Ibn Taymiyya's Fatwa on Martial Arts Training

The miniatures in medieval furūsiyya treatises2 generally depict idealized glimpses of the military training of the soldier‐slaves of the Mamlūk sultanate: they show handsome, beardless young riders, gorgeously attired and turbaned, one hand managing the reins, the other sporting a lance or sword or mace, in full gallop or hunting or engaged in combat, in idyllic settings. These sources cannot be assumed to represent faithfully the forms of military training provided in less elitist places. As well as schools for the royal mamlūks (al‐mamālīk al‐sulṭāniyya) and those of the emirs (mamālīk al‐umarā’), there must have existed less prestigious paramilitary “academies” where freeborn young Muslims – i.e. non‐mamlūks – could receive the training in martial arts they needed in order to buy their way into the cavalry of the sultanate as ajnād al‐ḥalqa.4 Ayalon's studies also fall short of taking us into the everyday reality of the military schools – the royal and emiral ones and, even more so, those for non‐mamlūks.