War Finance and the Confiscation of a Merchant Estate in Late Fourteenth-century Jerusalem

This study reconsiders the concentration of estate-related documents in the Ḥaram al-sharīf corpus from Jerusalem against the backdrop of the fiscal pressures characterising Sultan al-Ẓāhir Barqūq’s second reign (792–801/1390–1399). Moving beyond interpretations that frame the corpus primarily as evidence of judicial corruption, it examines how heightened military expenditure during the Tīmūrid crisis intersected with provincial estate administration. Focusing on the case of the Khurāsān khawājā merchant Mīrān, whose testament and liquidation record survive as a rarely matched pair, the study investigates the setting aside of a formally valid will following a ministerial order. Although the evidence cannot support comprehensive institutional transformation, it reveals the administrative mechanisms through which mobile merchant wealth could be redirected to the central fisc under military strain. The study offers new insights into the relation between legal practice and fiscal mobilisation in the transition period of the late fourteenth-century Mamlūk Sultanate.