Pleasing God, Serving the Citizens: Charity and Water Supply in Cairo and Baghdad

Abstract

As Baghdad and Cairo were among the most populous cities of the medieval period, water management was of key importance to the survival of these urban areas. Many people and institutions were involved in this enterprise, from the ruling authorities undertaking large projects to the humble but vital water carriers. In the Islamic world, water provision was traditionally connected to charity as well, with various ḥadīths even presenting this as the best form of almsgiving. This chapter focuses on the role charity played in water provision in early Abbasid Baghdad (second–third century AH/eighth–ninth century CE) and Mamluk Cairo (ninth/fifteenth century), paying special attention to the institution of waqf (Islamic endowment), through which such charitable endeavours were often managed. By examining two reservoirs in Baghdad, the Pond of Zalzal and Hayl­āna’s Tank and the highly organised sabīls of Mamluk Cairo, where passers-by were offered a cup of fresh water, this comparative study uncovers interesting trends in the way charitable water provision was integrated into the urban fabric as well as in the motivations of, and expectations placed upon, members of different elite groups in their respective cities and time periods.

1 Introduction

Early Abbasid Baghdad and Mamluk Cairo were among the most populous cities of the medieval period. One of the biggest challenges in sustaining such cities in the Middle East was water management. A wide variety of societal players were involved in this, from governmental authorities down to individual citizens. Because of the great value the Islamic tradition attributed to water provision as a form of almsgiving, charitable foundations also played a significant role in the water supply of these cities. By investigating the respective situations in early Abbasid Baghdad (second–third century AH/eighth–ninth century CE) and Mamluk Cairo (ninth/fifteenth century), this chapter analyses the way rulers and elites contributed to providing citizens with this most essential of facilities, focusing specifically on the role of charity and especially the institution of waqf, in dealing with the water needs of the urban population.

2 Charity and Water

The Islamic tradition knows both obligatory alms, generally called zakāt, and voluntary alms, generally called ṣadaqa, although in early Islamic sources these are frequently used interchangeably and the distinction between them developed gradually.¹ Almsgiving has an expiatory function, and Yaacov Lev has described how medieval Islamic charity also functioned as a channel for communicating with God (expressing gratitude, imploring for deliverance, etc.).² Those who give alms will be duly rewarded, according to the Qur’an, verse 2:261:

The parable of those who contribute their wealth in the way of God (fī sabīl Allāh) is like the parable of a grain of corn that grows seven ears: in each ear (there are) a hundred grains. (So) God doubles for whomever He pleases. God is embracing, knowing.³

Water provision has always been considered a worthy cause for almsgiving, perhaps even the best one. In that sense, an often quoted hadith is this one—or variations thereon:

[It is related] on the authority of Saʿd ibn ʿUbāda that he said: ‘Oh Messenger of God, Umm Saʿd [i.e., his mother] has died. Which charity (ṣadaqa) is best?’ He [the Prophet] said: ‘Water.’ So he [Saʿd] dug a well and said: ‘This is for Umm Saʿd.’⁴

The close relationship between charity and water provision is also visible in the terminology that eventually developed: water fountains providing drinking water to the public came to be known as sabīls. The word sabīl literally means ‘road’ or ‘path’ and is frequently used in the phrase fī sabīl Allāh, meaning ‘in God’s path’. It indicates work done on His behalf, and the expression is used in various contexts, including that of waging jihad—which is fighting for God—as well as to describe charitable actions. From the latter developed the use of the term sabīl for charitable provision of water in general, which could take many forms, but also for a public drinking fountain specifically—the latter we will discuss in more detail below.⁵

Some founders of these water fountains actively referenced the abovementioned and other hadiths in their constructions, underlining the role these institutions played in personal piety. In 755 AH/1354 CE, the Mamluk amīr Shaykhū had a sabīl built. On it, he had inscribed that the Prophet had said that ‘there is a reward in every living thing [lit. “every hot liver”]’, which references a tradition that exists in various forms about someone offering water to a thirsty dog.⁶ He also mentions the abovementioned hadith, as the inscription continues by stating that the Prophet was asked: ‘What works are best?’, and that he answered ‘providing drinking water’⁷ (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Dome of the sabīl built by the Mamluk amīr Shaykhū in 755 AH/1354 CE. The inscription mentioning the ḥadīth is in the middle arch (Angela Isoldi)

From an early moment in Islamic history onwards, charity and water provision were thus closely connected. Especially the holy cities of Mecca and Medina were popular targets for such charity, of which the water installations on the way to and in Mecca built by Zubayda bint Jaʿfar ibn Abī Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr (d. 216/831)—who was married to caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–193/786–809) and the mother of Muḥammad al-Amīn (r. 193–198/809–813)—are especially famous.⁸ Sadaqa in general, and specifically charitable water provision, could be organised in a variety of ways, but a very popular form through which the charity could even be made permanent (at least in theory) was the institution of waqf (pl. awqāf): Islamic charitable endowments.

