de Jean Palerne Forésien, 1581, Cairo, 1971, 147.
See René-Georges COQUIN and Maurice MARTIN, "Raithou," in Coptic Encyclopedia, 8 vols., New York, 1991, 7:2049b-2050b;
Uzi DAHARI, Monastic Settlements in South Sinai in the Byzantine Period: The Archaeological Remains, Jerusalem, 2000, 138-141.
On the excavations, see Mutsuo Kawatoko, ed., Archaeological Survey of the Rāya/al-Tūr Area on the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt (2002), Tokyo, 2003;
Mutsuo Kawatoko, ed., Archaeological Survey of the Rāya/al-Tūr Area on the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt (2005 and 2006): The First Japanese-Kuwaiti Archaeological Expedition (2006), Tokyo, 2007;
Mutsuo Kawatoko, ed., Archaeological Survey of the Rāya/al-Tūr Area on the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt (2007): The Second Japanese-Kuwaiti Archaeological Expedition (2007), Tokyo, 2008;
Mutsuo Kawatoko and Yoko Shindo, eds., Artifacts of the Islamic Period Excavated in the Rāya/al-Tūr Area, South Sinai, Egypt: Ceramics/Glass/Painted Plaster, Tokyo, 2009.
Mutsuo KAWATOKO, "Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to the Islamic Period in Egypt and the Red Sea Coast," Antiquity 79 (2005): 851-853.
DAHARI, Monastic Settlements, 146.
Cheryl WARD, "Sailing the Red Sea: Ships, Infrastructure, Seafarers and Society," in Ships, Saints, and Sealore: Cultural Heritage and Ethnography of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, ed. Dionisius A. Agius, Timmy Gambin, and Athena Trakadas, Oxford, 2014, 117;
Stéphane PRADINES, "The Mamluk Fortifications of Egypt," Mamlūk Studies Review XIX (2016): 53.
On the excavations, see Mutsuo Kawatoko, ed., A Port City Site on the Sinai Peninsula: Al-Tūr. The 11th Expedition in 1994 (A Summary Report), Tokyo, 1995;
Mutsuo Kawatoko, ed., A Port City Site on the Sinai Peninsula: Al-Tūr. The 12th Expedition in 1995 (A Summary Report), Tokyo, 1996;
Mutsuo Kawatoko, ed., A Port City Site on the Sinai Peninsula: Al-Tūr. The 13th Expedition in 1996 (A Summary Report), Tokyo, 1998.
On the documents discovered at the site, the oldest being from the late ninth/fifteenth century, see Mutsuo KAWATOKO, "On the Use of Coptic Numerals in Egypt in the 16th Century," Orient: Report of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 28 (1993): 58-74;
Mutsuo KAWATOKO, "On the Use of Coptic Numerals in Egypt in the 16th Century: Addenda et Corrigenda," Orient: Report of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 29 (1994): 147-157.
Charles LE QUESNE, "Hajj Ports of the Red Sea: A Historical and Archaeological Overview," in The Hajj: Collected Essays, ed. Venetia Porter and Liana Saif, London, 2013, 79. The document referred to in the following note seems to corroborate that al-Rāyah was still in use in the mid-seventh/thirteenth century.
In the biography of one member of the family who was still active in the early eighth/fourteenth century, Ibn al-Dawādārī explicitly states that his nisbah derived from al-'Abbāsah (min ahl al-'Abbāsah), thereby confirming their provenance. Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-durar wa-jāmi' al-ghurar, ed. Bernd Radtke et al., 9 vols., Cairo, 1960-1994, 9:310.
Al-Maqrīzī, al-Mawā'iz wa-l-i'tibār fī dhikr al-khitat wa-l-āthār, ed. Ayman Fu'ād Sayyid, 7 vols., London, 2013, 1:628-629. However, there is evidence to suggest that it was still inhabited in the later Mamluk period.
Jean-Michel MOUTON, Le Sinaï médiéval: un espace stratégique de l’islam, Paris, 2000, 83-88.
