[1 – Political Life]

We begin with politics because it is what secures stability and safety, the very conditions for an affluent social life, a vibrant scholarly life, and a lively intellectual life. Whenever political order is disturbed or weakened—when consultation disappears, justice is lost, and the jealous voice of free opinion is stifled before the rulers—people’s lives collapse into oppression and misery, wretched poverty, scientific stagnation, and intellectual inertia.

It is truly regrettable that the Bahri Mamluks inaugurated their monopoly on power through treachery, betrayal, conspiracy, and murder, and that this pattern continued among the emirs, with no exception save the third reign of Sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn (709–741 AH) and the term of the deputy governor Sayf al-Dīn Tankiz in Damascus (712–740 AH).

The caliph was nothing more than a ceremonial symbol: he gave the sultan his formal allegiance, lived in his shadow, and possessed no authority over the state’s internal or external affairs. He carried a lofty title, as did his Abbasid forefathers: al-Mustakfī bi-Allāh I (701–736 AH), al-Wāthiq bi-Allāh I (736–742 AH), al-Ḥākim bi-Amrillāh II (742–753 AH), al-Muʿtaḍid bi-Allāh I (753–763 AH), and al-Mutawakkil ʿalā-Allāh I (763–785 AH).

The sultan, by contrast, was the actual ruler who held the reins of domestic politics and the public treasury, with revenues pouring into his palace. For that reason he was ever liable to be murdered or strangled if he proved weak or immature, failed to meet the demands of the emirs around and above him, engaged openly in debauchery that justified his deposition, or acted treacherously, thereby exposing the community and the land to imminent danger. Once his prestige collapsed in the public eye, his watchful rivals would topple him. Although Sultan al-Manṣūr succeeded in founding a ruling family that held the throne for 105 years, only his son Muḥammad ruled with vigor and died in his bed; of al-Nāṣir’s sons and grandsons, six were deposed for weakness, four were killed, and only two died natural deaths.

The deputy governor in Damascus (1) wielded real power so long as circumstances remained calm, the storms around him subsided, and he amassed wealth and property. Yet schemes and slanders ever lay in wait for him; at the first accusation the sultan would order his arrest, confiscation, and execution. Tankiz was the single exception: his tenure was long, justice and security became manifest under his administration, and the sultan himself courted his favor and addressed him with titles of magnificence and lofty station (2); nevertheless, he was arrested when