Many of the monuments in Cairo reveal the stories of the personas involved, which help us understand and shed light on their raison d’être. One is always fortunate when the primary sources and the inscriptions on the walls of these edifices harmoniously weave together accounts of such individuals. With its plethora of chronicles and biographical dictionaries, no era in Egyptian history is better equipped than that of the Mamluks to offer this melodious interplay between sources and epigraphic programmes. This is crucial for several disciplines, art history, history and historiography, textual studies and Islamic studies being chief among them. They can help answer questions relating to ownership, agency, commemoration and intention. An example of such an epigraphic programme from the Mamluk period, which sheds light on the individuals and its history, is the one amir Shaykhū al-'Umarī al-Nāṣirī (d. 758/1357) ordered on his buildings in Cairo: the mosque-madrasa (built in 750/1349), the sabīl (built in 755/1354), and especially his khānqāh (built in 756/1355). This chapter examines the employment of hadith to adorn, commemorate and provide a raison d’être for construction, and the unique usage of admonitions and Sufi texts painted below the ceiling of the qibla area in the khānqāh, tracing their provenance. My analysis also considers the ostensible involvement of both the patron of the buildings, amir Shaykhū al-Nāṣirī, and the shaykh and great muḥaddith Akmal al-Dīn al-Rūmī, the nāẓir of the waqf, in the choice of these inscriptions. Both these men had agency and their connection showcases the nuanced relationship between the Mamluk ruling class and the ulema.

Who was amir Shaykhū b. ‘Abdallāh al-'Umarī al-Nāṣirī?

The chronicles of the period are replete with data relating to Shaykhū; the last section of the second volume of al-Maqrīzī's al Sulūk is almost entirely dedicated to events relating to the amir and so they detail the trajectory of his career. To be highlighted are events relating to his position in the state and anecdotes describing him as an advocate of hadith and Sufism. As a young Turk, probably Qipchaq – turkī al-jins – he started his career when he was sold by Khawāja ‘Umar, hence his nisba al-'Umarī, to Sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Qalāwūn (r. 693–4/1293–4, 698–708/1299–1309 and 709–41/1301–41).