Kitāb Sukkardān as-Sulṭān

Bibliotheca Islamica (BI) is the Orient-Institut Beirut’s platform for the critical edition of mainly Arabic texts. The series dates back to 1929, when Hellmut Ritter edited the Kitāb Maqālat al-islamīyīn wa-ḫtilāf al-muṣallīn of Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Ašʿarī, a seminal text on dogmatic positions in the early Islamic period. Since then, the OIB has published more than fifty titles in this series.

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The author of the Sukkardān, Šihāb Ad-Din Aḥmad b. Yahya At-Tilmsānī, known as Ibn Abī Ḥaǧala, was distinguished Sufi writer and poet. He was an important figure of the poetic scene in the late Mamluk era and became the favourite poet at the court of Sulṭān Ḥasan b. Muḥammad bin Qalāwūn after he wrote many books for him, including the Sukkardān as-Sulṭān. The book is structured around two themes about the number "seven". The first four chapters discuss its relationship and superiority to other numbers. The second theme discussed are the various connections between the number "seven" and the Sulṭān. The volume contains a large amount of narrations and brilliant stories which the author himself considers to be elegant compositions and therefore suitable for a royal audience. This wonderful intellectual journey can be considered a mirror of the cultural and literary sphere of the reign of Sulṭān Ḥasan and the late Mamluk period in Egypt and the Levant.