Imagining RÜM in Mamluk Cairo ABD Al-Basıt Al Malati and the Ottoman domains

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2486538_(Table of contents)

This thesis is a study of a neglected late Mamluk scholar and historian Abd al-Basit b. Khalil b. Shahin al-Malati with a special focus on the image of the Ottomans and their patronage in his historical works and especially his biographical dictionary. Al-Malati depicts the Ottoman sultans as generous patrons of knowledge and portrays the contemporary Ottoman ruler Bayezid II as a scholar-king. The present thesis attempts to introduce al-Malati and his oeuvre, contextualize his historical works, also searching for how he learned about the Rumi sultans. Informal networks between these two regions played a significant role in al-Malati’s description of Ottoman patronage. By informal networks here, we mean al-Malati’s encounters with various scholars, merchants, emigres, and captives from the Ottoman lands outside the formal channels of diplomacy and scholarly activities. The thesis also contextualizes al-Malati’s observations about Rumi scholars and Bayezid II’s patronage and argues that al-Malati’s trouble with contemporary Mamluk patronage led him to adopt a pro-Ottoman attitude amid the power struggle between the Mamluks and the Ottomans in the eastern Mediterranean. Building on these points, the study also seeks to problematize the idea that the Ottoman lands were marginal to Islamic learning before the Ottoman conquest of Greater Syria and Egypt in 1517. A careful study of al-Malati and his environment suggests that Ottoman scholarly life was appreciated in Mamluk scholarly circles in the late fifteenth century, already before the Ottoman expansion into the Arab lands