出版社：Middle East Documentation Center (MEDOC), University of Chicago
摘要：Al-Maqr|z| provides his views about the penalty of incarceration and its status under Islamic law as an extended preface to his survey of jails and prisons as they existed in Mis˝r/al-Qa≠hirah from the founding of these towns to his own day.1 Several themes and subtexts may be discerned as one reads through al-Maqr|z|'s comments. The most pointed of these is the dubious efficacy of imprisonment itself as a deterrent to criminal activity. Al-Maqr|z|'s ambivalence towards the quality of governance under the Mamluk Sultanate is readily apparent from his depiction of conditions prevalent in Cairo's institutions of incarceration. As in his other works, al-Maqr|z| rarely misses an opportunity to castigate the Mamluk regime as the culprit behind most ills burdening the civil society of the Mamluk capital. Whether the sordid conditions he vividly portrays would, in fact, have differed appreciably under a regime more to his liking remains a problematic issue.