On the strategic role of the fortresses built by Saladin through Sinai, see Jean-Michel MOUTON and Sāmī Sālih 'ABD AL-MALIK, "La Forteresse de l'île de Graye (Qal'at Ayla) à l'époque de Saladin. Étude épigraphique et historique," Annales islamologiques 29 (1995): 75-90;
Jean-Michel MOUTON, Sāmī Sālih 'ABD AL-MALIK, Olivier JAUBERT, and Claudine PIATON, "La Route de Saladin (Tarīq Sadr wa Ayla) au Sinaï," Annales islamologiques 30 (1996): 41-70;
Jean-Michel MOUTON, Jean-Olivier GUILHOT, Claudine PIATON, and Philippe RACINET, Sadr, une forteresse de Saladin au Sinaï: histoire et archéologie, 2 vols., Paris, 2010.
On the itineraries of the pilgrimage routes from Egypt and Syria, see 'Alī b. Ibrāhīm GHABBĀN, Les Deux Routes syrienne et égyptienne de pèlerinage au nord-ouest de l’Arabie Saoudite, 2 vols., Cairo, 2011.
Jean-Claude GARCIN, Un centre musulman de la Haute-Égypte médiévale: Qūs, Cairo, 1976.
Early seventh/thirteenth century.
One of them, named Najm al-Dīn b. Budayr al-'Abbāsī, was still engaged in commercial activities in 723/1323, having been commissioned with gold, pearls, and precious stones belonging to an official whose assets were being confiscated by the sultan's treasury. See Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-durar, 9:310. Another figure was NāSir al-Dīn Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Budayr al-'Abbāsī, who established a madrasah bearing his own name (al-Madrasah al-Budayriyyah) in Cairo in 758/1357. Al-Maqrīzī, al-Mawā'iz wa-l-i'tibār, 4/2:570-571.
Ibn Hajar also mentions a Badr al-Dīn Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Budayr al-'Abbāsī (d. 846/1443).
Ibn Hajar, Inbā' al-ghumr bi-abnā' al-'umr, ed. Hasan Habashī, 4 vols., Cairo, 1994-1998, 4:207.
GARCIN, Un centre musulman, 399-410.
Garcin, Un centre musulman, 405–410.
Jean-Claude GARCIN, "La "méditerranéisation" de l'Empire mamelouk sous les sultans bahrides," Rivista degli studi orientali 48 (1973-1974): 114-116.
GARCIN, Un centre musulman, 406-407, 417-420, 422-423.
Ibn Khaldūn, al-Ta'rīf bi-Ibn Khaldūn wa-rihlatuhu gharban wa-sharqan, ed. Muhammad b. Tāwīt al-Tanjī, Beirut, 1979, 281-282.
Marino Sanuto, I diarii, 58 vols., Venice, 1879-1903, 3:476 (per via del Chosagiero), 4:343 (Cossaer), 418, 419, 492.
Wilhelm KROPP, Physical Geography of the Red Sea: With Sailing Directions, Washington, 1872, 22-23.
On winds and currents in the Red Sea, see KROPP, Physical Geography, 9-12, 16-24;
The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Pilot, Containing Description of the Suez Canal, the Gulfs of Suez and Akaba, the Red Sea and Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Gulf of Aden with Sokótra and Adjacent Islands, and Part of the Eastern Coast of Arabia, London, 19005, 19-21;
DE ROMANIS, The Indo-Roman Pepper Trade, 32-35.
On the significance of the geophysical circumstances on the evolution of ports of trade in the Red Sea, see Anna M. KOTARBA-MORLEY, "Ancient Ports of Trade on the Red Sea Coasts - The 'Parameters of Attractiveness' of Site Locations and Human Adaptations to Fluctuating Land- and Sea-Scapes. Case Study Berenike Troglodytica, Southeastern Egypt," in: Geological Setting, Palaeoenvironment and Archaeology of the Red Sea, ed. Najeeb M.A. Rasul and Ian C.F. Stewart, Cham, 2019, 741-774.
The article by G.R. TIBBETS, "Arab Navigation in the Red Sea," The Geographical Journal 127/3 (1961):322-334, primarily focuses on the region south of Jedda.
See above.
Palerne, Voyage, 154.
See his biography in Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Manhal al-sāfī wa-l-mustawfá fī ba'd al-Wāfī, ed. Muhammad Muhammad Amīn, 13 vols., Cairo, 1984-2009, 5:263-8 (no. 1006).
