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t. e. The Mamluk Sultanate ( Arabic: سلطنة المماليك, romanized : Salṭanat al-Mamālīk ), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz from the mid-13th to early 16th centuries. It was ruled by a military caste of mamluks (freed slave soldiers) headed by a sultan.
The Mamluk Sultanate was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz (western Arabia) in the mid-13th–early 16th centuries. It was ruled by a military caste of mamluks (manumitted slave soldiers) at the head of which was the sultan. The Abbasid caliphs were the nominal sovereigns (figureheads). The sultanate was established with the ...
Jun 3, 2022 · Illustration. A map illustrating the rise and evolution of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt from its beginning as an act of rebellion of a slave army against its masters from the Ayyubid dynasty, through its fair share of internal turbulence and strife, into one of the most powerful and wealthiest states of the late medieval world that ruled Egypt ...
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- Overview
- The Mamluk dynasty
Mamluk, slave soldier, a member of one of the armies of slaves established during the Abbasid era that later won political control of several Muslim states. Under the Ayyubid sultanate, Mamluk generals used their power to establish a dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517. The name is derived from an Arabic word for slave.
The use of Mamluks as a major component of Muslim armies became a distinct feature of Islamic civilization as early as the 9th century CE. The practice was begun in Baghdad by the ʿAbbasid caliph al-Muʿtaṣim (833–842), and it soon spread throughout the Muslim world. Moreover, the political result was almost invariably the same: the slaves exploited the military power vested in them to seize control over the legitimate political authorities, often only briefly but sometimes for astonishingly long periods of time. Thus, soon after al-Muʿtaṣim’s reign the caliphate itself fell victim to the Turkish Mamluk generals, who were able to depose or murder caliphs almost with impunity. Although the caliphate was maintained as a symbol of legitimate authority, the actual power was wielded by the Mamluk generals; and by the 13th century, Mamluks had succeeded in establishing dynasties of their own, both in Egypt and in India, in which the sultans were necessarily men of slave origin or the heirs of such men.
This process of usurping power was epitomized by and culminated in the establishment of the Mamluk dynasty, which ruled Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517 and whose descendants survived in Egypt as an important political force during the Ottoman occupation (1517–1798). The Kurdish general Saladin, who gained control of Egypt in 1169, followed what by then constituted a tradition in Muslim military practice by including a slave corps in his army in addition to Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, and other free elements. This practice was also followed by his successors. Al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb (1240–49) is reputed to have been the largest purchaser of slaves, chiefly Turkish, as a means of protecting his sultanate both from rivals within the Ayyubid dynasty and from the crusaders. Upon his death in 1249 a struggle for his throne ensued, in the course of which the Mamluk generals murdered his heir and eventually succeeded in establishing one of their own number as sultan. Thenceforth, for more than 250 years, Egypt and Syria were ruled by Mamluks or sons of Mamluks.
Historians have traditionally broken the era of Mamluk rule into two periods—one covering 1250–1382, the other, 1382–1517. Western historians call the former the “Baḥrī” period and the latter the “Burjī,” because of the political dominance of the regiments known by these names during the respective times. The contemporary Muslim historians referred to the same divisions as the “Turkish” and “Circassian” periods, in order to call attention to the change in ethnic origin of the majority of Mamluks, which occurred and persisted after the accession of Barqūq in 1382, and to the effects that this change had on the fortunes of the state.
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There is universal agreement among historians that the Mamluk state reached its height under the Turkish sultans and then fell into a prolonged phase of decline under the Circassians. The principal achievements of the Turkish Mamluks lay in their expulsion of the remaining crusaders from the Levant and their rout of the Mongols in Palestine and Syria; they thereby earned the thanks of all Muslims for saving Arabic-Islamic civilization from destruction. It is doubtful, however, that such a goal figured in their plans; rather, as rulers of Egypt they were seeking to reconstitute the Egyptian Empire. The Mamluks also sought to extend their power into the Arabian Peninsula and into Anatolia and Little Armenia; to protect Egypt’s rear, they strove to establish their presence in Nubia.
To consolidate their position in the Islamic world, the Mamluks revived the caliphate, which the Mongols had destroyed in 1258, and installed a caliph under their surveillance in Cairo. Their patronage of the rulers of the holy cities of Arabia, Mecca and Medina, served the same purpose. Spectacular success in war and diplomacy was underpinned economically by the Mamluks’ support of industries and crafts as well as by their restoration of Egypt as the principal trade and transit route between the Orient and the Mediterranean.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The History of the Mamluk Sultanate, an empire based in Egypt and Syria, spans the period between the mid-13th century, with the overthrow of the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt, and 1517, when it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Mamluk history is generally divided into the Turkish or Bahri period (1250–1382) and the Circassian or Burji period ...
The Mamluk sultanate (1250–1517) emerged from the weakening of the Ayyubid realm in Egypt and Syria (1250–60). Ayyubid sultans depended on slave (Arabic: mamluk, literally “owned,” or slave) soldiers for military organization, yet mamluks of Qipchaq Turkic origin eventually overthrew the last independent Ayyubid sultan in Egypt, Turan Shah (r. 1249–50), and established their own rule.
Map 8.13.1 8.13. 1: Map of the Mamluk Sultanate, 1317 CE (CC BY-SA 4.0; User “Ro4444” via Wikimedia Commons) The Mamluk Sultanate appeared to be on a collision course with Hulagu’s Ilkhanate, one of Mongol Empire’s four khanates, whose forces were advancing through the Mamluk-held Levant. Then in the summer of 1260, the Great Khan ...
