John Meloy's skillful investigation into the careers of the sharifs of Mecca gives us a detailed and very interesting case study of the way in which the collection, control, use, and loss of wealth from commerce affected politics throughout the long 15th century, that is, from the end of the 14th century to the Ottoman takeover of Mamluk Egypt in 1517. The pivotal figures in Meloy's study are men of the Banu Hasan family, who benefited from Mecca's unique situation as a spiritual and economic center by providing protection to pilgrims and access to wealth from commerce to locals. To understand the sharifs’ careers and their relationships to their overlords, the Mamluk sultans, Meloy proposes a view of Mecca as a center for religion, politics, and long-distance trade, and as an important link between the maritime worlds of the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. This approach counteracts scholarly and historiographical tendencies to see the city primarily as a spiritual destination, and allows Meloy to make a major contribution to studies on trade, which have tended either to describe large world systems or narrow in on better known trade locations such as the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, or Yemen. Meloy's work is thus a novel and unique study of Mecca in the medieval period and reminds us of scholarship on Mecca in the pre-Islamic era, when religion and trade were acknowledged as inextricably linked.

A Mamlukist by training, Melow based this book on the well-known Arabic histories, chancellery manuals, and biographical dictionaries of the Mamluk sultanate, as well as on sources from the Meccan sharifate, which have only recently come to scholarly attention, and include biographical dictionaries, topographies, and annalistic and thematic chronicles. He argues that even as political histories proliferated in other Muslim cities starting in the 11th century, Mecca suffered from relative historiographical neglect until the turn of the 15th century, when an interest in history among Meccans themselves led them to compose sources where none had previously existed. This sudden proliferation of works by Meccans on their own city in large part dictated Meloy's time period. Meloy also relied on epigraphy (usually coins), where possible, and a diverse array of sources in European languages.

The book's format is perfectly logical. Meloy provides two introductory chapters: one on the historical and theoretical dimensions of his subject, and another on the logistics of politics and commerce. Thus in the first chapter he examines Mecca's political isolation and its position under Mamluk rule, details historiographical treatment of the city, and discusses the Meccan authors. He also elaborates on Mecca's religious and ideological significance, which led many Muslim rulers, among them the Mamluk sultans, to seek to demonstrate their political legitimacy and dominance through public rituals associated with the pilgrimage. In the second chapter Meloy addresses such logistical questions as climate and topography in the Hijaz and the Red Sea; trade routes through Mecca and its Red Sea port, Jedda; Meccan political factions; and ships and shipping in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The extreme navigational challenges of the Red Sea are particularly interesting given their profound influence on political and economic decisions. This section is supported by two useful maps, one depicting major ports and trade cities on the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, the other detailing towns, watercourses, and Red Sea ports in the immediate vicinity of Mecca.

In the remaining chapters Meloy presents a chronological narrative of political action, reaction, and change in Mecca over the long 15th century, coupled with a detailed description of the ways in which the sharifs spent their wealth. He often invokes specific sums the sharifs used for any number of purposes: to invest in relationships, infrastructure, and military activity; to promise and sometimes even pay bribes; and to mollify interlocutors, purchase truces, construct religious buildings, and so on. The details Meloy provides are unusually extensive for this historical period, and illuminate the realities of buying and maintaining political standing through wealth. He thoughtfully supports this section with three useful appendices: one comparing the reigns of the Mamluk sultans to those of the Meccan sharifs; another presenting the sharifs’ genealogy; and a third, particularly valuable appendix charting the available data on maritime traffic through Jedda from 1471 to 1537.

Meloy's work also illuminates several larger topics, among them Mamluk governing practices in remote regions, the politics of a fringe area, and, more generally, the amir–ayan system proposed by the late Marshall Hodgson, in which military and civilian elites dominate the social and political order by cooperating with one another. It was standard Mamluk policy to appoint regional figures as Mamluk amirs, who then controlled places that the Mamluks themselves had no intention of governing directly. As Meloy points out, the sharifs were among these regional figures, employed as local political brokers for the Mamluks in Cairo. In his narrative chapters, Meloy maps the complex interactions between the sharifs and the sultans and between the sharifs and the Meccan factions. He charts how these relationships changed according to political, military, and economic circumstances, and the personalities, ages, and experience of the principals. Three valuable case studies—of the role of wealth in politics, of the relationship between center and fringe, and of internal politics within the fringe—allow Meloy to illuminate and at times dissent from Hodgson's theory of the amir–ayan system. Meloy also corrects the Cairo-centric view of many Mamluk sources, and challenges our understanding of the reigns of well-studied Mamluk rulers such as Barsbay (r. 1422–38), Qaytbay (r. 1468–96), and Qansuh al-Ghuri (r. 1501–16). In addition, Meloy highlights larger issues that affected Mecca, among them Mamluk political and ideological skirmishes with rival rulers: the Rasulids of Yemen, the Temürids, the Aq Quyunlu, and the Ottomans. He notes the effect on Mecca of the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks in 1516 and 1517, as well as the arrival of the Portuguese in the Red Sea in 1513 and 1514. Attention to larger historical events allows us to see their effect on real people in the periphery rather than only in the center, and provides depth to the overarching narratives to which we are largely accustomed.

This detailed history is a valuable and welcome contribution to scholarship, and adds significantly to our knowledge in several fields. The book will be useful for anyone studying the politics of the medieval Islamic period, essential for Mamlukists interested in the reality of the political relationships between the Mamluk center and the periphery, and required reading for scholars focusing on trade systems, especially those examining the impact of the critical Portuguese arrival in the Indian Ocean. Similar work on Mecca in other periods would add to our knowledge of this extremely important yet curiously unknown city, while similar work in this period on other Mamluk cities would add to our knowledge of Mamluk rule outside Cairo.