Abstract
Shihāb ad-Dīn al-ʿUmarī, the secretary of the dīwān al-inshāʾ (the central chancery) in Damascus and Cairo, wrote in 1340s al-Taʿrīf bi-l-Muṣṭalah al-Sharīf, the administrative manual intended for the employees of the court chancery of the Egyptian Mamlūk sultans. The manual contains also special oaths to be sworn by dhimmīs, or protected non-Muslim communities, including the Jewish one.
In Egypt and Syria, this included the Rabbanites, Karaites, and Samaritans. The text of Samaritan oath (yamīn al-sāmira), contained in al-Taʿrīf bi-l-Muṣṭalah al-Sharīf, is verbatim copied in later Mamlūk manuals of secretaryship, such as Tathqīf al-Taʿrīf biʾl-Muṣṭalaḥ al-Sharīf by Ibn Nāẓir al-Jaysh (1326-1384), Al-Thaghr al-Bāsim fī Ṣināʿat al-Kātib wa-ʾl-Kātim (1443) by al-Saḥmāw ī, and, most famously, Ṣubḥ al-Aʿshā fī Ṣināʿat al-Inshāʾ (1355-1418) by al-Qalqashandī.
The article explores the content of Samaritan oath and aims to show that the authors of the manuals evinced a good knowledge of the basic principles of the Samaritan faith. Among the People of the Book, Samaritans are seen as a sort of Jewish subgroup, which was viewed separately from the Rabbanites and Karaites, and thus needed its own version of the oath.
Thus, they confirm the Samaritans' position on the margins of a minority.