the paper according to their abilities, and their names are listed alphabetically by surname. CASAS is a network emerging from the 2019 Journal of Peasant Studies Writeshop on Critical Agrarian Studies and Scholar-Activism in Beijing, China, and expanded through its following three annual editions till 2022. Self-organized by former Writeshop participants, CASAS aims to promote scholarship and activism in critical agrarian studies and to also seek ways to navigate the structural barriers in academia by following principles of solidarity and mutual care (https://casasouth.org/). This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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This article queries the sociopolitical implications of a wave of popular interest in the legacy of the Mamluk dynasty (1250–1517) in post-2013 Egypt. Although the era’s sultans have traditionally been derided in mainstream culture as tyrannical ‘foreign’ leaders, they have recently been reframed as the last nationalist rulers before the Ottoman invasion. This revised characterization underpins the newfound fascination with their socio-political legacy, which has manifested in various cultural productions, including a new television series, Mamalik al-Nar (Kingdoms of Fire). In this article, we analyze the show’s content, its popularity in Egypt, the debates it has generated on social media and the regional production and distribution networks in which it is embedded. Through this analysis, we argue that the series—and the Mamluk ‘revivalism’ to which it is connected—is part of an unresolved debate about what it means to be Egyptian today.