Sending Home for Mom and Dad: The Extended Family Impulse in Mamluk Politics
By Anne Broadbridge
Mamluk Studies Review Volume 15 (2011)
Introduction: With the exception of references to harem politics or marriage ties, scholars rarely spend much time discussing biological family in connection with the Mamluks, as the concept seems incompatible with the system of imported young slaves and the significance ascribed to surrogate familial relationships as the basis for political allegiance. Yet ideas about biological family may have mattered far more to individual mamluks than scholars currently acknowledge. An examination of the concept of biological family reveals two distinct types of biological relatives: first, biological offspring, particularly males, and second, the existing biological family every mamluk left behind in the old country.
The topic of male biological offspring has attracted plenty of scholarly attention, primarily because it is through sons that men attempt to establish dynasties. Scholars have investigated the importance of sultans’ sons in Mamluk society, and their assessments of the relevance, or lack thereof, of the concept of dynasty in the Mamluk world can be divided into two general camps. The arguments made by one side of the discussion read as follows: scholars suggest that the desire of a sultan to form a dynasty by leaving his position to a biological son was inimical to the Mamluk system itself, with its hallmark one-generation aristocracy, its systematic political disenfranchisement of the children of mamluks (the awlād al-nās), and the ties of loyalty created among mamluks and their patrons or masters, which replaced biological ties. In this view, the Mamluk system was one in which the position of sultan passed primarily from mamluk to mamluk through factional maneuvering or struggle. Although the biological sons of sultans did inherit their father’s positions, everyone, including the dying sultan and the son himself, knew that the son was functioning as a placeholder, since real power would then be assumed by one or even multiple commanders, either covertly, in which case the nominal sultan remained as a figurehead, or overtly, in which case the nominal sultan was deposed.
By Anne Broadbridge
Mamluk Studies Review Volume 15 (2011)
Introduction: With the exception of references to harem politics or marriage ties, scholars rarely spend much time discussing biological family in connection with the Mamluks, as the concept seems incompatible with the system of imported young slaves and the significance ascribed to surrogate familial relationships as the basis for political allegiance. Yet ideas about biological family may have mattered far more to individual mamluks than scholars currently acknowledge. An examination of the concept of biological family reveals two distinct types of biological relatives: first, biological offspring, particularly males, and second, the existing biological family every mamluk left behind in the old country.
The topic of male biological offspring has attracted plenty of scholarly attention, primarily because it is through sons that men attempt to establish dynasties. Scholars have investigated the importance of sultans’ sons in Mamluk society, and their assessments of the relevance, or lack thereof, of the concept of dynasty in the Mamluk world can be divided into two general camps. The arguments made by one side of the discussion read as follows: scholars suggest that the desire of a sultan to form a dynasty by leaving his position to a biological son was inimical to the Mamluk system itself, with its hallmark one-generation aristocracy, its systematic political disenfranchisement of the children of mamluks (the awlād al-nās), and the ties of loyalty created among mamluks and their patrons or masters, which replaced biological ties. In this view, the Mamluk system was one in which the position of sultan passed primarily from mamluk to mamluk through factional maneuvering or struggle. Although the biological sons of sultans did inherit their father’s positions, everyone, including the dying sultan and the son himself, knew that the son was functioning as a placeholder, since real power would then be assumed by one or even multiple commanders, either covertly, in which case the nominal sultan remained as a figurehead, or overtly, in which case the nominal sultan was deposed.
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