NMCSU Talk: Adam Ali

Public Spectacles of Violence and Clemency to the Wealthy, Powerful, and Beautiful

The Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations Students’ Union (NMCSU) is hosting a talk presented by Assistant Professor Adam Ali (Department of Near & Middle Easternvilizations, University of Toronto).

The word "Medieval" often evokes, images of violence in the modern mind. Even though violence is ever present during every era, including the modern world, it permeated all parts of medieval society and was more present in public spaces than it is in many modern societies (especially in the west). Transgressions against the established law and order, the rulers, and "orthodox" religious interpretations were often punished through spectacles witnessed by the public. These performances represented the enactment of both worldly and divine justice, a cautionary warning to those witnessing them, the confirmation of the established order and the moral authority of the ruler/ruling secular and religious elite, and the painful punishment of the transgressor.

This lecture intends to examine examples of the enactment of these violent public spectacles, focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on the Mamlūk period (1250-1517 CE) in Egypt and Greater Syria. The history of the Mamluk sultanate is a violent one. In addition to fighting bloody wars against Mongols, Crusaders, Timurids, and Ottomans, the sultanate was also plagued with internal violence. Examples of such violence include struggles between various mamlūk factions and other groups that frequently resulted in street battles in Cairo and other cities of the sultanate; sultans were also frequently deposed or murdered; and rebellions by mamlüks soldiers and officers, Bedouin tribes, and Turkmen were commonplace occurrences. These violent incidents were often punished in draconian fashion by the authorities. The sources are replete with descriptions of grisly executions to punish rebels, regicides, bandits, and other criminals. In addition to highlighting and discussing examples of these violent public spectacles, this lecture juxtaposes these capital and corporal punishments with instances of clemency to the condemned, often granted moments before the execution was carried out. The reasons for this last-minute mercy were arbitrary and, according to the accounts in the chronicles, were not framed around judicial or legal reasoning or processes, but rather granted due to popular demand, when the public and/or the military elite took pity on the condemned, often due to their beauty and good looks. In other instances, rebels and the perpetrators of other crimes were not held to account because of their positions, power, and their indispensability to the rulers. The examples and anecdotes presented in this talk come from some of the most important chronicles of this era.