Yehoshua Frenkel, “Jihād in the Medieval Mediterranean Sea: Naval War and Religious Endowment under the Mamluks,” in Crossroads between Latin Europe and the Near East: Corollaries of the Frankish Presence in the Eastern Mediterranean (12th – 14th Centuries) (Würzburg: Ergon, 2011), 103-125 (original) (raw)

Abū l-Fidā al-Ḥamawī (672/1273-732/1331) witnessed the final stage of the Islamic conquest of the Frankish territories along the Syrian coasts. The well-known Syrian prince and warrior participated in violent events, and was a witness to the capture of Acre (690/1291) by the Mamluk armies. 1 In his "Concise History of Humanity" he incorporated the following synopsis: "By these conquests (futūḥāt) all the [Syrian] coastlands (al-bilād al-sāḥiliyya) were brought back to Islam-an event too great to be hoped for or wished. Syria and the coastlands were purged of the Franks after they had been on the brink of taking Egypt and taking possession of Damascus and other places in Syria". 2 The control of the former Frankish strongholds along the Syrian seashore served as a source of prestige. Al-Malik al-Ashraf Khalīl Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn b. Qalāwūn (689/1290-693/1293), the sultan who commanded the Mamluk armies in the last phase of the fighting against the Crusaders, boasted himself to be the vanquisher of the Frankish enemy. He designated himself as: "the destroyer (hādim) of Acre and the coastal provinces (al-bilād al-sāḥiliyya)". 3 Long decades after the conquest of Acre, when the victory was a remote event, Mamluk sultans still plumed themselves with their predecessors' accomplishments. They posted monumental inscriptions that reflect the importance assigned by them to this achievement. A round Mamluk medallion bears the inscription: "Glory to our master, the sultan al-Malik al-Nāṣir, the possessor of the Egyptian territories, the Syrian provinces and the littoral fortresses". 4 Yet, the Mamluk victories in the battlefields and the withdrawal of the Latin Kingdom from Palestine did not end the violent conflicts between the sultans of Egypt and Syria and the naval forces of several European nations. The ongoing ex-1