マムルークの家族 --ワクフ文書の受益者規定から--

Abstract

In the “family waqf, ” which designates the family members of the founder as the beneficiaries of the waqf, the founder stipulated the range of family members who would be beneficiaries, the order of precedence and share among them in a manner different from Islamic inheritance law. In this sense, these beneficiary stipulations reflect the family and gender views of the founders themselves and/or those prevailing in their time and region. Based on this understanding, this paper examines the beneficiary stipulations of the Mamluk military waqfs established during the “Mulk ʿAqīm period” (1412-1517), when the political structure and social relations based on military slavery reached their peak, and it also investigates the nature of the “chosen family, ” which was based on the view of the family held by the Mamluks. The results revealed the following: first, for the Mamluk military waqf founders, the most privileged beneficiaries were their own children and offspring. They were not differentiated by age, sex, the mother's status, or whether they were of male or female descent, and were usually treated equally. Second, in cases where the founders' brothers, sisters, or other blood relatives had arrived in Egypt or Syria as mamluks or female slaves, they were also incorporated among the beneficiaries. Third, wives were often excluded from the beneficiary list, possibly because of the high rate of remarriage at the time. Granting beneficiary rights to in-laws was exceptional. Fourth, freed slaves were an important component of the “chosen family” of the Mamluks, often second only to the descendants of the founders. The founders often treated some of the freed slaves, including trusted mamluks and favored women, more generously than the others. They also sometimes gave preferential treatment to freed slaves of the same white/Turkish origin as the Mamluk founders. Thus, the hierarchy among freed slaves was reflected in the beneficiary stipulations. The descendants of the founder's freed slaves and even the freed slaves and their descendants of the founder's descendants were also sometimes included in the beneficiary stipulations. These show that the range of the “chosen family” expanded or contracted according to the founder's own view of family and/or political position.