2.1 The Islamic Waqf: General Characteristics

Waqf foundations, often connected with water provision, played an essential role in shaping urban spaces and social dynamics in the pre-modern Islamic world. They often financed the creation and maintenance of essential services and infrastructures such as mosques, madrasas, hospitals, roads, commercial structures and water facilities.⁹ They also enriched urban networks by promoting employment, social mobility, education, craftsmanship and material transfer and commerce.¹⁰ Waqf foundations were established mostly by the military and the civilian ‘elites’, meaning a heterogeneous and fluid social stratum of (groups of) individuals characterised by political, social and economic power. This stratum did not identify itself as a specific social group, but it clearly had a key role in shaping its socio-political context, which it could influence thanks to its access to a variety of resources. The influential position of the elite was determined by multiple factors, among which ancestry, wealth, military power, strong networks, patronage, education and even outstanding personal qualities. Therefore, members of this socially dominant stratum could come from very different backgrounds and included state officials, military leaders, religious scholars, wealthy merchants and influential women.¹¹ For these elites, waqf represented a way of contributing to the ‘common good’ of the urban society.¹² The elites’ interest in the establishment of waqf foundations derived from the fact that this kind of patronage granted public support and social visibility and often entailed also economic and political advantages for the founders themselves.¹³

From a legal perspective, the Islamic waqf is a form of ṣadaqa and it consists of the perpetual donation of a self-sustaining set of properties, meaning a set of properties that includes revenue-generating assets to specific charitable or pious purposes. The term ‘waqf’ (from Arabic waqafa, ‘to stop’) indicates the alienation of the endowed property from the circulation in the market and from the rules regulating inheritance, gifts and other forms of conveyance (including confiscation). The ownership of the endowed goods is transferred to God, but their profits are used for the benefit of a general group of people such as the needy, or the poor, or for a more specific, ‘worthy’ target (e.g., the relatives of the founders).¹⁴

The establishment of a waqf depends on a few constitutive elements: a founder, a set of properties to be endowed and a beneficiary. The founder (wāqif) must be the uncontested owner of the properties to be endowed (mawqūf).¹⁵ Such properties must include a source of income in order to financially sustain the charitable purpose of the foundation. Commercial structures, agricultural land, manufacturing facilities and rental units were among the most commonly endowed revenue-generating assets. Their profits were spent for the charitable scope of the foundation: distributing food and water, building and maintaining essential infrastructure, financing religious institutions, etc.¹⁶ The beneficiaries (mawqūf ʿalayhi or ahl al-waqf), either ‘worthy’ individuals or collective groups, could belong to the family of the founder or be a certain social group. Most waqf foundations included both, also because family waqfs generally indicated the poor and the needy as ultimate beneficiaries after the eventual extinction of the founder’s family.¹⁷

The operating conditions of a waqf foundation were stipulated in the waqf deed by the endower, and their execution was supervised by an appointed administrator (nāẓir).¹⁸ The functioning of waqf foundations was also under the jurisdiction of the religious authorities (the qādīs), who had to approve their validity at first. Within this basic legal framework, particular laws regulating the waqf could be flexibly adapted to the needs and tendencies of different periods. In fact, this institution became subject to fluctuations determined by different social, cultural and economic factors.¹⁹ As will be shown in this paper, the use of waqf varied in time and space in response to different needs and customs of society, as well as the individual familial and socio-economic conditions of the founders, their biases, and concerns.

3 The Role of Charity in Baghdad’s Water Provision

The city of Baghdad was founded in 145/762, on the Tigris, at a site that had a few pre-existing settlements and where various canals connected that river to the other major river in the area, the Euphrates. Its location near those canals was a key element in the selection of the site for al-Manṣūr (r. 136–158/754–775), the Abbasid caliph who gave the order for the new city to be built. The Round City of Baghdad was completed in 149/766.²⁰ Baghdad was not just the Round City, however, but rapidly came to cover large swaths of land outside it as well. On the western side of the Tigris, troops lived in the Ḥarbiyya neighbourhood; labourers populated al-Karkh, to where the markets were also moved in 157/773–774, and where many migrants came to live.²¹ The city also started expanding onto the eastern bank of the Tigris, after al-Manṣūr built a camp on that site for his son and heir Muḥammad al-Mahdī when the latter returned from Khurasan in 151/768, which came to be called al-Ruṣāfa, and where extensive urban development followed.²²