For his various appointments as governor of Alexandria, see Ahmad 'ABD AR-RĀZIQ, "Les Gouverneurs dÁlexandrie au temps des Mamlūks," Annales islamologiques 18 (1982): 135 (no. 21), 136 (no. 24), 136-7 (no. 27), 138 (no. 33), 139 (no. 37).
On his career, see Martina MüLLER-WIENER, Eine Stadtgeschichte Alexandrias von 564/1169 bis in die Mitte des 9./15. Jahrhunderts: Verwaltung und innerstädtische Organisationsformen, Berlin, 1992, 179-187.
Despite al-Qalqashandī's assertion that he held the position of chief chamberlain at the time of the event, this claim is not corroborated by other sources. See Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Manhal al-sāfī, 5:264-265.
By the end of the seventh/thirteenth century, it is more probable that these mentions refer to al-Tūr and not more to al-Rāyah. It should be noted that the archaeological evidence found at al-Rāyah points to the abandonment of the port during the same century. The last reference found in the documents is from the mid-seventh/thirteenth century.
Nūr al-ma'ārif, 1:492.
In another place (Nūr al-maimages/nec-AMMB.pngārif, 1: 109), al-Ṭūr is again referenced in relation with a two-month salary and an allotment of forty (dirhams?) for travel expenses, which were provided by the Rasūlīd state to certain officials, including envoys and military officers, who traveled from Aden to al-Tūr.
See also VALLET, L’Arabie marchande, 492.
The Mamlūk authorities eventually accorded priority to the transmission of a missive from the 'Abbāsid caliph. The letter was conveyed to the Rasūlīd sultan by two individuals, one of whom was NāSir al-Dīn al-Tūrī, thus from al-Tūr. See VALLET, L’Arabie marchande, 498-499.
Baybars al-ManSūrī, Zubdat al-fikrah fī tārīkh al-hijrah, ed. Donald S. Richards, Beirut, 1998, 395-396.
On swimming, see Aboubakr CHRAïBI and Samira MEZEGHRANE, "Natation et perfection: un marqueur de la civilisation islamique," Quaderni di studi arabi 19 (2024): 1-30. It is evident that other scenarios can be postulated. For instance, the castaway's survival could be facilitated by securing himself to a piece of debris from the wreckage and subsequently ascending onto a reef, where the intervention of a passing vessel could lead to his rescue before dying of thirst.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Daw' al-lāmi', 11:127.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Daw' al-lāmi', 4:267.
Ibn Hajar, Inbā' al-ghumr, 4:200-201.
Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk li-ma'rifat duwal al-mulūk, ed. Muhammad MuStafá Ziyādah and Sa'īd 'Abd al-Fattāh 'Āshūr, 4 vols., Cairo, 1934-1973, 4/3:1028.
Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk li-ma'rifat duwal al-mulūk, ed. Muhammad MuStafá Ziyādah and Sa'īd 'Abd al-Fattāh 'Āshūr, 4 vols., Cairo, 1934-1973, 3/3:980.
Ibn Iyās, Badā'i' al-zuhūr fī waqā'i' al-duhūr, ed. Muhammad MuStafá, 6 vols., Beirut, 1960-1975, 4:101 and 103.
Ibn Iyās, Badā'i' al-zuhūr fī waqā'i' al-duhūr, ed. Muhammad MuStafá, 6 vols., Beirut, 1960-1975, 4:163.
Ibn Iyās, Badā'i' al-zuhūr fī waqā'i' al-duhūr, ed. Muhammad MuStafá, 6 vols., Beirut, 1960-1975, 4:150-151.
VALLET, L’Arabie marchande, 650-672;
VALLET, "Le Marché des épices dÁlexandrie et les mutations du grand commerce de la mer Rouge (xIve-xve siècle)," in: Alexandrie Médiévale 4, ed. Christian Décobert, Jean-Yves Empereur, and Christophe Picard, Alexandria, 2011, 222-226.
Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, 4/2:823-4 (wa-sabab hādhā anna al-sultān aqāma tā'ifah tashtarī lahu al-bada'i' wa-tabī'uhā fa-idhā ukhidhat bi-Juddah al-mukūs min al-tujjār allatī tarid min al-Hind humilat fulfulan wa-ghayrahā bi-bahr al-Qulzum min Juddah ilá al-Tūr thumma humilat min al-Tūr ilá Misr thumma nuqilat fī al-Nīl ilá al-Iskandariyyah).
See also MELOY, Imperial Power, 113-170;
MELOY, "Economic Intervention and the Political Economy of the Mamluk State Under al-Ashraf Barsbāy," MSR 9/2 (2005): 85-103;
MELOY, "Imperial Strategy."
See Patrick WING, "Indian Ocean Trade and Sultanic Authority: The nāzir of Jedda and the Mamluk Political Economy," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 57 (2014): 55-75.
Leonardo Frescobaldi, Giorgio Gucci, and Simone Sigoli, Visit to the Holy Places of Egypt, Sinai, Palestine and Syria in 1384, trans. Theophilus Bellorini and Eugene Hoade, Jerusalem, 1948, 34.
Emmanuel Piloti, Traité d’Emmanuel Piloti sur le passage en Terre Sainte (1420), ed. Pierre-Herman Dopp, Louvain and Paris, 1958, 105.
The port is also mentioned in a letter addressed to the Venetian consul in Alexandria in 1419 for the arrival of spices. See Georg CHRIST, Trading Conflicts: Venetian Merchants and Mamluk Officials in Late Medieval Alexandria, Leiden and Boston, 2012, 25, fn. 36.
Dionisius AGIUS, "Ships that Sailed the Red Sea in the Medieval and Early Islam: Perception and Reception," in: The Hajj: Collected Essays, ed. Venetia Porter and Liana Saif, London, 2013, 88.
Dionisius AGIUS, Classic Ships of Islam: From Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean, Leiden and Boston, 2008, 219-220, 226-227.
Dionisius AGIUS, Classic Ships of Islam: From Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean, Leiden and Boston, 2008, 220.
Unlikely similar to the coracle that was used in Iraq and also called za'īmah. See AGIUS, Classic Ships, 129-130.
This is confirmed by the Portuguese Tome Pires (d. ca. 1540), who, describing the situation in 1511, says that it "is not possible to go from Suez to Tor except by day and in small light craft, as the water is all shallow and full of rocks." Tome Pires, The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512–1515, ed. and trans. Armando Cortesão, 2 vols., London, 1944, 1:18.
MELOY, Imperial Power, 63.
Al-Jazīrī, al-Durar al-farā'id al-munazzamah fī akhbār al-hājj wa-tarīq Makkah al-mu'azzamah, ed. Muhammad Hasan Ismā'īl, 2 vols., Beirut, 2002, 2:5-6.
In another place (Al-Jazīrī, al-Durar al-farā'id al-munazzamah fī akhbār al-hājj wa-tarīq Makkah al-mu'azzamah, ed. Muhammad Hasan Ismā'īl, 2 vols., Beirut, 2002, 2:5), he pinpoints that the jilāb were small ones, indicating that this kind of ship was available in two sizes.
Piloti, Traité, 105.
The tribes from al-Tūr that participated in this activity, along with the quantity of loads they were able to transport, are outlined by al-Jazīrī, al-Durar al-farā'id al-munazzamah, 2:14, specifically in relation to the pilgrimage. However, there is no evidence to suggest that this service was exclusive to the pilgrimage season.
Al-Jazīrī also states that the cost of each load in the early tenth/ sixteenth century was two dinars (al-Jazīrī, al-Durar al-farā'id al-munazzamah, 2:6). A Mamluk decree dated 907/1501 suggests that the rental of the camels (al-tarkīb) was managed at the port by designated representatives and that this enterprise generated a revenue stream (mutahassil), from which these representatives were remunerated.
See Frédéric BAUDEN, "An Unpublished Decree of QānSūh al-Ghawrī Regarding Administrative Matters in the Port of al-Tūr," Mamlūk Studies Review XXVI (2024): 365-389, here 384.
Ibn al-HimSī, Hawādith al-zamān wa-wafayāt al-shuyūkh wa-al-aqrān, ed. 'Umar 'Abd al-Salām Tadmurī, 3 vols., Sidon and Beirut, 1999, 3:39.
