Where was humility in the Mamluk Sultanate?

Discourses on humility were ubiquitous in the late European Middle Ages. But to what extent was this true of the Arabic-speaking world in the same period? It is not difficult to find terms in Arabic whose semantic range overlaps with Latin humilitas or German Demut. But were these terms connected with concepts or discursive formations of similar prominence and social relevance? Do they arise in analogous settings? Who was talking about humility, to whom, and to what end? Does it make any difference whether we look at Muslim, Christian, Jewish or secular contexts? Do we see the same kind of distinctions concerning what constitutes humility for women and for men? Conversely, some of the functions of discourse on, and practice of humility in Medieval Europe—for example in encouraging an acceptance of one’s place in a social hierarchy, and in providing a language of gesture and speech that communicates such acceptance—could have been mediated predominantly by other terms and concepts. If so, what were they? By examining texts across a variety of genres, this sub-project aims to provide an initial overview of where and how humility was discussed and produced in the realm of the Mamluk Sultanate between roughly 1250 and 1500.