The Khasbakiyya Family

The family tree of the Khasbakiyya. Below that, we go deep down the rabbit hole trying to determine the roots of the family. For the full story of Lady Zaynab, wife of Sultan Inal, and Lady Fatima, wife of Sultan Qaytbay, go to this link.

Lady Zaynab did not come from great wealth. Her father was so minor he didn’t merit a biography from the many chroniclers of the time. Her grandfather was a respected but reclusive Islamic scholar with a small piece of land.

But her family were quintessential members of the “Awlad al-Nas,” the children and descendants of Mamluks who formed a distinct and unusual class of their own.

To understand their position, you have to remember how the Mamluk system worked. The Mamluks — imported Turkish or Circassian slave soldiers — were the undisputed elite, monopolizing military and political power in the Sultanate and dominating economic power. But they were a constantly renewing, one-generation elite: Power was not passed down. A Mamluk emir’s military might, political position and even most of his wealth went not to his children but was redistributed by the sultan to another emir from among the imported slave soldiers. The sons of Mamluks largely became irrelevancies.

Expelled from power, the Awlad al-Nas landed in a sort of middle ground, with one foot in the world of the Mamluk elite and the other in the world of the civilian Arab population.

On the one side, they mingled among the networks of Mamluk emirs, benefitting from connections and often marriages. They served in an auxiliary military force called the Halqa, which gave them some military credibility and a salary. Some received from the sultan a land fiefdom from which to draw an income, though usually far smaller than those of emirs.

On the civilian side, they often entered the religious scholarship track, reserved for members of the mainly Arab population. There, they sometimes became part of the cultural elite and gained lucrative judgeships or court positions.

The Mamluk emir who was the patriarch of the bin Khas Bak family, Emir Khas Bak, died some 60 years before Zaynab’s birth.

We don’t know how many generations lie between them. But his progeny seem to have become low-level Islamic Hanafi scholars. The most notable of them was Badr al-Din Hassan bin Khas Bak, who typified the dual Mamluk/civilian existence of the Awlad al-Nas.

A respected Hanafi jurisprudent, al-Badr Hassan had a number of well-known students from elite academic families. He issued fatwas. The historian al-Maqrizi tells of hearing him recite the Sahih of Bukhari in Mecca. Hassan was also a commander in the Halqa and wore the garb of a soldier. He mingled among the Mamluk emirs of the time and “none could refuse his requests,” we are told, so his students benefited greatly from his connections. He died in 1410, in his 60s.

Zaynab’s grandfather was a figure who was likely a cousin of Hassan, Badr al-Din Mohammed bin Khas Bak.

Al-Badr Mohammed is a much quieter figure. He held a certain amount of prestige because he was descended on his mother’s side from Sultan Baybars, the effective founder of the Mamluk Sultanate some 150 years earlier. He studied Hanafi jurisprudence and became known as a zealous proponent of the Hanafi school. But he was an ascetic, withdrawn from the world. He took no students, taught in no madrasa and sought no government or judicial positions. Instead, he lived off the proceeds of his small land fiefdom.

He died in his 50s in the same month and year as al-Badr Hassan in 1410, when Zaynab was around 12.

Later Mamluk chroniclers would confuse the two al-Badrs, and some incorrectly identified al-Badr Hassan as Lady Zaynab’s father. I’ll get back to this confusion further down, since it’s an interesting rabbit hole to explore. 

Of Lady Zaynab’s actual father, Alaeddin Ali, nothing is known. The biographers of the time don’t mention him, and his name appears only in the patronymics of Zaynab and her siblings. Presumably he had some religious studies; perhaps he died young. (1)

The picture we get is of a family that has some money and some social cachet because of its Mamluk roots and the link to Baybars. But it’s not wealthy or politically connected. So they didn’t exactly draw stellar marriage prospects. Zaynab’s older sister married a low-level Mamluk emir. When the sister died of unknown causes, Zaynab stepped in as the emir’s new wife in 1424.