There is debate on the population numbers of Baghdad at its height of prosperity, with scholarly estimates ranging between a quarter and 1.5 million people, but many scholars today consider the city to have had at least half a million inhabitants in the late eighth and ninth centuries.²³ These people all needed access to water; for consumption, of course, but also for a wide variety of other purposes, ranging from ablution facilities in or around mosques and bathhouses to artisanal processes and irrigation. Water supply to the Round City and the caliphal palace via various conduits was organised at an early stage at the orders of al-Manṣūr.²⁴ Water was also distributed by watercarriers (saqqāʾūn).²⁵ For those outside the Round City, the canal system that cut through the city on both banks was a key source of water, as the third/ninth-century geographer and historian al-Yaʿqūbī describes:

For the people of al-Karkh and its surroundings, [water is drawn from] a canal called the Nahr al-Dajāj (…) and from a canal called Nahr Ṭābiq ibn al-Ṣamīh, and they have the great Nahr ʿĪsā which takes water from the main part of the Euphrates (…). They also have cisterns (ābār) into which water from these canals enters, and this is sweet water. All the people drink from them and these canals were needed because of the large size and extent of the town.²⁶

The pre-existing Sassanian canals, such as the Nahr Dujayl to the north of the Round City and the Nahr ʿĪsā (known earlier as the Nahr Rufayl)²⁷ to the south, which transported Euphrates water to the Tigris played an important role here—they were part of the reason why the location had been so attractive in the first place.²⁸ But after the foundation of Baghdad, various canals were dug that provided water for the inhabitants, such as the Nahr al-Dajāj and the Nahr al-Qallāʾīn in al-Karkh and the Nahr al-Mahdī on the east bank. Unfortunately it is not always entirely clear when and at whose orders these canals were dug.²⁹

Yet, as discussed above, from an early time in Islamic history, the provision of water was also an important way of giving charity, and consequently this phenomenon also appears in the early decades of the city Baghdad. For Baghdad in the early Abbasid period we have found two examples of water provision through charitable constructions. The oldest source that makes mention of these two examples is Ibn al-Faqīh’s (d. 290 AH/903 CE) Kitāb al-Buldān (The book of countries), which was written around 290 AH/903 CE.³⁰ This work contains an elaborate description of Baghdad that mentions the so-called Birkat Zalzal and Hawḍ Haylāna, both of which appear to have been charitable initiatives aimed at providing water for the general populace.³¹ These initiatives were named after the people who provided them, Zalzal and Haylāna, and both can be considered members of the elite. The resources on which their membership thereof was based, however, were strongly reliant on the patronage of others, and both of them can be considered social climbers—an element that may have affected their wish to engage in water-related charity, thereby cementing their social position as members of the elite.

3.1 The Birkat Zalzal

The Birkat Zalzal, or ‘Pond of Zalzal’, was located in the neighbourhood of al-Karkh on the west side of Baghdad, and it was fed by the Nahr Razīn, one of the canals coming from the Karkhāyā Canal.³² Ibn al-Faqīh writes:

To the left of the Suwayqa Abī al-Ward is the pond named after Zalzal the lute-player. He belonged to the generous people (kirām al-nās) in the days of al-Mahdī and al-Hādī and al-Rashīd. In the place of the ponds was a village called Shāl Qafyā(?) to Qaṣr al-Waḍḍāḥ. Zalzal was a servant (ghulām) of ʿĪsā ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Manṣūr, and he dug this pond and made it into a waqf for the Muslims (jaʿalahā waqf-an ʿalā al-muslimīn).³³

Various sources make mention of this pond and of Zalzal, the man who had it dug. There is no doubt in the sources that this pond was dug on the orders of Zalzal with the express purpose of providing water as a charity, which is clear from the terminology they use. Following Ibn al-Faqīh, Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (d. 626/1229) states that Zalzal ‘was of the generous people’ (min al-ajwād) and that he ‘made it into a waqf for the Muslims’ (wa-waqqafahā ʿalā al-muslimīn).³⁴ Other authors use the term sabīl to reflect the charitable aspect: al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdadi (d. 463/1072) writes that ‘he dug this pond for sabīl’;³⁵ similarly Sibṭ ibn al-Jawzī (d. 654/1256) states that he ‘made a pond for sabīl in Baghdad’.³⁶ The pond was apparently big enough, or otherwise prominent, that the entire neighbourhood came to be called after it—a neighbourhood that was apparently quite lovely, if the poetry quoted by these authors is to be believed.³⁷