Part of which were published: ERNST, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden; 'Abd al-Latīf IBRĀHīM, "Thalāth wathā'iq fiqhiyyah," Majallat Kulliyyat al-Adab, Jāmi'at al-Qāhirah 25/1 (1963): 95-123;
MahfūZ HANĀ, "al-Tatawwur al-Dīblūmāsī;"
D.S. RICHARDS, "St Catherine's Monastery and the Bedouin: Archival Documents of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries," in Le Sinaï de la con-quête arabe à nos jours, éd. Jean-Michel Mouton, Cairo, 2001, 149-181;
MahfūZ HANĀ, Mamluk Administrative Documents.
Three copies of this text from the sixteenth century have been preserved. The only dated copy is from 1543 (British Library, MS Tiberius d.IX), while a second copy is probably contemporary of the former (James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota, MS 1541 fCa). The third copy is from the third quarter of the sixteenth century. (Biblioteca Geral de Universidade de Coimbra, MS Cofre 33). On these copies, see Roger Lee DE JESUS, "As 'Tábuas dos Roteiros da Índia' de D. João de Castro da Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra: novos dados," Boletim da Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra 51 (2021): 75-116.
Joos van Ghistele, Voyage en Égypte de Joos van Ghistele, 1482–1483, trans. Renée Bauwens-Préaux, Cairo, 1976, 181.
The building is visible on the depiction of the port in João de Castro's rutter. See Figures 5, 7, and 9 (indicated by letter D). The metokhion seems to appear in some documents from Sinai under the form antūsh/amtūsh, but there is controversy as to whether this word refers to a building, a garden, or even to a person's name. See RICHARDS, "St Catherine's Monastery and the Bedouin," 153n23;
RICHARDS, Mamluk Administrative Documents, 92.
See also ERNST, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden, 148 (no. XXXII, dated 872/1467), where the decree mentions people from the monastery who were settled in the port of al-Tūr to manage the assets of the monks.
See also ERNST, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden, 160 (no. XXXVI, dated 873/1468), where it is stated that the monks had designated a Christian representative to oversee all matters pertaining to their assets, which included palm trees, in the port.
In 898/1482, the majority of the monks of St. Catherine were compelled to seek refuge in their metokhion located in the port of al-Tūr. This was a direct consequence of the actions of the Awlād 'Alī, a local tribe of Bedouins who had subjected them to tyrannical oppression. In their pursuit of the monks up to al-Tūr, the Awlād 'Alī not only inflicted physical violence upon them but also perpetrated acts of robbery. See RICHARDS, Mamluk Administrative Documents, 77-79 (no. IX). In response to the complaint raised by the monks, a decree was issued by the sultan.
See ERNST, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden, 202-205 (no. LIV).
ERNST, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden, 176 (no. XLII).
ERNST, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden, 180 (no. XLIV).
Daisuke IGARASHI emphasized that it was aligned with the sultan's financial resources, particularly various forms of official financial resources that were directly managed by the sultan himself. At the inception of the Circassian period, the bureau's jurisdiction initially encompassed the sultan's leasehold lands. However, during the reign of Qāytbāy, the bureau's purview was expanded to encompass additional revenue streams, including those derived from the sultan's transactions in spices, the proceeds of certain taxes, and other commercial activities. Daisuke IGARASHI, "The Evolution of the Sultanic Fisc and al-Dhakhīrah During the Circassian Mamluk Period," Mamlūk Studies Review XIV (2010): 85-108, here 89, 99-102.
Daisuke IGARASHI, "The Evolution of the Sultanic Fisc and al-Dhakhīrah During the Circassian Mamluk Period," Mamlūk Studies Review XIV (2010): 184 (no. XLVI).
Daisuke IGARASHI, "The Evolution of the Sultanic Fisc and al-Dhakhīrah During the Circassian Mamluk Period," Mamlūk Studies Review XIV (2010): 188 (no. XLVIII).
Daisuke IGARASHI, "The Evolution of the Sultanic Fisc and al-Dhakhīrah During the Circassian Mamluk Period," Mamlūk Studies Review XIV (2010): 196 (no. LI).