This emir was Inal al-Alaa’i. A Circassian abducted from the Black Sea region in his youth, he had been raised and trained as a Mamluk slave soldier in the barracks of Sultan Barqouq. Later chroniclers don’t paint a flattering picture of him, saying he was illiterate and unattractive. When he married Zaynab, he was in his 40s and had just stepped out of the ranks of common soldiers onto the bottom rung of the commander class. An emir of 10, he could buy 10 Mamluks of his own to command and was granted a small plot of land from which to draw income.

Zaynab’s influence peeks out even before Inal becomes sultan.

No doubt on her prompting, for example, Inal interceded with Sultan Jaqmaq on behalf of the husband of Zaynab’s sister Tatar, Emir Aytamish al-Khidri.

Emir Aytamish might have seemed a promising match when Tatar married him, but he turned out to be such a nuisance as a human being that no one could stand him, and any career he might have had was stillborn. With pretentions of being an Islamic scholar, he barged into classes at Al-Azhar Mosque, asked questions of stunning stupidity – in Turkish rather than Arabic – and generally distracted, annoyed and abused the other students. Finally he was barred from entering the premises. Exiled to Jerusalem by one sultan, he returned to Cairo when Sultan Jaqmaq came to power. He glommed onto the sultan, acting as if he were a close adviser, until Jaqmaq couldn’t bear him any longer and ordered him sent back to Jerusalem.

This is where Inal — at the time Jaqmaq’s top military commander — stepped in and asked for mercy. Aytamish was allowed to stay in Cairo, confined to his home. There, he was killed in an accident when a wall collapsed on him in 1442.

Zaynab’s status, even before she moved into the Hall of Pillars, reflected onto her sister Tatar. In recognition of her status, the first husband of Tatar’s daughter Faraj, a Mamluk named Qarabugha, named Tatar as beneficiary of half of his Waqf, soon before his death (2).  Faraj then married a low-level emir named Shaheen, described by one historian of the time as “a fool, a coward and a miser.”

Inal eventually did become sultan, and Zaynab the Great Lady of the Hall of Pillars. The Khas Bak family on the other side of their time in power looks entirely different, bound up with wealth and linked to the halls of power.

But here I’ll shift gears and go back to the confusion between Zaynab’s grandfather, al-Badr Mohammed, and his apparent cousin, al-Badr Hassan.

A warning, here we dive deep into the weeds of historiography, trying to unravel the threads of lineage tangled up by the multiple chroniclers of that time. Their mistakes highlight some interesting points about their methodologies. This may be of interest only to academics, if even to them.

To start off with, the chroniclers of the time give two different patronymic names for Zaynab:

— Zaynab daughter of al-Alay Ali, son of al-Badr Mohammed al-Hanafi, “known as bin Khas Bak.”

This is given by al-Sakhawi in his biography of Zaynab in al-Dou’ al-Lami’ (12:44)

and:

— Zaynab, daughter of al-Badr Hassan bin Khas Bak.

This is used by ibn Taghribirdi regularly in his annals, Al-Nujoum Al-Zahira. Ibn Iyas elaborates, calling her “daughter of al-Badr Hassan, son of Khalil bin Khas Bak” in his obituary of her in his history, Bida’i’ al-Zuhour.

We know that the first lineage is the correct one, thanks to the modern-day scholar Daisuke Igarashi. He points out that original waqf documents by Sultan Inal give his wife’s name as Zaynab bint al-Alay Ali. As first-hand legal documents, they presumably give her correct lineage. (3)

So why the confusion between al-Badr Mohammed and al-Badr Hassan?

Biographies of both appear in the sources. Both are Hanafi religious scholars. Both are said to have died in Rajab 813 (November 1410). The historian al-Sakhawi, in fact, contends that they are the same person.

But the two men seem to inhabit separate historiographical universes.

First, a quick explanation of the Mamluk sources may be helpful. There are two types:

— Biographical encyclopedias, in which a historian compiled biographies of thousands of prominent people, usually arranged alphabetically.

— The historical annals. Mamluk scholars wrote histories as year-by-year annals, and for each year they had a list of obituaries of those who died.

Most historians wrote both encyclopedias and histories. The length and comprehensiveness of both types of bios vary widely. Entries for sultans, prominent emirs and top religious scholars might run for pages. Others — like the figures we’re looking at here — merit only a few paragraphs or even just a sentence or two. At most, they contain their name (usually with father and grandfather), significant accomplishments, date and circumstances of death, perhaps some lines about their character and/or appearance.

From what I can find, al-Badr Mohammed appears only in obituaries in historical annals, while al-Badr Hassan appears only in biographical encyclopedias.

Let’s look at the sources chronologically:

Badr al-Din Mohammed bin Khas Bak’s biography first appears as an obituary in a historical annal, “Inba al-Ghumr” (2:475), by the historian ibn Hajar. The substance of the obituary contains these basic elements:

(1) He was related to the 13th century Mamluk sultan al-Zahir Baybars “through the women’s side.”

(2) He worked (اشتغل) in the Hanafi school, excelled and took lessons from Akmaleddin.

(3) He excelled in research “with faith, manliness and zealous adherence to his school and family”  (يجيد البحث مع الديانة و المروءة و العصبية) 

(4) He died in Rajab 813 (November 1410), aged more than 50.

Al-Badr Hassan bin Khas Bak’s first biography, meanwhile, comes in the encyclopedia of biographies “Durar al-Uqoud” (2:6:390), by the historian al-Maqrizi, writing about the same time as ibn Hajar. He calls him Hassan bin Lajeen bin Khas Bak. The elements of this bio are:

(1) Al-Badr Hassan was one of the elite of the Hanafis and a commander overseeing the Sultanic Mamluks (احد مقدمي المماليك السلطانية)

(2) He excelled in fiqh, issued decrees (افتى) , taught for several years and participated in the arts (شارك في الفنون) .

(3) He dressed as a soldier (كان عليه هيئة الاجناد).

(4) He had status (وجاهة) among emirs.

(5) Al-Maqrizi tells of personally hearing him recite the Sahihs of Bukhari and al-Muslim in Mecca in year 783 hijri.

(6) He died in Rajab 813, aged more than 60.

Al-Maqrizi has no entry for Mohammed. Ibn Hajar has no entry for Hassan. So Hassan and Mohammed are never seen at the same place at the same time, so to speak.  

Then comes the next generation of historians, all of them born after the year 813 hijri (ie, they couldn’t have known Mohammed/Hassan personally.) The pattern continues with them.

Ibn Taghribirdi has an entry on “Hassan bin Khas Bak, Badr al-Din” in his encyclopedia of biographies, “Al-Manhal Al-Safi” (5:73:896).

It has all the elements of al-Maqrizi’s bio, but he rephrases them and adds some elements. He calls Hassan an able soldier (جنديا بارعا)  as well as a scholar. He says his students “benefited from him, as he had status among the important people of state and the emirs and others, and his recommendation was never refused among them.” He does not give Hassan’s father’s name.

He has no entry on a Mohammed bin Khas Bak. His main work of history, Al-Nujoum Al-Zahira, has no obituary for either Hassan or Mohammed.

Al-Sakhawi has bios of both Hassan and Mohammed, but in different works, maintaining the pattern.

In his history, Wajeez al-Kalam (1:409), his obits for the year 813 include that of Mohammed bin Khas Bak. He lifts ibn Hajar’s bio but adds a new element: He didn’t hold juridical positions and instead lived off his Iqta’ (land grant). He also adds that “the house of bin Khas Bak descends from him.”

In al-Sakhawi’s biographical encyclopedia, al-Dou’ al-Lami’, the entry is for al-Badr Hassan. He largely copies ibn Taghribirdi’s rephrased version of al-Maqrizi’s entry. But he also adds that ibn Hajar “called him Mohammed” in his history. (DL 3:100:399.) — thus claiming that the two al-Badrs are the same.

