2025/12/10(水)に開催する、French Institute of the Near East (Ifpo)のMehdi Berriah氏講演会のお知らせです
会場：戸山キャンパス33号館第10会議室（16階）
時間：17:30〜19:00
使用言語：英語
登録不要
Title
Warfare and Strategic Culture in the Bahri Mamluk Sultanate: New Perspectives on Military Thought and Practice
Abstract
This lecture reexamines the foundations of Mamluk military effectiveness during the Bahri period (1250–1382), a time when the sultanate emerged as the dominant power of the eastern Mediterranean. Central to this reassessment is a set of key questions: how did the Mamluk army become one of the most efficient military forces of the medieval Near East, and what strategies and tactical innovations did it develop to confront—simultaneously—the triple threat posed by the Mongols, the Crusaders, and the Armenian kingdom, ultimately prevailing on every front?
To address these issues, the lecture explores the deeper mechanisms that structured Mamluk warfare. It also highlights the emergence of a distinct Mamluk form of strategic thinking—one that combined practical military experience with a conceptual understanding of war, enabling commanders to formulate coherent long-term strategies in addition to reacting tactically on the battlefield. Recruited from the Eurasian steppes and the Caucasus, and socialized into a rigorous ethos of martial excellence, the Bahri mamluks developed both the intellectual and operational tools required to sustain continuous warfare. Their legitimacy, based almost entirely on military achievement, reinforced the centrality of war in the political and social life of the sultanate.
By reassessing how knowledge, discipline, expertise, and strategic reflection were cultivated within Mamluk institutions, the presentation shows how technical mastery, tactical doctrine, and strategic culture intersected. It argues that the exceptional performance of the Bahri army resulted not from isolated victories but from a coherent system in which training regimes, normative frameworks, and strategic reasoning combined to produce a formidable and resilient military force.
Ultimately, the lecture offers new insights into Mamluk warfare by revealing how the Bahri sultans’ ability to conceptualize, organize, and strategically think about war contributed decisively to the rise of the sultanate as the preeminent regional power at the end of the 8th/14th century.
Short bio
Mehdi Berriah is a researcher in Islamic studies and Islamic history at the French Institute of the Near East (Ifpo). His research focuses on medieval and modern Islamic thought and theology, Ibn Taymiyya, the theorization and ideology of jihad, Islamic epistemologies and paradigms, the transmission of knowledge, and figures of religious authority, as well as the political, social, and military history of the Islamic world. In addition to his research activities, he currently serves as the regional coordinator of the Islamic Studies division for Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, where he oversees research programs and works closely with scholars, institutions, and early-career researchers. He has co-edited several volumes, the most recent of which is The Medieval Jihad: Texts, Theories and Practices (Ifao, 2025). His recent monograph, L’art de la guerre chez les Mamelouks (1250–1375): stratégies et tactiques (Brill, 2024), received the Verbruggen Prize awarded by the De Re Militari Society for Medieval Military History.