This illustrated manuscript preserves an instruction manual on horsemanship and warfare. Equestrian games (Arabic: furūsiyya) were popular among the Mamluk rulers of Egypt and Syria in the thirteenth to early sixteenth centuries.

Falconry typically is not discussed in these contexts, but shares much with the topics discussed here, the proximity of hunting to fighting, the significance of horsemanship, and the public display of the ability of powerful men to control animals, especially in violent contexts.

Many manuscripts which preserve Arabic falconry manuals were produced in Mamluk times which reflects the popularity of the practice for these rulers and its presence in Mamluk book culture. Original texts were also authored by individuals affiliated with the Mamluks and their army.

This manual offers twelve lessons on horsemanship and warfare. The manuscript in the Chester Beatty collection is one of the earliest illustrated copies; another one was produced in 773/1371 and is in the British Library (Add. MS 18866).

The illustrations give a good impression of the range of topics which often concern the handling of different weapons and shields while on horseback, the attacking of different targets and the organization of groups of fighters.

Abul Lais Syed Muhammad Lutful-Huq, A Critical Edition of Nihayat al-sul wa’l-umniyah fi talim amal al-furusiyah of Muhammad b. Isa b. Ismail al-Hanafi, Dissertation, University of London, 1955.

Kitāb nihāyat al-suʾl wa’l-umniyya fī taʿallum aʿmāl al-furūsiyya fī umūr al-salṭana, ed. Khālid Aḥmad al-Mullā al-Suwaydī (Damascus, 2009).

G. Rex Smith, Medieval Muslim Horsemanship. A Fourteenth-Century Arabic Cavalry Manual (London: British Library, 1979).

Geoffrey Tantum, ‘Muslim Warfare. A Study of a Medieval Muslim Treatise on the Art of War’, in Robert Elgood (ed.), Islamic Arms and Armour (London, 1979), 187-201.

Dublin, Chester Beatty library