Finally, ibn Iyas in his history Bida’i’ al-Zuhour lists Mohammed bin Khas Bak in the obituaries of year 813. (BZ 1/2-806). This Mohammed, he writes, “is the grandfather of the Khas Baks of the current day,” referring to Lady Fatima.

Ibn Iyas’s obit of Mohammed has similar elements as ibn Hajar’s and al-Sakhawi’s. But he uses very different phrasing — either he rewrote and embellished them dramatically or he worked from a different source. He says Mohammed was engaged in “ilm,” the religious sciences, a term that doesn’t appear in the other obits. He says Mohammed was “satisfied with what he earned” from his Iqta3 (قانعا بما يتحصل من), again very different phrasing. He introduces an entirely new element, saying Mohammed was “ascetic, withdrawn from the world) (زاهدا من الدنيا). He does not include the element present in both ibn Hajar and al-Sakhawi about Mohammed’s “faith, manhood and fervor.”

So it is the type of work that determines which name and biography is included.

The simplest explanation is that this is a result of the authors’ methodology. When a historian compiled an encyclopedia of biographies, he looked to his predecessors’ encyclopedias. When he was putting together obituaries in a history, he looked to previous histories. Each historian supplemented the work of his predecessors with any other knowledge he had of the subject, whether from his own personal experience or from information given by others.

Also note, which patronym of Lady Zaynab an author uses is not necessarily dependent which al-Badr’s biography he transmits. Ibn Iyas mentions only al-Badr Mohammed in his history — and even specifies him as the patriarch of the bin Khas Baks — but he identified Zaynab as “bint al-Badr Hassan bin Khalil.”

Ibn Taghribirdi — who knows only of al-Badr Hassan in his bios — calls her bint al-Badr Hassan bin Khas Bak in Al-Nujoum Al-Zahira. But in his other, shorter history Hawadith al-Duhour, she is “Zaynab bint Alaa al-Din Ali bin Khasbak.”

It’s not surprising mistakes and confusion arise, given the immensity of the historians’ work, compiling thousands of biographies and thousands of pages of history. Working over the course of decades without the modern benefits of word searches or even indices, a historian could easily fail to even notice there was a contradiction.

Al-Badrs Mohammed and Hassan would have just sat happily, each in his separate epistemological and historiographic world, if it weren’t for the question of which was the actual ancestor of Lady Zaynab. It appears that al-Sakhawi noticed the confusion and sought to resolve it by declaring them the same person. 

I think that’s incorrect and they were separate people, given how distinct their biographies are. Most likely they were cousins, whether first or more distant.

Some light may be shed on their link by another, more obscure bin Khas Bak family member mentioned by al-Sakhawi: Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Lajeen bin Abdel-Gamal bin Nasir al-Din al-Nasiri. (DL 5:62).

Al-Sakhawi writes that Abdullah, who died in 862 at the age of 92, had an ‘amm named al-Badr bin Khas Bak who was married to a descendant of Sultan Baybars. This must be al-Badr Mohammed. But he couldn’t be Abdullah’s literal paternal uncle (‘amm), because Abdullah’s father is named Mohammed. So ‘amm here must just refer to a relative on the father’s side.

And note that Abdullah’s grandfather is named Lajeen, the same name al-Maqrizi gives for al-Badr Hassan’s father. One possible scenario is that al-Badr Hassan and Mohammed Abu Abdullah were brothers, the sons of Lajeen, while al-Badr Mohammed (Zaynab’s grandfather) was the child of an unnamed brother of Lajeen.

In any case, it seems al-Badr Hassan was the better known of the two al-Badrs, since he had several well-known students. Some may have later assumed he was the father of the famed Lady Zaynab. Both al-Badrs are recorded as dying in Rajab 813, Hassan in his 60s, Mohammed in his 50s. This may have further caused the confusion between them. Or it could be the reverse: In the confusion, the same death date was given to both.