The Historical and Historiographical Significance of the Detention of Ibn Taymiyya

The sources for the Bahrî period are particularly rich for four significant problems of Mamluk history: (I) relations between the Mamluks and Mongols, especially as revealed by Mamluks who defected to the Îl Kh âns and Mongols who deserted to the Mamluks; 1 (2) the role of Arab tribesmen, in particular the Âl-Fadl of Syria, in the Mamluk polity; (3) the role of the kuttâb in the Mamluk bureaucracy, particularly as exemplified by the infamous al-Na sh û (d. A.H. 740/ A.D. 1340) in the latter part of the reign of al-Malik al-Nâsir (693–741/1293–1341); (4) the role of the ‘Ulamâ’ in the dynamics of Mamluk politics, as illustrated by the career of Ibn Taymiyya, by all odds the most famous and in many ways the most important single figure in all of Mamluk history, both Bahrî and Circassian.