- Jamāl al-Ghīṭānī (1945 – 2015, Egypt) – al-Zaynī Barakāt (1985, English trans. Zayni Barakat, 1988). Situated against background of the collapsing Mamluk Sultanate in the years 1507 – 1518, the novel records al-Zaynī Barakāt, who acquires power by carefully combining Machiavellian and populist methods. His opposite number is Zakariyyā ibn Rāḍī, head of the intelligence service responsible for the stability of the empire, who eventually helps al-Zaynī survive the fall of the Mamluk throne and join the ranks of the new Ottoman rulers in 1517. Al-Ghīṭānī’s novel can be read as an assessment of the Nasserist era, take for example al-Zaynī’s preoccupation with internal security and his neglect of the external threat resulting in the catastrophe of 1517, which resemble Egypt’s unpreparedness to ward off the Israeli attack in 1967 (reference) (also in 1967: al-Naksah: Egypt).
- Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm’s (1898 – 1987, Egypt) play al-Sultan al-Ḥāʾir (‘The Sultan Perplexed’, 1960). A Mamluk sultan at the height of his power is suddenly faced with the fact that he has never been manumitted and, being a slave, has never been emancipated by the previous Sultan, making him ineligible to be a ruler (reference). He opts to sell himself as a slave, through which he can keep the throne. The play uses its historical setting to explore the issue of the legitimation of power, which it urges should be sought in rule of law rather than in force (reference).
- Saʿd Makāwī (1916 – 1985, Egypt) – al-Sāʾirūn Niyāman (‘The sleepwalkers’, 1963). This novel is set in during the last thirty years of the Mamluk Sultanate in what is now Egypt, lasting from Sultan Sayd Ad-Din Bilbay’s reign until the plague disaster that killed the Sultan (reference). The novel is divided into three storylines: the first depicts the political struggles between the Mamluk leaders, while the second depicts the inhabitants of the al-Ḥammām neighborhood in Cairo who resist the injustices of the Mamluk reign. The last storyline takes place in the rural area and describes the struggle between those supporting the Mamluk reign and those opposing it. The novel combines dialect, fuṣḥā and words from the Mamluk dictionary.
Refrences:
In order of appearance
Richard van Leeuwen. 1995. “Love and the Mechanisms of Power: Kamāl ʿAbd al-Jawwād and Saʿīd al-Jahaynī” in Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Roger Allen, Hilary Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor. London: Saqi Books 91-106, p. 93-94
Aida O. Azouqa. 2011. “Gamāl al-Ghīṭānī’s ‘Pyramid Texts’ and the Fiction of Jorge Luis Borges: A Comparative Study.” JAL 42: 1-28, p. 4
- ʿAbd al-Raḥman Ḥabīb. 2020. “‘al-Sāʾirūn Niyāman’ Riwāyah ʿan Sīrah al-Mamālīk am Isqāṭ ʿalā al-Ḍubāṭ al-Aḥrār?” www.youm7.com, 16 Augustus 2020 https://www.youm7.com/story/2020/8/16/السائرون-نياما-رواية-عن-سيرة-المماليك-أم-إسقاط-على-الضباط/4929566 (last accessed 2 February 2022)
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