Mamelukes

I

Introduction

Mamelukes, from an Arabic word meaning “owned” or “possessed”, Turkish slave soldiers imported into the Egyptian army from the early 13th century. The Mamelukes converted to Islam and advanced themselves to high military posts in Egypt, finally seizing the throne and founding two successive dynasties that ruled the country from 1250 to 1517. Following the conquest by the Ottoman Empire in 1517 they remained a dominant force in Egypt as a landed aristocracy until their widespread massacre on the orders of the Ottoman pasha Muhammad Ali in 1811.

II

Origins

The Ayyubid sultans, who ruled over greater Syria as well as Egypt, had been importing slave soldiers into their army since the foundation of their dynasty by Saladin in 1171. Trained as an elite corps of cavalry archers these mamelukes soon became the indispensable heart of the Egyptian army. They earned promotion and a degree of freedom through distinguished war service. The rewards of such service were great, in plunder and in power, and they soon grew to dominate not only the army, but the sultanate itself. The Mongol invasion of Russia in the 1230s displaced tens of thousands of Kipchak Turks from southern Russia and Ukraine and, with Egypt at the time facing renewed threats from Crusading armies, Sultan al-Salih Ayyub (ruled 1240-1249) bought huge numbers of these Kipchak mamelukes. A regiment of Kipchaks was housed in a barracks on an island of the Nile and they were known as the Bahri regiment (from bahr, “river”).

III

Foundation of a Dynasty

Two external threats provided the Mamelukes with the opportunity and imperative to seize the throne of Egypt: a renewed invasion by Christian Crusaders from western Europe, coinciding with an invasion by Mongols from central Asia. The Seventh Crusade, led by King Louis IX of France, invaded Egypt in 1249 just at the time that Sultan al-Salih Ayyub died. The Crusaders captured the walled city of Al Manşūrah, but the Mamelukes, led by the Bahri regiment, surrounded the fortified city and forced the surrender of the Crusading army. In 1250 the Mamelukes took control of the sultanate as the price of their victory at Al Manşūrah. For ten years, however, the Mamelukes quarrelled over their spoils and a dynasty was not secured until 1260. It was the Mongol invasion of Syria that provided the Mamelukes with unity of purpose.

The Mamelukes united under the leadership of the Bahri regiment and defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ayn Jalut in Palestine in 1260. The Bahri battle commander, Baybars al-Bunduqdari, returned to Cairo in triumph and seized the sultanate for himself. In doing so he founded the first Mameluke dynasty, known as the Bahri (1260-1382). Baybars consolidated his hold over greater Syria by driving out the remaining Crusader armies from their strongholds in Palestine.

The first 81 years of Mameluke rule was a period of relative stability during which Egypt prospered in trade, art, religion, and culture. The wealth of early Mameluke Egypt was built largely upon the agricultural labour of the fellahin (peasantry). The Mamelukes divided Egypt into districts, each headed by a Mameluke bey (commander). They retained the system of tax farms, known as iqta, which had been developed by the Ayyubids. The iqta were taken over by the state and allocated to the Mameluke beys. This made them responsible for huge estates, on which taxation was imposed on all crops and livestock. Any surplus taxation they could extract was kept by the iqta-holders themselves. Irrigation was expanded and agricultural production increased, as the Mameluke beys squeezed the fellahin ever harder for the maximum amount of taxation.

The Mamelukes lived mostly in the cities where their displays of great wealth were a strong stimulus to trade. Cairo became the centre of a great trading network, linking the Red Sea, the Mediterranean cities of southern Europe, and the sub-Saharan west African Mali Empire. The gold for their trading currency came initially from the Nubian mountains (of present-day Sudan), but after these mines were worked out they obtained most of their gold from across the Sahara in west Africa. The population of Egypt doubled during this period to more than 4 million, with half a million living in Cairo alone, making it one of the largest cities in the world.

The early Mameluke sultans were also strong patrons of the arts, of learning, and of Islam. The great medieval mosques and madrasas (Islamic colleges) of Cairo were built during this period. The Abbasid caliphs resided in Cairo, since their expulsion from Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, and so Mameluke Cairo was, de facto, the centre of the Sunni Muslim world. It was a major terminus of pilgrimage to the holy lands of Arabia and their scholastic links stretched as far as Timbuktu.

IV

The Decline of Mameluke Power

The great weakness in the Mameluke system was the potential for conflict between rival beys. They constantly jockeyed for position in preparation for the succession to the sultanate that was determined by the seizure of power by the most powerful Bey. Egypt was already suffering a succession crisis from 1341 when the country was ravaged by the bubonic plague, known in Europe as the Black Death. It first struck Egypt in 1347, and became endemic over the following century. The population of Egypt was reduced by at least one third and Cairo was so badly hit that it did not recover to its former size until the 19th century. The Mamelukes once more needed to import large numbers of slaves to maintain their armies. Most of these were Circassians, imported from Caucasia (between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea). A regiment of these were housed in a tower of the Citadel and were known as the Burji (from burj, meaning “tower”). The period from 1350 saw the decline of the Bahri Mamelukes and in 1382 the sultanate was seized by the Burji regiment, who thus founded the Burji dynasty that ruled Egypt from 1382 to 1517. But the Burji were not able to reverse the decline that had already set in from 1350. Later Mameluke Egypt suffered both politically and economically, with much fighting between the beys and a general decline in both agricultural productivity and trade. The army too was not modernized in the dawning era of firearms and they were easily conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.