In recent years, the field of Mamluk studies has seen what may well be an amount of published scholarship unparalleled in any field of Middle East studies. Less than a decade ago, the study of the Mamluk rulers of Egypt and Syria could hardly have been called a distinct field, and it was only about four decades ago that the period was given any systematic attention at all through the pioneering efforts of David Ayalon. However, Mamluk specialists now have their own journal, the Mamluk Studies Review, with three annual volumes in print and more on the way, as well as an extensive and ever-growing Web-based bibliography, both of which are published by the University of Chicago's Middle East Documentation Center. Mamluk specialists around the world have been engaged in this work, but it was initiated by Thomas Philipp and the late Ulrich Haarmann. In December 1994, these two scholars organized a conference on Mamluk studies in Bad Homburg, Germany, and eighteen of the papers presented at that symposium have been published as The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and Society. The papers in this volume cover the period of the Mamluk sultanate in Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517, as well as the subsequent Ottoman period up to the rule of Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century. The richness of the sources for this period is evident in the diverse topics represented; papers dealing with political and social history are supplemented by studies in astronomy, religion, traditional culture, historiography, and urban geography. Indeed, the volume stands as a benchmark from which to view this rapidly growing field.
