Mamluk playing cards

The na’ib and the malik of the Islamic suit begot the viceroy and the king in the Spanish card deck. The na’ib thani yielded the squire. The original Islamic cards did not carry the images of the characters in the deck. The Spanish sword emerged from the Arab scimitar and the cudgel from the shepherd staff. The cup and the coin did not change; socialising drinks and trade were the common currency of Islamic and Christian Mediterranean cultures. One distinct peculiarity of the Islamic deck is that the knights and kings appeared as names in classical Arabic calligraphy, not human representations.