«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

m 100 n David Nicolle account of arms and armour. These appear in Ibn Hudhayl's Kitāb tu ḥ fat al- anfus and in a subsequent abridged version entitled Kitāb ḥ ilyat al-fursān 1 . Per- haps this was because the only armour commonly made of hardened leather was the jawshan , which had never been widely used in al-Andalus and was so old fashioned by Ibn Hudhayl’s day that he gave it only a passing reference. Some mid- to late 13 th century European writers specifically note the use of leather armour by Mamlūk troops of Egypt and Syria, while other such writers noted the leather armour, probably of lamellar construction, worn by Anatolian Turkish soldiers in 1332 AD 2 . Yet leather armour was not confined to the cen- tral and eastern Islamic lands. In the late 14 th century, French sources admired the effectiveness of the leather armour worn by their Islamic foes in Tunisia which, they admitted, was far more suited to the local climate than their own heavy iron armours 3 . If Ibn Hudhayl failed to provide information on leather armour, other ear- lier Islamic writers certainly did so. It is, however, unfortunate that so many early Arab military sources remain untranslated while others have not even been edited and published. Indeed some such sources remain largely unrecog- nized, embedded in later works which similarly may or may not be available for study outside a tiny group of dedicated specialists. As it is, the clearest references to leather protections are found in non-specialist sources such as histories. Nevertheless these include the description of early MuslimArab sol- diers supposedly making temporary helmets out of available harness straps 4 , and references to leather “helmets” being stored in early 10 th century c Abbāsid arsenals in Baghdad 5 . Meanwhile descriptions of 9 th –10 th century elite troops wearing iron helmets could suggest that non-elite troops had helmets made other, inferior materials. Even more tantalizing references note the presence of supposedly “Tibetan” cuirasses in 10th century Tarsus 6 . Supposedly “Tibetan” 1 Ibn Hudhayl, Abū’l- Ḥ asan c Alī ibn c Abd al-Ra ḥ mān al-Fazārī al-Andalusī, Kitāb hilyat al-fursān , edit. L. Mercier (Paris 1922), trans. L. Mercier as La Parure des Cavaliers... (Paris 1924, trans. M. J. Viguera as Gala de Caballeros, Blason de Paladines (Madrid 1977); Kitāb tu ḥ fat al-anfus , edit. L. Mercier (Paris 1936), trans. L. Mercier as L’ornament des âmes... (Paris 1936). 2 Verbruggen J. F. The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. Oxford, 1977. P. 263. 3 Chronique du Bon Duc Loys de Bourbon , A. M. Chazaud edit. (Paris 1876), in B. Tuch- man, A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous Fourteenth Century. London, 1979. P. 473. 4 Al- Ṭ abarī, in R. Levy, The Social Structure of Islam. Cambridge, 1957. P. 431–432. 5 Al-Khatib al-Baghdādī, in A.A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, vol. II. Brussels, 1950. P. 78 & 104. 6 Canard M. Quelques Observations sur l’introduction géographique de la Bughyat at’T’aleb de Kamāl ad’Din ibn al c Adim d’Alep, Annales de l’Institut d’Etudes Orientales de la Faculté des Lettres d’Alger, 15. 1957. P. 49.