As Ibn al-Faqīh mentions, Zalzal (a nickname, his given name was Manṣūr), a lute-player, was the endower of this pond. He was not just any lute-player: his playing was so good that it became proverbial.³⁸ He and the flautist Barṣawmā were reportedly members of the lower social classes of Kufa, and they were brought to Baghdad by the famous musician Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī (125–188/743–804), who taught both of them Arabic music.³⁹ Zalzal played at the court of Hārūn al-Rashid, under whom he reached the highest courtly rank of musicians, although he was apparently already active in al-Mahdī’s time (r. 158–169/775–785).⁴⁰ However, at some point he invoked the caliph’s anger and was imprisoned, for some ten years according to al-Iṣfahānī, after which he was released, and both he and al-Mawṣilī were richly rewarded on the occasion.⁴¹ Zalzal’s social position was clearly based on personal talent, but also strongly reliant on personal relations. He was also clearly a social climber: he had come from a low social class, and professional musicians did not enjoy a great reputation in Abbasid Baghdad.⁴²

Although there are various stories about Zalzal’s musical activities at court, there is no report on the construction of his charitable initiative. The date of his death, and thereby the terminus ad quem for the pond, is also unclear.⁴³ However, he was clearly active in the last quarter of the second/eighth century, possibly into the early years of the ninth, and it was likely at the height of his career during the reign of al-Rashīd, with corresponding financial means, that he had the pond dug—either before his imprisonment, or after his release, perhaps using some of the reward he received on that occasion—so sometime between 170/786 and c. 188/803.

3.2 The Hawḍ Haylāna

A second body of water that the sources describe as a charitable initiative in the provision of water in early Abbasid Baghdad is the ‘Ḥawḍ Haylāna’, or ‘Haylāna’s Tank’ on the east bank of the Tigris. One of three offshoots of the Nahr Mūsā, splitting off at the Al-Anṣār Bridge, ended in this tank, the other two emptying in the Ḥawḍ al-Anṣār and the Ḥawḍ Dāwud respectively.⁴⁴ Unlike in the case of Zalzal, the exact identification of this Haylāna is uncertain, as Ibn al-Faqīh indicates:

Haylāna’s Tank: people claim that Haylāna was a stewardess (qayyima) of al-Manṣūr. She dug this pool and made it for water provision (wa-jaʿalathu li-l-sabīl) and it was named after her. And Bāb al-Muḥawwal on the West side is an estate (iqtāʿ) of Haylāna which was given to her by al-Manṣūr. It is [also] said that Haylāna was a slave (jāriya) of al-Rashīd and that the tank is named after her.⁴⁵

The latter option is followed by some lines of poetry that al-Rashīd reportedly recited after she died. This confusion is not clarified by the later authors, who build on the same tradition: Yāqūt, for instance, shares the same structure, also opening with the description of a Haylāna who was a qahramāna (stewardess) of al-Manṣūr and who ‘dug this tank on the east side and dedicated it to charitable purposes (sabbalathu)’ followed by a narration on Hārūn al-Rashīd’s grief. He also relates that by his time, writing in the 620s AH/1220s CE, the Ḥawḍ Dāwud had been destroyed,⁴⁶ but does not report anything similar for the Tank of Haylāna, which may suggest that it was still in use in the early seventh/thirteenth century. Although the authors are clearly not entirely sure about the historical circumstances of the tank, the confusion appears to revolve more around the exact identification of the Haylāna who founded this tank for water provision rather than there being any doubt that the tank was dug ‘for sabīl’. So it appears that a water installation, the terminology of ‘sabīl’/‘sabbalathu’ suggesting this too was a waqf, was dug at the orders of a Haylāna who was active at court at some point between the foundation of al-Ruṣāfa in 151/768 and 173/789–790, the year in which the second Haylāna died.⁴⁷

Much like Zalzal, both Haylānas were members of the elite, in the sense that they could influence their social and economic, and perhaps even political, contexts, and here used their wealth to provide water to the community. But, also like Zalzal, their respective positions were reliant on others: al-Rashīd’s Haylāna was enslaved, and the same may have applied to al-Manṣūr’s stewardess. It is clear that at least some richer members of early Abbasid society wished to express their piety and generosity through the provision of water. While this expression of piety was likely the primary driver behind the foundation of these charitable enterprises, they could also have political and societal consequences and benefactors took these interlinked factors into consideration.⁴⁸ Both Zalzal and the Haylānas belonged to what Lev has described as ‘the ruling circles’: while they did not personally wield political authority, they did belong to the court.⁴⁹ As charitable deeds were highly valued by medieval Islamic society, they served to enhance a benefactor’s position. Lev argues that charity could therefore be a powerful tool to integrate marginalised groups into society. Besides recent converts to Islam, he points specifically to eunuchs and enslaved women at court: through the social effects of charity, the community became aware of, and came to respect, them.⁵⁰ Given Zalzal and Haylāna’s positions as social climbers, who were members of the elite but relied on others’ patronage in order to do so, their water-providing waqfs appear to be an expression of piety as much as a way of cementing their respective social positions.

