The office of the ustadar al-aliya in the circassian mamluk era

TY - CHAP

T1 - The office of the ustadar al-aliya in the circassian mamluk era

AU - Igarashi, Daisuke

N1 - Funding Information: Subsequently, the Dīwān al-Mufrad was expanded with the addition of further sources of revenue, and the state finances of the Mamluk dynasty came to be restructured around the Dīwān al-Mufrad. As a result, the state’s financial administration was divided among the three financial bureaus of the Dīwān al-Wizāra, Dīwān al-Khāṣṣ, and Dīwān al-Mufrad, each of which was responsible for different incomes and expenditures. The Dīwān al-Wizāra was funded by particular districts such as Giza and al-Manfalūṭ and miscellaneous taxes (mukūs), and was responsible for the provision of meat and rations to the Sultanic Mamluks and the supply of the sultan’s kitchens. The office of wazīr responsible for the dīwān was granted to both military officials and bureaucratic administrators. The Dīwān al-Khāṣṣ was headed by a bureaucrat called the nāẓir al-khāṣṣ, was funded by Alexandria and other Mediterranean port cities, and was responsible for the procurement of and payment for robes of honor (khilʿa) and funding the two Islamic feasts (ʿĪdayn). The Dīwān al-Mu-frad was funded through income from the great majority of Egypt’s farming villages, and was responsible for providing the Sultanic Mamluks with their monthly salaries, clothing allowances, and provision of fodder for horses. They were also responsible at a later stage for provisioning the court’s servants.13 These developments in the Dīwān al-Mufrad raised the status and expanded the authority of the supreme ustādār. During Barqūq’s second period as sultan, Jamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd (no. 2 in the Appendix) was appointed as the supreme ustādār, presiding simultaneously over all three financial bureaus as the mushīr al-dawla (counselor of the financial bureaus), and the importance of the position dramatically increased. Speaking of the supreme ustādār, al-Maqrīzī adjudged him equivalent to the wazīrs in the early Abbasid Caliphate who held great powers and executive authority.14 On the other hand, the role of the Dīwān al-Wizāra, which had functioned as the Mamluk dynasty’s finance ministry, decreased, and the ranking and authority of its wazīr declined. When the supreme ustādār simultaneously held the post of wazīr, the position increased in rank, but when the post was held independently, and particularly by bureaucrats, the wazīrs found themselves at the beck and call of the supreme

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103840675&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85103840675&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1163/9789004345058_006

DO - 10.1163/9789004345058_006

M3 - Chapter

AN - SCOPUS:85103840675

T3 - Islamic History and Civilization

SP - 115

EP - 142

BT - Islamic History and Civilization

PB - Brill Academic Publishers

ER -