Monastery of St. Catherine, doc. 262. Shihāb al-Dīn Ahmad Ibn Taybaq was the son of Badr al-Dīn Muhammad b. Nūr al-Dīn 'Alī, who is mentioned in a document regarding an endowment in Cairo dated 798-9/1395-7.
See Muhammad Muhammad AMīN, Catalogue des documents d’archives du Caire de 239/853 à 922/1516 (depuis le IIIe/IXe siècle jusqu’à la fin de l’époque mamlouke), Cairo, 1981, 89.
Monastery of St. Catherine, docs. 269 (860/1456), 267 (864/1459), 305 (865/1461), 306 (same year; published in Ibrāhīm, "Thalāth wathā'iq," 105-109), 307 (same year), 308 (same year), 309 (same year), 277 (867/1463; published in Ibrāhīm, "Thalāth wathā'iq," 97-100), 274 (874/1469), 280 (879/1474), 282 (882/1477), 285 (same year; published in Ibrāhīm, "Thalāth wathā'iq," 101-104), 290 (883/1478), 291 (883/1479), 292 (884/1479), 294 (same year), 296 (same year), 299 (same year), 293 (884/1480), 312 (887/1482), 325 (911/1506), 239 (922/1516).
As found in many traditional houses in Egypt. See EL-SAID BADAWI and Martin HINDS, A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic. Arabic-English, Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1986, 826.
IBRĀHīM, "Thalāth wathā'iq," 106.
ERNST, Die mamlukischen Sultansurkunden, 196 (no. LI). Al-Jazīrī, speaking of the costs linked to the pilgrimage caravan in his time (first half of the tenth/sixteenth c.), mentions the expenses due for the renting of storerooms (shuwan) and storehouses (hawāsil) in al-Tūr as being tantamount to 100 nisf fiddah, that is, paras.
Ibn Duqmāq (d. 809/1406) already describes al-Tūr as a port where there was a market frequented by the merchants. See Ibn Duqmāq, al-Intisār li-wāsitat 'iqd al-amsār, ed. Karl Vollers, 2 vols., Cairo, 1893, 2:54.
Four decades later, in his al-Taghr al-bāsim, completed before 846/1442, al-Sahmāwī describes the port of al-Tūr as furdat Misr bi-bahr al-Qulzum ("the port and custom-shouse of Egypt in the Gulf of Suez").
See al-Sahmāwī, al-Thaghr al-basim fī sinā'at al-kātib wa-lkātim al-ma'rūf bi-ism al-Maqsid al-rafī' al-munsha' al-hādī li-dīwān al-inshā' lil-Khālidī, ed. Ashraf Muhammad Anas Mursī, 2 vols., Cairo, 2009, 1:286.
Al-Zāhirī, Zubdat kashf al-mamālik wa-bayān al-turuq wa-l-masālik, ed. Paul Ravaisse, Paris, 1894, 16.
See MELOY, Imperial Power, 127.
Van Ghistele, Voyage, 181.
Piloti, Traité, 105. During the excavations led by the Japanese team, a dinar from Jaqmaq was unearthed on the site.
See KAWATOKO, "Multi-Disciplinary Approaches," 854.
Arnold von Harff, The Pilgrimage of Arnold von Harff, Knight from Cologne, Through Italy, Syria, Egypt, Arabia, Ethiopia, Nubia, Palestine, Turkey, France and Spain, Which He Accomplished in the Years 1496 to 1499, trans. Malcolm Letts, London, 1946, 136.
Sanudo, I diarii, 1:913.
Sanudo, I diarii, 2:1041 and 1042.
Sanudo, I diarii, 4:343
(1502: 1,600 schibe, that is, zakībah, a measure of capacity (see William POPPER, Egypt and Syria Under the Circassian Sultans, 1382–1468 A.D.: Systematic Notes to Ibn Taghrî Birdî’s Chronicles of Egypt, 2 vols., Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1955, 2:39), 418 (same year), 492 (same year: six vessels with 2,000 schibe), 650 (same year: arrival of spices), 691 (same year: nine vessels); 6:246 (1505: 1,500 colli of spices); 7:355 (1508: a good quantity of spices); 9:112 (1509: 30 vessels with spices); 11:104 (1510: a good quantity of spices), 829 (same year: 17 vessels with spices); 12:155 (1511: arrival in Cairo of a caravan with spices from al-Tūr), 236 (same year: spices); 18: 155 (1514: some vessels with spices).