It is thus evident that charitable water provision, including via the institution of waqf, played a role in the water infrastructure of early Abbasid Baghdad, side by side with canals and installations constructed by the authorities and other private actors. Moreover, the Birkat Zalzal (last third of the second/late eighth-early ninth century) and the Ḥawḍ Haylāna (second half of the second/eighth century) are among the oldest endowed waterworks that we know of.⁵¹ Of course, of the water used for the approximately half a million people in Baghdad, only a small percentage came from Zalzal’s and Haylāna’s respective charitable initiatives. As described above, most inhabitants of the city would have relied on the canals, cisterns, and other elements within the city’s network of water provision. Yet, their constructions were clearly and literally integrated into the wider water network: the pond and the tank that they had built, respectively, were fed directly by canals running through the city. Through their pious involvement in this ‘best form of charity’, these founders not only pleased God but also served citizens’ needs and enhanced their own status in Baghdadi society, their endowments recalled by historians for centuries—even if they were not quite sure which Haylāna they ought to thank for the tank. The relative importance of such instances of charitable water provision to Baghdad remains unclear, unfortunately. The instances of charitable water provision discussed here all come from geographical descriptions of the city, which means that they discuss physical structures rather than processes in most cases, and especially lower key initiatives—such as water provision at mosques—are much harder to trace. Similarly, we lack waqf documents or other information in the sources about how exactly the foundations by Zalzal and Haylāna were managed or about how their waters were (envisioned to be) used. The source material for Mamluk Cairo, however, is much richer in this regard, and it is to there that we now turn.

4 Charity, Good Governance and the Provision of Water in Mamluk Cairo

4.1 Diffusion of Waqf Foundations in Mamluk Cairo

Like in Abbasid Baghdad, water structures supported by charitable foundations and embedded in the urban water system existed in Mamluk-era Cairo as well. The great abundance of chronicles and documentary sources from the Mamluk period (i.e. from the middle of the seventh/thirteenth to the beginning of the tenth/sixteenth century) show us the importance of water distribution as a form of piety and its pervasiveness in the charitable deeds of the elites. Both for this abundance of extant source material and for the different socio-political context, Mamluk Cairo represents an interesting term of comparison with Abbasid Baghdad as it allows us to see how the phenomenon of charitable water distribution developed in two different phases of Islamic history.

It must be said that, in Egypt, the institution of waqf was not used exclusively during the Mamluk period but made its first appearance soon after the Islamic conquest. Moreover, some of its earliest applications already involved the supply of water to the city—during the Abbasid period, for example, the financial official al-Mādharāʾī alienated the pond of al-Ḥabash and a hydraulic system connected to it.⁵² Similarly, in the mid-fourth/mid-tenth century the vizier Jaʿfar ibn Faḍl endowed a water well and a system of seven cisterns in Fusṭāṭ.⁵³

It was not until the Mamluk period, however (648–923/1250–1517) that the waqf reached an unprecedented peak in terms of legal development, variety of applications, and quantity of foundations. Some reforms implemented already under the sultanate of al-Ẓāḥir Baybars al-Bunduqdārī (r. 658–676/1260–1277) had important consequences for the administration of charitable endowments, and they were likely among the factors that boosted the spreading of waqf foundations.⁵⁴

During the Mamluk period, the military and civilian elite of Cairo endowed a great variety of properties (agricultural lands, residential buildings, baths, commercial and industrial structures). The revenues from these endowments benefited their households as well as the local community and allowed for the creation and development of religious institutions (mosques, madrasas, and Qur’anic schools for orphans) and urban facilities. Especially from the beginning of the ninth/fifteenth century, the alienation of assets through family waqfs also became a common way of securing an income for the families of the elite, as it protected their properties from over-taxation and confiscation, in a period when factional struggles within the ruling class exacerbated such practices.⁵⁵ Moreover, since the military was paid with the usufruct of state land allotments which returned to the Treasury (bayt al-māl) after the cessation of the tenant’s service (due to his death or disgrace), more amīrs started buying their assigned plots and endowing them to their families—in this way, they prevented the state from taking back their allotments and protected their descendants from destitution.⁵⁶

With the spread of charitable foundations nurtured by the elite, the institution of waqf became an essential part of Cairo life and penetrated deeply into society. Mamluk-era historiographers seem to express mixed opinions regarding the mushrooming of waqf foundations in the capital. While they condemned the abuses perpetrated by the authorities in the management of large religious foundations, they positively valued the effort shown by the members of the elite in the establishment of foundations and criticised individuals that did not manifest such concerns.⁵⁷ The historian Ibn Taghrī Birdī (814–874/1410–1470), for example, concludes his obituary of the influential amīr and atābak (commander) Yashbak al-Sūdunī (d. 849/1445) saying that ‘despite his great power (wa-maʿa hādha al-tamakkun al-ʿaẓīm) he never did any of the advised good deeds in his life (lam yafʿal fī ḥayātihi min al-maʿrūf mā yudhakkaru bihi), such as [founding] sabīls and mosques, as is customary for the great rulers (ʿalā ʿādat ʿuẓamāʾ al-mulūk)’.⁵⁸

Such criticism for Yashbak’s lack of charitable initiative shows that the author considered the creation of endowments a customary practice, at least among the most influential members of the ruling elite. It also indicates that charitable deeds were somehow expected from people having the same power and affluence (tamakkun) as Yashbak. The use of the term maʿrūf (good) echoes the Qur’anic phrasing for the collective moral imperative of the Muslim community: ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’ (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahī ʿan-al-munkar).⁵⁹ The description of such good deeds as ‘recommended’ (mā yudhakkaru bihi) seems to endorse this reading.

Ibn Taghrī Birdī’s statement also suggests that creating water-supply facilities (particularly the sabīl, or fountain), together with building mosques, was among the most recommendable and widespread types of charitable deeds. By the time the historian wrote these words, the sabīl had in fact become one of the most popular types of waqf-financed water installation in Cairo. This was due to the water scarcity in the area, the great demand for installations storing and distributing water and the high value Islamic tradition attributed to offering water as a form of charity. In the following section, we shall explore in more detail the function of the sabīl and the significance it acquired in ninth/fifteenth century Cairo.

4.2 Landmarks of Charity: Function and Significance of the Cairene Sabīls

Especially from the ninth/fifteenth century onward, fresh water supply became a primary object of charity in Cairo. Waqfs often allotted funds for the periodical distribution of potable water, or for the building and upkeep of a special type of water fountain, the sabīl. The urge to provide such services was partially dictated by the difficulties of the city’s water situation. The enormous medieval metropolis relied on Nile water for drinking purposes, as the wells provided unpalatable brackish water, unsuitable for human consumption.⁶⁰ Water, therefore, had to be transported from the river, a tiresome job done mostly by watercarriers who sold water in the streets or delivered it to private residences.⁶¹ However, by the beginning of the ninth/fifteenth century, successive environmental calamities and the westward recession of the river flow had made the service of watercarriers unaffordable for a large part of the population.⁶² The unstable government could not cope with the situation and, if anything, made it worse.⁶³ In this scenario, it seems plausible that the elite charitable initiatives might have at least partially mitigated the problem of water provision. The sabīl, which gradually became a widespread structure, represented one of the ways to intervene in the water provision of the city.

Built on a large underground cistern (ṣahrīj), the Cairene sabīl was a water distribution chamber usually located at the corner of larger religious buildings.⁶⁴ It faced the street on one or more sides; big iron windows separated it from the thoroughfare but allowed direct communication between the passers-by and the inside of the room. Above the sabīl, a second floor often served as a Qur’anic school for orphans (maktab, or kuttāb). The cistern was normally filled through small openings placed at street level, in which water carriers periodically deposited fresh water collected during the annual plenitude of the Nile. From there, water was manually transferred into the sabīl, poured over a shādhirwān (a slanted marble carved surface which functioned as both a filter and a cooler) and finally it flowed into smaller basins from which cups were filled and offered to passers-by through the iron windows. A special employee, the muzammalātī, had the responsibility of fetching and distributing the water from the cistern and cleaning the structure and its accessories⁶⁵ (Figs. 2 and 3).

Fig. 2

Sabīl of Sultan Qāytbāy (r. 872–901 AH/1468–1496 CE). Built in 884 AH/1479 CE, it is one of the finest extant Mamluk-era sabīls and it is characterised by the peculiarity of being a self-standing sabīl, while other structures of this type are generally embedded in bigger religious buildings (Angela Isoldi)

Fig. 3

Sabīl of Sultan Qāytbāy (interior). The finely carved marble slab (Ar: salsabīl or shādhirwān) where water was poured to be cleansed and cooled down before being offered to passers-by (Angela Isoldi)

The modus operandi of the sabīls and the remuneration of its employees were established by the individual founders. So, for example, the physician and bureaucrat Fatḥ Allāh ibn Muʿtaṣim ibn Nafīs al-Ṭabrīzī (759–816/1357–1413) stipulates in his waqf deed the working conditions of the two sabīls he endowed in 810/1408:

And from this [revenue] pay the janitor (bawwāb) appointed by the nāẓir (…) as doorkeeper and muzammalātī for taking care of locking and opening the gate of the shrine, transferring the water from the big cistern of the Sufi lodge (khānqāh) and the new cistern (…) to the sabīl of the new shrine, and for serving it all to people from late morning (ḍuḥā) till early afternoon (ʿaṣr) every day of the week, and the opposite in the holy month of Ramadan, from sunset to the time people finish the tarāwīḥ.⁶⁶ (…) The total amount [to be paid] each year is a thousand five hundred and sixty dirhams, of which seven hundred and twenty are for the janitorship, and eight hundred and forty are for transferring of the water from the cisterns to the sabīl and serving it as described above (…)

A yearly amount of three hundred dirhams shall be paid for the mugs and clay vessels, the sponges and brooms, and the tools to draw water and for the price of the oil for the lightening during Ramadan and of what is needed for transporting and serving the water.

A righteous man shall be paid six hundred dirham per year to work as muzammalātī and take care of transporting water from the cistern that is in Cairo in the Suwayqat al-Masʿūdī to the nearby sabīl, and distributing it from midday (ẓuhr) to early afternoon (ʿaṣr) every day of the week, and in the month of Ramadan from sunset until the time people finish the tarāwīḥ prayer every night of the week.

A yearly amount of two hundred and fifty dirham must be paid for the tools for drawing water and for the cups and the pottery vessels, the sponges and brooms, and for the oil vases for the illumination during the month of Ramadan, and for any other tools needed for distributing water from the sabīl that is in Cairo (…).⁶⁷

The conditions described in Fatḥ Allāh’s deed are very similar to those stipulated for other sabīls in several ninth/fifteenth-century Egyptian waqf documents. The excerpt reported above also shows to what extent the functioning of a sabīl was regulated by the founders, and how its structure conditioned people’s access to fresh water. With its precise schedule, the iron windows protecting its inner space, and the presence of a ‘righteous’ muzammalātī distributing water, the sabīl was not just a public fountain, but a more complex structure with a deeper intrinsic meaning.

As argued by Saleh Lamei Mostafa, some architectural elements of the sabīl can be interpreted as symbolic references to Qur’anic passages on water and water giving. For instance, the shādhirwān on which water is poured echoes the Qur’anic description of drinking water as ‘visible running water’.⁶⁸ Similarly, the fact that sabīls were often attached to larger religious buildings, or associated with Qur’anic schools for orphans, suggests that they were not seen as ordinary facilities, but as a profoundly sacred form of charity.⁶⁹ All this is obviously linked with the high value Islam attributes to water provision as a form of charity.

Other than a distinct religious meaning, the sabīl carried a socio-political significance too. Visible from multiple sides, placed often at the corners of monumental façades or in similarly noticeable locations, and sometimes decorated with exquisite designs and inscriptions, sabīls intended to be noticeable landmarks. At the same time, the iron windows, the fixed operating timespan and the necessary presence of an attendant limited and policed the access to the object of charity itself—fresh water. Considered from this perspective, sabīls can be interpreted as a combined representation of the elites’ piety, munificence, and power. Thus, the importance attributed during the Mamluk period to the sabīl might have been related not only to its charitable function, but also to its relevance in the political discourse of the urban elites.

4.3 Charity Makes the Difference

Ibn Taghrī Birdī’s remark on Yashbak al-Sūdūnī’s lack of concern for charitable deeds triggers some questions regarding the endowing practices of the Mamluk ruling class, especially because this historian is not the only author commenting on the philanthropic endeavours of the elites. Does such interest by Mamluk-era authors reflect a specific mindset regarding the responsibilities of the ruling class? Were charitable deeds considered as a sort of duty of the wealthy and powerful?

The number of waqfs established during the ninth/fifteenth century indicates that founding endowments had become a customary practice for the urban elites. However, the nature and functions of the individual foundations varied greatly, and so did the social position of the founders themselves. In the diversified context of these endowments, interesting patterns of correspondence between the endowers’ social status and the nature of their waqfs can be discerned.

Interesting observations, in this sense, have been done by Daisuke Igarashi in his case study on the endowment strategy of Qijmās al-Isḥāqī (d. 892/1487). This amīr rose to a prominent political position in the Mamluk Sultanate, eventually becoming governor of Damascus in 885/1480. The biographies and obituaries of Qijmās written by his contemporaries praise his brave and humble personality, as well as his piety and his many charitable deeds. Not all of his foundations, however, were meant for the benefit of the citizens. In fact, Igarashi’s study shows that the purpose of Qijmās’ endowments changed together with his social status. At the earliest stages of his career, Qijmās established a familial waqf to secure assets for himself and his household, while the waqfs he founded when he rose to more prestigious positions showed a gradual tendency towards promoting public interests.⁷⁰ For example, the waqf for his tomb, which he established in 872/1467 after his promotion to a higher military rank, included a water-cistern (ṣahrīj) for public use and a muzammalātī for the distribution of water at his shrine. Only 10 per cent of the revenues of this waqf were actually spent for charitable purposes, but it is still relevant that Qijmās included water distribution as soon as he achieved a more prestigious position. Subsequently, when he became viceroy of Alexandria, he equipped the city with a number of sabīls and finally in 884/1479, after being promoted to amīr akhūr kabīr (great supervisor of the royal stables), he endowed the famous religious complex in al-Darb al-Aḥmar (in Cairo), which included a mosque-madrasa and a sabīl-maktab.⁷¹ The sabīl thus appeared in Qijmās’ endowments as his prestige increased.

