Sharifian Households in Medina (Fourteenth to Mid-Fifteenth Centuries CE)

Abstract This article draws from chronicles and biographical dictionaries to examine the formation of Sharifian households as well as the mechanisms of accession to the emirate in Medina during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. During this period, members of a dynasty known as the Banū Ḥusayn—descendants of Ḥusayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muḥammad—maintained power in the holy city and developed an internal organization of authority based on a sense of belonging to the People of the House, particularly through their ‘Alid status, blood ties, patrilineal dimension, and proximity to the Prophet's Mosque, used for legitimizing their local authority. However, because of local rivalries and the pressure exerted by Mamluk rulers, tension emerged concerning the dynamics of power between two poles of influence: that of the local Sharifian factions and the distant authority of the sultan in the selection of the emir of Medina.