Mamluks, Mongols, and Crusaders: Visual Strategies for Representing the Enemy

The Mamluk dynasty came to power in a time of great political turmoil in the Islamic world. In the early years of their rule, they engaged in a two-front war against non-Muslims: the Western European Crusaders and the Ilkhanid Mongol Empire. The struggle was expressed in ideological terms, with textual sources referring to both enemies as infidels and exhorting Mamluk troops to engage in a holy war to conquer (or regain) territory in the name of Islam. Political realities were far more nuanced, and Mamluk rulers entered into political and commercial agreements with both Western Europeans and Mongols. The visual manifestations of these relationships reflected the complex political situation, characterized by military aggression on the one hand and pragmatism and accommodation on the other. The strategies employed by Mamluk patrons to represent the enemies were equally multifaceted, consisting of architectural spolia, victory inscriptions and monuments, and artistic appropriations that expressed both military triumphalism and cultural appreciation. The visual references to Crusaders and Mongols in Mamluk architecture are usually treated separately in the scholarly literature but this article argues that they were part of a unified strategy on the part of Mamluk rulers as they faced both enemies simultaneously in the early years of their empire. The results the Mamluks achieved in visualizing their relationships with the Ilkhans and Crusaders in the Levant varied greatly, highlighting the disparate nature of each foe, the complex and fluid nature of their interactions, and the distinctive artistic heritages of the cultures the Mamluks encountered in Syria and the Levant in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries