Furūsiyya (Arabic: فروسية; also transliterated as furūsīyah, knighthood) is an Arabic knightly discipline and ethical code developed in the Middle Ages. It was practised in the medieval Muslim world from Afghanistan to Muslim Spain, and particularly during the Crusades and the Mamluk period. The combat form uses martial arts and equestrianism as its foundation. The term furūsiyya is a derivation of faras (فرس) "horse", and in Modern Standard Arabic means "equestrianism" in general. The term for "horseman" or "cavalier" ("knight") is fāris (فارس), which is also the origin of the Spanish rank of alférez. The Perso-Arabic term for "Furūsiyya literature" is faras-nāma or asb-nāma. Faras-nāma is also described as a small encyclopedia about horses. The three basic categories of furūsiyya are horsemanship, including veterinary aspects of proper care for the horse (hippology) and the proper riding techniques (equestrianism), mounted archery, and jousting. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya adds swordsmanship as a fourth discipline in his treatise Al-Furūsiyya (1350). Ibn Akhi Hizam also cited that there are three fundamentals to the furūsiyya: horse mastery, proficiency in handling all types of weapons, and bravery.
History
Tradition
The Arabic literary tradition involving equestrianism dates back thousands of years and occupied large sections of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. That of veterinary medicine (hippiatry) in Furusiyya literature, much like in the case of human medicine, was adopted from Byzantine Greek sources in the 9th to 10th centuries. In the case of furūsiyya, the immediate source is the Byzantine compilation on veterinary medicine known as the Hippiatrica (5th or 6th century); the very word for "horse doctor" in Arabic, bayṭar, is a Greek: ἱππιατρός, romanized: hippiatros.
Arabic treatises The first known such treatise in Arabic is due to Ibn Akhī Ḥizām (ابن أخي حزام), an Abbasid-era commander and stable master to caliph Al-Muʿtadid (r. 892–902), author of Kitāb al-Furūsiyya wa 'l-Bayṭara ("Book of Horsemanship and Hippiatry"). Ibn al-Nadim in the late 10th century records the availability in Baghdad of several treatises on horses and veterinary medicine attributed to Greek authors. The discipline peaked in Mamluk Sultanate during the 14th century. In a narrow sense, furūsiyya literature comprises works by professional military writers with a Mamluk background or close ties to the Mamluk establishment. These treatises often quote pre-Mamluk works on military strategy. Some of the works were versified for didactic purposes. The best known versified treatise is the one by Taybugha al-Ashrafi al-Baklamishi al-Yunan ("the Greek"), who in c. 1368 wrote the poem al-tullab fi ma'rifat ramy al-nushshab. The discipline of furusiyya became increasingly detached from its origins in Byzantine veterinary medicine and more focussed on military arts.
Categories The three basic categories of furūsiyya are horsemanship, including hippology and veterinary aspects of proper care for the horse, and the appropriate riding techniques, mounted archery, and jousting. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya adds swordsmanship as a fourth discipline in his treatise Al-Furūsiyya (1350). Ibn Akhi Hizam also cited that there are three fundamentals to furūsiyya: horse mastery, proficiency in handling all types of weapons, and bravery.
Persian treatises Persian faras-nāma which can be dated with confidence are extant only from about the mid-14th century, but the tradition survives longer in Persia, throughout the Safavid era. One treatise by ʿAbd-Allāh Ṣafī, known as the Bahmanī faras-nāma (written in 1407/8) is said to preserve a chapter from an otherwise lost 12th-century (Ghaznavid-era) text. There is a candidate for another treatise of this age, extant in a single manuscript: the treatise attributed to one Moḥammad b. Moḥammad b. Zangī, also known as Qayyem Nehāvandī, has been tentatively dated as originating in the 12th century. Some of the Persian treatises are translations from the Arabic. One short work, attributed to Aristotle, is a Persian translation from the Arabic. There are supposedly also treatises translated into Persian from Hindustani or Sanskrit. These include the Faras-nāma-ye hāšemī by Zayn-al-ʿĀbedīn Ḥosaynī Hašemī (written 1520), and the Toḥfat al-ṣadr by Ṣadr-al-Dīn Moḥammad Khan b. Zebardast Khan (written 1722/3). Texts thought to have been originally written in Persian include the Asb-nāma by Moḥammad b. Moḥammad Wāseʿī (written 1365/6; Tehran, Ketāb-ḵāna-ye Malek MS no. 5754). A partial listing of known Persian faras-nāma literature was published by Gordfarāmarzī (1987).
List of Furusiyyah treatises The following is a list of known Furusiyyah treatises (after al-Sarraf 2004, al-Nashīrī 2007). Some of the early treatises (9th to 10th centuries) are not extant and are only known from references by later authors: Al-Asma'i, Kitāb al-khayl (خيل "horse"), Ibn Abi al-Dunya (d. 894 / AH 281) Al-sabq wa al-ramī, Al-Ṭabarānī (d. 971 / AH 360) Faḍl al-ramī, Al-Qarrāb (d. 1038 / AH 429), Faḍā'il al-ramī.
Fāris
The term furūsiyya, much like its parallel chivalry in the West, also appears to have developed a wider meaning of "martial ethos". Arabic furusiyya and European chivalry have both influenced each other as a means of a warrior code for the knights of both cultures. The term fāris (فارس) for "horseman" consequently adopted qualities comparable to the Western knight or chevalier ("cavalier"). This could include free men (such as Usama ibn Munqidh) or unfree professional warriors, like ghulāms and mamluks. The Mamluk-era soldier was trained in the use of various weapons such as the saif, spear, lance, javelin, club, bow and arrows, and tabarzin (Mamluk bodyguards are known as tabardariyya), as well as wrestling.
See also
Hippiatrica Shalihotra Samhita Bem cavalgar History of veterinary medicine Horses in the Middle Ages Horses in warfare Aswaran Futuwwa Ayyār
References
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