Engaging the ‘Türkmen question’ in Ibn ʿArabshāh’s fifteenth-century sketch of east Anatolian relations with the Sultanate of Cairo (786–844/1385–1440)

Abstract This article analyses the fifteenth-century Arabic panegyric for Sultan Jaqmaq (r. 1438–1453), Taʾlīf al-ṭāhir fī shiyam al-Malik al-Ẓāhir (The pure composition on the character of the King al-Ẓāhir), by the Syrian poet-historian Aḥmad ibn ʿArabshāh (1389–1450). It focuses on how the author engages with the Dulgadirid and Aqquyunlu Türkmen in the context of the new sultan’s attempts to repair fraught, decades-long relationships with these groups. Challenging the expectations of a highly literary text praising the ruler, Ibn ʿArabshāh’s writing offers sophisticated engagement with the political tensions of the time and provides insight into how the Cairo Sultanate navigated the complex networks of its northern frontier through rhetoric and realpolitik. By examining layered political commentary on the former rivals, allies, and antagonists of fifteenth-century Cairo—the article argues that Ibn ʿArabshāh utilised the previous 60 years of Türkmen–sultanate relations to stage a narrative of closure and reconciliation, in the wake of Barsbāy’s disastrous frontier campaigns, to better present Jaqmaq as a sovereign capable of reversing past missteps and ushering in a revitalised and prosperous geopolitical order.