Features a collection of studies that deals with the confrontation between the Mamluks and the Crusaders. This title covers the aspects of Mamluk society and culture in Egypt and Syria from the 13th to the early 16th centuries. It also features articles on matters such as Crusader and Mamluk currency, and the size of the Mamluk army.

Contents: Preface; Iqta and the end of the Crusader States; The supply of money and the direction of trade in 13th-century Syria; The Mamluk conquest of the County of Tripoli; Egypt, Syria and their trading partners, 1450-1550; Factions in medieval Egypt; The image of the Byzantine and the Frank in Arab popular literature of the late Middle Ages; How many miles to Babylon? The Devise des Chemins de Babiloine redated.; Toynbee and Ibn Khaldun; Eating horses and drinking mare's milk; Usamah ibn Munqidh, an Arab-Syrian gentleman at the time of the crusades, reconsidered; The impact of the early crusades on the Muslim world; What the Partridge Told the Eagle: a neglected Arabic source on Chinggis Khan and the early history of the Mongols; Under Western eyes: a history of Mamluk studies; Ali al-Baghdadi and the joy of Mamluk sex; The privatisation of 'justice' under the Circassian Mamluks; Mamluk literature; Orientalism and the early development of Crusadier studies; Tribal feuding and Mamluk factions in medieval Syria; Al-Maqrizi and Ibn Khaldun, historians of the unseen; Gunpowder and firearms in the Mamluk Sultanate reconsidered; Futuwwa: chivalry and gangsterism in medieval Cairo; Ibn Zunbul and the romance of history; The political thinking of the 'virtuous ruler' Qansuh al-Ghawri; Index