Interpretation of Arms and Armor in Fakhr-e Modabbir Mobarākshāh’s Ādāb al Ḥarb wa’l Shujācah (Two Passages from Chapter 11 and 19)

چکیده

Fakhr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr Mubarākshāh al-Qurashī was born around 1150 CE, probably in Ghazna, and eventually joined the court of Quṭb al-Dīn Aybak, the first Turkish Mamlūk or “Slave King” of northern India. He died around 1224 CE. His Ādāb al Ḥarb wa’l Shujācah (“Rules of War and Bravery”) was a treatise on statecraft in the Persian tradition of “Mirrors for Princes”. A substantial, if idealised discussion of warfare, it includes sections on tactics, troop organisation, various weapons, sieges and many military-historical anecdotes. Nevertheless, these chapters also include more recent, more localised Indian and Turkish elements, plus otherwise lost aspects of military practice or theory. For example, the essentially traditional Islamic or ʿAbbāsid sections include Chapter 12 which describes “How to arrange an army firmly and to maintain that (arrangement)”. The first part of Chapter 13 describes “How to bring the army to a halt and the (best) place to do this”. Some specifically military chapters of theĀdāb al Ḥarb wa’l Shujācah are clearly based upon ʿAbbāsid military theory as developed during the 8th to 10th centuries CE; notably sections such as “How to arrange an army firmly and to maintain that (arrangement)”, and “How to bring the army to a halt and the place to do this”. Other sections reflect more recent Indo-Islamic, Indian and Turkish military ideas, as well as otherwise lost aspects of earlier military practice, plus plans of military arrays, idealised encampments and exercises in the tradition of Islamic furusīyah military training manuals. Chapter 11, which is interpreted here, concerned the characteristic features, advantage and usage of a wide array of weapons. Chapter 19, which is also interpreted here, focussed on various aspects and variations in the array and deployment of an army for battle.