Van Ghistele, Voyage, 181.
Bernhard von Breydenbach, Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (1490): "Porta thor ubi applicant naves ex India."
Von Harff, The Pilgrimage, 149.
On these fortifications, see PRADINES, "The Mamluk Fortifications."
Sanudo, I diarii, 6:249.
Pierre Belon, Voyage en Égypte de Pierre Belon du Mans, 1547, Cairo, 1970, 130a.
This depiction coincides with the description given by Linant de Bellefonds in the nineteenth century. See PRADINES, "The Mamluk Fortifications," 53 and fig. 24. In the meantime, the fort had certainly been repaired by the Ottomans.
For the various positions found in the ports of the Red Sea, see AL-'AMĀYIRAH, Mawāni' al-bahr al-ahmar, 149-162, and more specifically for Yanbu', AL-GHĀMIDī, al-Tijārah wa-l-milāhah, 165-173.
Piloti, Traité, 105.
BAUDEN, "An Unpublished Decree."
The responsibility of these watchmen was to ensure the security of the commodities from the moment of unloading until their transfer to the storehouses and warehouses, and subsequently to the camels for transportation. See al-Jazīrī, al-Durar al-farā'id al-munazzamah, 2:18.
Karīm al-Dīn 'Abd al-Karīm b. Ibrāhīm al-Muqsimī was inspector of al-Tūr before he was appointed to the money changing house in Jedda in 886/1481-1482. Al-Sakhāwī, al-Daw' al-lāmi', 4:306-7 (no. 827).
Qarājā al-Zāhirī Jaqmaq worked for the inspector of the Privy of Jaqmaq's son, Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf, in the quality of intendant of al-Tūr. This must have been during Jaqmaq's reign. Al-Sakhāwī, al-Daw' al-lāmi', 6:215 (no. 719).
Lastly, 'Alī b. Hasan al-Sunbātī was appointed inspector of al-Tūr after 896/1490-1. Al-Sakhāwī, al-Daw' al-lāmi', 5:213 (no. 714).
This was Qarājā (see previous footnote). Al-Sakhāwī, al-Daw' al-lāmi', 6:215.
See BAUDEN, "An Unpublished Decree," 382-383.
He was later appointed inspector of the Privy. Ibn Iyās, Badā'i' al-zuhūr, 4:22;
Ibn al-HimSī, Hawādith al-zamān, 2:140.
Monastery of St. Catherine, doc. 239 (ahad al-mubāshirīn bi-dīwān al-khāss al-sharīf [bi-banda]r al-Tūr al-mubārak).
BAUDEN, "An Unpublished Decree," 381.
See al-Jazīrī, al-Durar al-farā'id al-munazzamah, 2:18 and 19.
An operation known as tafrīq. See al-Jazīrī, al-Durar al-farā'id al-munazzamah,.
Monastery of St. Catherine, doc. 262 (Mūsá b. Sa'īd b. Ilyās al-NaSrānī al-Shawbakī al-Malakī al-tājir al-saffār al-ma'rūf bi-Ibn Tarkhān).
Pero Tafur, Travels and Adventures, 1435–1439, trans. Malcolm Letts, London, 1926, 84.
Van Ghistele, Voyage, 181.
Monastery of St. Catherine, doc. 269 (dated 860/1456: Ishāq b. Fadl b. Ishāq al-NaSrānī al-Malakī al-Shawbakī al-mutasabbib bi-Bandar al-Tūr); 277 (dated 867/1463, see Ibrāhīm, "Thalāth wathā'iq," 57: al-mu'allim Sālim b. Bishārah b. 'Āmir al-NaSrānī al-Malakī al-ma'rūf bi-Ibn 'Uwaynah al-mutasabbib bi-bandar al-Tūr), 310 (dated 894/1489: Wahbah b. Sulaymān b. Fahd b. Sa'd al-NaSrānī al-Malakī al-mutasabbib bi-bandar al-Tūr al-mubārak al-ma'rūf bi-Ibn Fahd).