There are other instances in which public figures added a sabīl to their endowments following a political advancement. The sultan al-Ashraf Ināl (r. 857–865/1453–1461), for example, added a Sufi lodge, a mosque-madrasa and a sabīl to his funerary complex in Cairo when he became the ruler.⁷² The abovementioned Fatḥ Allāh endowed his sabīls in Cairo after he achieved the powerful position of kātib al-sirr (Chief Secretary).⁷³ Overall, the great majority of the extant sabīls of Cairo built throughout the ninth/fifteenth century were part of endowments established by the urban dignitaries.⁷⁴ This not only shows the extent of the city’s elites involvement with charitable water distribution, but also reveals a pattern of association between great wealth and power and the construction of sabīls. Ibn Taghrī Birdī’s indignation at Yashbak stems from the fact that, by his time, it was a consolidated custom of the ruling elite to devote at least part of their wealth to a charitable scope, and particularly to the construction of sabīls.

We could argue, therefore, that sabīls were a way to physically represent shared ideals of good governance. Major political treatises written during the Mamluk period, such as al-Siyāsa al-sharʿiyya (Treatise on the government of the religious law) by the religious scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), and the Kitāb Muʿīd al-niʿam wa-mubīd al-niqām (The restorer of favours and the restrainer of chastisements) by Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370), formulated the theoretical frameworks of equity and justice for the Muslim community. Ibn Taymiyya equates justice to a lawful balance of rights and claims, in which everybody gives and asks according to his social position.⁷⁵ He also attributes the value of religious duties to the principle of good governance.⁷⁶ On the other hand, al-Subkī states that the authorities should keep the common good as a priority and use their means for fulfilling the needs of the community.⁷⁷ On the basis of the necessary correspondence of niʿma (divine grace) and shukr (the individual’s gratitude to the divine), which is the fundament of his work, al-Subkī treats good governance as the authorities’ duty towards God. Charitable foundations, and particularly those devoted to religious institutions and water supply, nicely fit into this political philosophy due to their pious character and social significance.

5 Conclusions

In this chapter, we have looked at two different types of charitable water provision: the tank and pond endowed in early Abbasid Baghdad by Haylāna and Zalzal respectively—bodies of water embedded in the urban water network—and the highly organised sabīls of Mamluk Cairo, where passers-by were offered cups of fresh water. Due to the highly sacred value of water provision as a form of charity, and to the environmental challenges of water management in medieval Cairo, the many charitable endowments of the city (the number of which increased throughout the ninth/fifteenth century) often included water distribution and water facilities. In particular, sabīls gained a special significance. Together with mosques, they became the structure most commonly financed by the waqfs of high-ranking political figures. Their location, structure and embellishment show that sabīls should not be considered as simple water facilities, but as symbolic elements of the elites’ political discourse, physically representing ideals of piety, power, munificence, and good governance in the urban space.

On the one hand, the many narrative and documentary sources we possess from Mamluk Cairo indicate that charitable water distribution became so pervasive in the endowments of the elite that it became somehow expected from the most prominent figures of the ruling class to devote part of their means to the construction and maintenance of sabīls. As for Abbasid Baghdad, on the other hand, fewer examples of charitable water provision are attested, although this is at least in part due to a comparative lack of primary source material. But from the cases discussed above, it seems to be the case that early Abbasid endowers of water facilities were not so much part of the ruling elite, like their Mamluk counterparts, but rather social climbers from the circle around them. Close to the rulers, but not themselves in an official position of power, their generosity demonstrated their piety, but may also have served to enhance their status in society—something especially attractive for those who were members of marginalised groups, such as enslaved people. In both cases, the cities’ inhabitants benefited, and so did the reputation of the donors.

Throughout the centuries, we thus see different elite groups active in the provision of water through charity, which formed a meaningful part of the water supply in Baghdad and Cairo. In Baghdad, the Pond of Zalzal and the Haylāna’s Tank may have been used by individual citizens or watercarriers to fill up waterskins to be used for consumption or other purposes, even if it reflected only a small percentage of the city’s use. Cairenes were offered a drink of fresh water when passing by a sabīl. Ultimately, the symbolic value might have been higher than the practical, but given the natural difficulties of water supply in these two cities, these endowments constituted a welcome contribution to these cities’ systems of water provision.