The Chicago Online Bibliography of Mamluk Studies is an on-going project (begun in 1986) of the Middle East Documentation Center at the University of Chicago, the aim of which is to compile two comprehensive bibliographies: one records published primary sources relating to the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Syria, and the other records secondary research and discussion germane to the subject. It is hoped that the comprehensive nature of these bibliographies will make more readily apparent the field's advances and its deficiencies. Entries in the bibliographies may fall outside the chronological and geographical limits traditionally used to demarcate the sultanate if their content has some relevance to the period. Two major examples of this are Ibn al-`Arabi and Ibn al-Farid, both of whom died before the Mamluk period but influenced it greatly. Because no attempt has been made to evaluate the scholarly value of the material included here, the bibiliography may provide some insight into various perceptions of the subject as well.
Although a bibliography may attempt to present the current state of a field, the structure of its organization necessarily restricts that presentation to a particular, fixed view. With this in mind, these bibliographies are intended to order the data but provide flexibility. The subject categories within the bibliographies are meant to organize without imposing an overly rigid view of the field. These subject headings, or keywords, are broad topics within Mamluk studies or general categories of sources. Built into such a structure is a certain amount of intentional redundancy, as particular entries frequently relate to more than one subject category. Furthermore, the sub-fields are construed rather broadly, in part to avoid categories that are overly brief, but also to enhance the relationships between aspects of Mamluk studies.
The entries in the bibliographies are found in a number of ways. In some cases, a source which seems relevant is first encountered as a citation in another work. In other cases, references are submitted by scholars. Like all entries in the databases, such references are not added until they have been physically inspected by MEDOC to ensure that all bibliographic information is accurate. If an item is not held by the University of Chicago libraries, it is acquired by inter-library loan and verified before being added to the database. In order to keep the database as current as possible, MEDOC also examines new journals, reference works, books and other materials which are acquired by the library. In this way, new entries can be added to the databases quickly.
Though these databases are large, there remain many more bibliographic trails to track. "Comprehensive" necessarily refers to intended scope rather than actual content, and clearly much work will always remain to be done. The databases grow daily, but there are always many references that remain to be verified. References received from outside the Middle East Documentation Center are helpful, but will not appear in the database until the bibliographic information is verified. There are currently several hundred unverified references which are in the database but not made public. These may be unique or unavailable manuscripts, or they may be held outside of the United States, and therefore beyond the reach of inter-library loan.
The overall size of the bibliography has some bearing on the usefulness of its organization. Likewise, the organization and presentation of the information is always evolving. Users' contributions, comments, and criticisms are always welcome. The project has already benefited from the contributions of Jonthan Berkey, Ulrich Haarmann, David King, Donald Little, David Reisman, and Warren Schultz, among many others.
Please be aware that both bibliographies are growing constantly, and that the tens of thousands of records are only a portion of those that exist. It is not generally necessary to send lists of missing authors or works, as MEDOC is aware of what remains to be added.
This bibliography was originally conceived as a printed publication, produced from a database held on Pro-cite bibliographic software. At that time, only the secondary bibliography existed. The last printed version, from October 1998, is still available from the Middle East Documentation Center. The primary bibliography has never been printed, and neither the primary nor the secondary will be printed in the future. The bibliographies use a version of Style A, as described in the thirteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, although the styles of certain types of sources have been modified to include as much information within entries as possible (e.g. book length, series titles, etc.). The intent is to provide maximum information about sources, and to supplement the incomplete references frequently encountered in research.
Transliteration follows the systems used by the Library of Congress, but variant transliteration systems used in individual works have been preserved as closely as possible.
As of November, 2007, MEDOC is making available new versions of the bibliographies using Unicode to present all diacritics and special characters. Most current browser software should have no trouble displaying the text correctly. This will depend, however, on what fonts users have available on their computers and how their browsers are configured. We will continue to keep the old bibliographies (which lack all diacritics) available, but they were last updated in 2006 and will never be updated again.
For information about Unicode and Unicode fonts (many of which are available for free), see MEDOC's Unicode and Diacritics page.
For information about configuring browsers to handle Unicode properly, see Configuring Browsers for Unicode.
In terms of content, style, and presentation, the bibliographies presented here should be considered works in progress. As we continue to develop this resource, we hope to receive feedback from users and to enhance the usefulness of the databases.
| Mamluk Primary Bibliography
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Mamluk Secondary Bibliography
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The Mamluk Listserv
MEDOC has also created the Mamluk Listserv as a discussion forum for scholars interested in the history and culture of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria.
To subscribe, see https://listhost.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/mamluk