MAMLŪK STUDIES REVIEW XXI 2018 MAMLŪK STUDIES REVIEW XXI 2018 MIDDLE EAST DOCUMENTATION CENTER (MEDOC) THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAMLŪK STUDIES REVIEW published by the middle east documentation center (medoc) the university of chicago E-ISSN 1947-2404 (ISSN for printed volumes: 1086-170X) Mamlūk Studies Review is an annual, Open Access, refereed journal devoted to the study of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria (648–922/1250–1517). The goals ofMamlūk Studies Review are to take stock of scholarship devoted to the Mamluk era, nurture communication within the field, and promote further research by encouraging the critical discussion of all aspects of this important medieval Islamic polity. The journal includes both articles and reviews of recent books. Submissions of original work on any aspect of the field are welcome, although the editorial board will periodically is- sue volumes devoted to specific topics and themes.Mamlūk Studies Review also solicits edited texts and translations of shorter Arabic source materials (waqf deeds, letters,fatawa and the like), and encourages discussions of Mamluk era artifacts (pottery, coins, etc.) that place these resources in wider contexts. An article or book review inMamlūk Studies Review makes its author a contributor to the scholarly literature and should add to a constructive dialogue. Questions regarding style should be resolved through reference to the MSR Editorial and Style Guide (http://mamluk. uchicago.edu/msr.html) and The Chicago Manual of Style. Transliterated Middle Eastern languages should conform to the system utilized by the Library of Congress (see the conversion chart near the end of this volume). The Style Guide covers Unicode fonts and diacritical marks, specifications for photos, maps and other graphics, text formatting, and other matters. Please read it carefully. Articles which diverge widely from the guidelines may not be accepted, and graphics which do not meet the requirements may not be usable. Submissions may be made by emailing the editor at the address below. Please contact the editor with questions about format, graphics or other matters before sending the article. OPEN ACCESS Mamlūk Studies Review is an Open Access publication. We believe that free and open access to scholarship benefits ev- eryone. Open Access means that users, whether individual readers or institutions, are able to access articles and other content in Mamlūk Studies Review at no charge. All content published in Mamlūk Studies Review will be immediately and permanently free for anyone to use. Content in Mamlūk Studies Review is copyrighted by its authors and published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY), which explicitly grants anyone permission to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, use, or link to the work, as long as users properly cite the author(s) and Mamlūk Studies Review. Please contact the editor regarding uses which may fall outside of this description. For more information, please see http://mamluk. uchicago.edu/msr.html. CONTACT All communications should be sent to: The Editor,Mamlūk Studies Review, 5828 South University Avenue, 201 Pick Hall, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. The editor can be contacted by email at [email protected]. The logo that appears on the cover and title page was created by John E. Woods. Visit MEDOC on the web at http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/mideast and http://mamluk.uchicago.edu. These sites provide links to back issues of this journal, The Chicago Online Bibliography of Mamluk Studies (a fully searchable database of thousands of primary and secondary sources), and other Mamluk Studies resources created and maintained by ME- DOC. The site also has information about subscribing to the Mamluk listserv, an open forum for discussing all aspects of the history and culture of the Mamluk Sultanate. The Editors of Mamlūk Studies Review encourage readers to use the listserv to comment upon and discuss issues raised in the journal. MSR is permanently available—full volumes and individual articles—at https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/. DOI of Vol. XXI: 10.6082/X11b-km37. See https://doi.org/10.6082/v8sk-rk04 to download the full volume or individual articles. This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY). See http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/msr.html for more information about copyright and open access. MAMLŪK STUDIES REVIEW Editor MARLIS J. SALEH, The University of Chicago Associate Editor FRÉDÉRIC BAUDEN, University of Liège Editorial Board REUVEN AMITAI, Hebrew University of Jerusalem DORIS BEHRENS-ABOUSEIF, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London ANNE F. BROADBRIDGE, University of Massachusetts VANESSA DE GIFIS, Wayne State University LI GUO, University of Notre Dame TH. EMIL HOMERIN, University of Rochester R. STEPHEN HUMPHREYS, University of California, Santa Barbara DAISUKE IGARASHI, Waseda University JOHN L. MELOY, American University of Beirut CARL F. PETRY, Northwestern University WARREN