Islamic Crossbow?

[Rivkin]

Ofcoarse:
"The Mamluks in Egyptian politics and society" edited by Thomas Philipp and Ulrich Haarmann
"Studies on the Mamluks of Egypt" David Ayalon

As far as I remember in the first book there is an article on mamluk theology. As I remember Mamluks used "arab" bows (standard bows), "turkish" bows (long, heavy arrows) and "persian" bows (crossbows, or "foot-activated bows"). The latter ones were extremely popular, however there was a theologic problem - nowadays forgotten sunna about Mohammed supervising his troops and saying "why are you using persian swords and bows ? You should use only arab weapons !". The solution was found in stating that he meant that one should not use the weapon of kafir, for persians at the time were kafir.

Since turks and persians converted you can use their weapons, but you can't use firearms for they are "christian sunna" (Ayalon quotes the last speach of Tuman-Bey in which he accuses ottoman in violating this law by using "christian sunna" - guns).