MWNF BOOKS

From slaves to sultans, the history of the Mamluks is one of a prodigious rise to power, an epic worthy of a place alongside the most exciting of adventure novels. Palace uprisings, bloody intrigues, murders, but also a visionary organisation, an iron discipline, heroic campaigns, a fierce willpower, a keen sense of politics and diplomacy alongside commercial expansion. Little known until quite recently, the Mamluk era is possibly the most enigmatic period of Muslim Egypt, which led to Islamic supremacy in the Mediterranean at levels of splendour and prestige never before realised and never equalled since. The Mamluk sultans used architecture as a power-legitimising weapon: a demonstration of strength and stability. From this point of view this project organised by Museum with no Frontiers is a godsend. Making use of all available sources, it provides the real backbone to the project: a stimulating vision, in print for the first time, spanning three conquering, festive, scholarly and inventive centuries where the animation of grand ceremonies, organised on the occasion of the enthronement of a new sultan or at the beginning of Ramadan, is witnessed. One is, therefore, intrigued and fascinated but not surprised by the monumental character of the countless religious or civic buildings – palaces, mosques, madrasas, mausoleums, hospitals, major multifunctional centres, works of art – with which the Mamluk sultans embellished their successive capitals and particularly the town of Cairo.