C. SCHULTZ, DePaul University BETHANY J. WALKER, University of Bonn PATRICK WING, University of Redlands JOHN E. WOODS, The University of Chicago Founder and Editor Emeritus BRUCE D. CRAIG, The University of Chicago Production OLAF G. NELSON, The University of Chicago DOI of Vol. XXI: 10.6082/X11b-km37. See https://doi.org/10.6082/v8sk-rk04 to download the full volume or individual articles. This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY). See http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/msr.html for more information about copyright and open access. The Bruce D. Craig Prize for Mamluk Studies The Bruce D. Craig Prize, carrying a cash award of $1,000, is given annually by Mamlūk Studies Review for the best dissertation on a topic related to the Mamluk Sultanate submitted to an American or Canadian university during the preced- ing calendar year. In the event no dissertations are submitted, or none is deemed to merit the prize, no prize will be awarded. To be considered for the 2018 Prize, dissertations must be defended by December 31, 2018, and submitted to the Prize Committee by January 31, 2019. Submissions should be sent electronically to Mar- lis J. Saleh, Editor, Mamlūk Studies Review, at [email protected]. Previous Prize Winners: 2004: Tamer el-Leithy, Princeton University, “Coptic Culture and Conversion in Medieval Cairo: 1293–1524.” 2005: Zayde G. Antrim, Harvard University, “Place and Belonging in Medieval Syria, 6th/12th to 8th/14th Centuries.” 2006: Nahyan A. G. Fancy, University of Notre Dame, “Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288).” 2011: Joint award: Nathan C. Hofer, Emory University, “Sufism, State, and Society in Ayyubid and Early Mamluk Egypt, 1173–1309,” Matthew B. Ingalls, Yale University, “Subtle Innovation Within Networks of Con- vention: The Life, Thought, and Intellectual Legacy of Zakariyya al-Ansari (d. 926/1520).” 2012: Elias Ibrahim Muhanna, Harvard University, “Encyclopaedism of the Mam- luk Period: The composition of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Nuwayrī’s (d. 1333)Nihāyat al- arab fī funūn al-adab.” 2014: Noah Gardiner, University of Michigan, “Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture: Aḥmad al-Būnī and His Readers through the Mamlūk Period.” DOI of Vol. XXI: 10.6082/X11b-km37. See https://doi.org/10.6082/v8sk-rk04 to download the full volume or individual articles. This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY). See http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/msr.html for more information about copyright and open access. CONTENTS Articles Introduction: Representations of Women in the Mamluk Period vii Antonella Ghersetti Between Function and Fiction: The Representation 1 of Women in al-Ibshīhī’s al-Mustaṭraf Mirella Cassarino The Representation of Slave Girls in a Physiognomic 21 Text of the Fourteenth Century Antonella Ghersetti Women and Men in al-Suyūṭī’s Guides to Sex and Marriage 47 Pernilla Myrne Medieval Arabic Islam and the Culture of Gender: 69 Feminine Voices in al-Suyūṭī’s Literature on Sex and Marriage Daniela Rodica Firanescu The Woman as a Construct: Reconsidering Men’s Image of Women 87 in the Arabic-Islamic World—the Case of Seventeenth-Century Cairo Paulina B. Lewicka Between Venice and Alexandria: Trade and the Movement 115 of Precious Metals in the Early Mamluk Period David Jacoby Book Reviews Sarah Büssow-Schmitz, Die Beduinen der Mamluken: Beduinen im politischen Leben Ägyptens im 8./14. Jahrhundert 139 (Frank H. Stewart) Adam Talib, How Do You Say “Epigram” in Arabic? Literary History at the Limits of Comparison 151 (Hakan Özkan) Recent Publications 157 Introduction: Representations of Women in the Mamluk Period AAntAnell nAntonell Antonella Ghersetti Representations of Women in the Mamluk Period Representations of Women in the Mamluk Period In the pre-modern Arab-Islamic world the act of writing significantly contributed to establishing and perpetuating a culture of gender, especially perspicuous in images and representations of women and men found in texts where stereotyped physical and moral features are portrayed. Gender relationships find their place particularly in what we could define as normative literature on sex and marriage (adab al-nikāḥ), but also in works of a wider scope (e.g., adab anthologies) that di- 10.6082/3v7a-f634 rectly or indirectly describe interpersonal relationships. From idealization of the URI perfect wife to demonization of the cunning and ugly woman, passing through images of women being at the service of men’s pleasure, women’s representations in the literary production generally seem to be the result of a dominant, mascu- line voice and the expression of men’s interests, mainly focused on the feminine body and personality as serviceable commodities. The panel “Representations of Women in the Mamluk period,” presented at the Second Conference of the School of Mamlūk Studies (Liège, June 25–27, 2015), was conceived as a way of investigat- ing representations of women in the textual production of the Mamluk period, aiming at better understanding gender relations in Mamluk society.