出版社：Middle East Documentation Center (MEDOC), University of Chicago
摘要：It is often said that the civilian sector of Mamluk society was relatively egalitarian with no strong barriers to social advancement. The social group of ulama (scholars) has been considered a particularly open group, whose membership was based on scholarly merit, whereas social origin played a less significant role. 1 This view was modified by Ulrich Haarmann, who showed that the ulama were not very eager to accommodate descendants of mamluks into their ranks. The sons of mamluks were wealthy enough to devote time to scholarship, but the established scholars tended to hold their foreign background against them. 2 This article examines how difficult it was for sons of commoners to gain fame as scholars or to be included among the civilian notables through other merits. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s biographical dictionary Al-Durar al-Kāminah fī Aʿyān al- Miʾah al-Thāminah 3 describes the lives and careers of notables of the eighth/fourteenth century. Among them there are individuals who were of commoner origin, but their number is quite small, which indicates that even though upward social mobility was possible, a commoner only rarely reached the status of a notable.
