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A Biographical Study of al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr

First: The Author’s Era

Introduction

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr spent his full seventy-four years under the rule of the Bahri Mamluk state, whose dominion lasted from 648 AH to 784 AH. The Mamluks had seized authority from their Ayyubid masters, assumed the title of “sultan” while retaining the designation “mamluk,” and maintained a merely ceremonial Abbasid caliphate to lend their rule a semblance of legitimacy. Secure in Egypt and unchallenged on the scene, they used their chivalry and martial skill to forge a glorious record of jihad: they crushed the Mongols at ʿAyn Jālūt (658 AH) and the Tatars at Shaqhab (702 AH); they defeated and captured Louis IX at Damietta (648 AH); they took Acre (690 AH); and they permanently cleansed the Syrian coastline of Crusader invaders.

From 703 AH to 784 AH they continued to reign, ever haunted by the recurring Crusader threat whose remnants had regrouped on the island of Cyprus.

The frontiers of the Mamluk realm stretched from Yemen in the south to the Ottoman border in the north, and from the Euphrates in the east to Barqah in the west. Their strength was manifest in the unification of Syria and Egypt and in the honor of bringing the Hijaz under their sway in service to the Two Sacred Sanctuaries. The remaining provinces were attached to the capital, Cairo, in varying degrees of dependence.

Between Ibn Kathīr’s birth and his death he witnessed five Abbasid caliphs, fifteen sultans, and twenty governors in Damascus. In what follows we shall shed light on this period by examining its political, social, scholarly, and intellectual life.