Coptica v. 16 2017

Fakhr al-Dawlah ibn al-Muʾtaman

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garments of exceeding value; alcoholic beverages were circulating among them; and singers were singing for them. 15

This brazen show of wealth—and alcohol consumption—was shocking to a couple of Mamlūk emirs who passed by. Well, perhaps it was shocking, or perhaps it was simply too good an opportunity to pass up: they had everyone at the party arrested and confiscated everything of value, 200,000 dinars’ worth. We are told that Saʿd al-Dīn himself knew nothing about this party, but he too was arrested, savagely beaten, and fined well beyond the sum of what had already been confiscated. 16 This anecdote is instructive. It vividly indicates the lifestyle that was possible for Muslim Copts in the financial administration: in just one sentence from al-Maqrīzī’s account, we have the mention of womenfolk; pearls, jewels, and gold; exceedingly rich silk garments; freely flowing alcohol; and singers. But the anecdote also indicates the precariousness of these converts’ position in the society. Some were survivors and lived into comfortable retirement. 17 But others suffered the fate of Saʿd al-Dīn, whose roller coaster career came to an end in 1397, when he was put to death, in prison, by strangulation. 18 We should probably take note of the fact that our sources do not say that Fakhr al-Dawlah’s conversion was coerced ; our impression is that he converted of his own free will in order to pursue his personal ambition and desires. However, our saints’ Lives require some fuller (or more satisfying) explanation than that. For the Life of Marqus al-Anṭūnī, Fakhr al-Dawlah’s conversion was an instance of Satan at work: “the Enemy had caused him, from his childhood, to fall into many, many sins,” leading almost inexorably to his conversion. 19 The author of the Life of Anbā Ruways agrees, but stresses the temptress role played by Fakhr al-Dawlah’s Muslim wife: “he married a woman from the professional entertainers,” we read, “and was bound by her bonds” or “fettered in her fetters” ( taqayyada bi-quyūdihā ). 20 Fakhr al-Dawlah uses precisely the same language of bondage later in the Dangerous Muslim Women? 15 Al-Maqrīzī, Taqī l-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī, Kitāb al-sulūk li-ma‘rifat duwal al-mulūk , vol. 3, part 2, ed. Sa‘īd ‘Abd al-Fattāḥ ‘Āshūr (Cairo: Matba‘at Dār al-Kutub, 1970), 500. 16 Ibid., pp. 500-501, 503. 17 Al-Muwaffaq Faḍlallāh ibn Abī l-Fakhr Ibn al-Suqā‘ī had a successful career as a financial administrator under the Mamluks, retired, wrote books, lived to be nearly 100, and died (in 1325/6) in his garden at his home in al-Arza, outside Damascus—all while retaining his Christian identity; see Ibn as-Suqā‘ī, Tālī Kitāb wafayāt al-a‘yān (Un fonctionnaire chrétien dans l’administration mamelouke) , ed. Jacqueline Sublet (Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1974). 18 Maqrīzī, Sulūk 3.2, pp. 872, 885. 19 MS Monastery of St. Paul, Hist. 115, f. 64r. 20 MS Paris ar. 282, ff. 135v.