al-ʿUmarī

al-ʿUmarī (born June 12, 1301, Damascus—died March 1, 1349, Damascus) was a scholar and writer whose works on the administration of the Mamlūk dominions of Egypt and Syria became standard sources for Mamlūk history.

A scion of a family of bureaucrats, al-ʿUmarī, as his name implies, traced his origin to ʿUmar, the second Islamic caliph. His father held the important post of kātib as-sirr (head of the chancery) of the Mamlūk Empire. Al-ʿUmarī began his career as an assistant to his father. By temperament he was unsuited to the civil service; he was much too independent of mind and action to have survived in any bureaucracy. In c. 1337 he was dismissed from office and imprisoned. On the death of his father in 1337, his brother was appointed as head of the chancery. In 1339 al-ʿUmarī was released from prison and appointed to his father’s old post, but in 1342 he was again banished from office and replaced by another brother.

Al-ʿUmarī spent his remaining years in the pursuit of scholarship. He wrote at-Taʾrīf bi-al-muṣṭalaḥ ash-sharīf, a comprehensive study of the principles of Mamlūk administration, and Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār, an encyclopaedic compendium also relating to administrative practices.