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 Turkic or Bahri period (1250–1382) and the Circassian or Burji period (1382–1517), called after the predominant ethnicity or corps of the ruling Mamluks during these respective eras.Levanoni 1995, p. 17.
The first rulers of the sultanate hailed from the mamluk regiments of the Ayyubid sultan al-Salih Ayyub (), usurping power from his successor in 1250. The Mamluks under Sultan Qutuz and Baybars routed the Mongols in 1260, halting their southward expansion. They then conquered or gained suzerainty over the Ayyubids' Syrian principalities. By the end of the 13th century, through the efforts of sultans Baybars, Qalawun () and al-Ashraf Khalil (), they conquered the Crusader states, expanded into Makuria (Nubia), Cyrenaica, the Hejaz, and southern Anatolia. The sultanate then experienced a long period of stability and prosperity during the third reign of al-Nasir Muhammad (r. 1293–1294, 1299–1309, 1310–1341), before giving way to the internal strife characterizing the succession of his sons, when real power was held by senior emirs.
One such emir, Barquq, overthrew the sultan in 1390, inaugurating Burji rule. Mamluk authority across the empire eroded under his successors due to foreign invasions, tribal rebellions, and natural disasters, and the state entered into a long period of financial distress. Under Sultan Barsbay major efforts were taken to replenish the treasury, particularly monopolization of trade with Europe and tax expeditions into the countryside.
Origins
The mamluk was a manumitted slave, distinguished from the , or household slave. After thorough training in fields such as martial arts, court etiquette and Islamic sciences, these slaves were freed. They were expected to remain loyal to their master and serve his household. Mamluks had formed a part of the state or military apparatus in Syria and Egypt since at least the 9th century, rising to become governing dynasties in Egypt and Syria as the Tulunid and Ikhshidid dynasties. Mamluk regiments constituted the backbone of Egypt's military under Ayyubid rule in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, beginning under the founder of Ayyubid rule, Sultan Saladin (), who replaced the Fatimids' black African infantry with mamluks.
Each Ayyubid sultan and high-ranking emir had a private mamluk corps. Adult Mamluks were former slaves. The Mamluks were sons of kafir (non-Muslim) parents from Dar al-harb (non-Muslim lands); they were bought on the slave market as children, converted to Islam and brought up in military barracks where they were raised to become Muslim soldiers, during which they were raised, as slave children without families, to view the sultan as their father and the other mamluks as their brothers.Egger, V. (2016). A History of the Muslim World to 1405: The Making of a Civilization. Storbritannien: Taylor & Francis. p.270 Their education was finished by the kharj ceremony, during which they were manumitted and given a position in either the courtly administration or the army, and free to begin a career as a free ex-slave Mamluk.Slavery in the Black Sea Region, C.900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. (2021). Nederländerna: Brill. p.342 Mamluk slave soldiers were preferred to freeborn soldiers because they were raised to view the army and their sultan-ruler as their family and thus seen as more loyal than a freeborn soldier who would have a biological family to whom they would have their first loyalty.The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500-AD 1420. (2021). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p.383-384
Most of the mamluks in the Ayyubids' service were ethnic Kipchak Turks from Central Asia, who, upon entering service, were converted to Sunni Islam and taught Arabic. A mamluk was highly committed to his master, to whom he often referred as 'father', and was in turn treated more as a kinsman than as a slave. The Ayyubid emir and future sultan al-Salih Ayyub had acquired about one thousand mamluks (some of them free-born) from Syria, Egypt and Arabia by 1229, while serving as (viceroy) of Egypt during the absence of his father, Sultan al-Kamil (). These mamluks were called the 'Salihiyya' (singular 'Salihi') after their master.
Al-Salih became sultan of Egypt in 1240, and, upon his accession to the throne, he manumitted and promoted large numbers of his original and newly recruited Mamluks on the condition that they remain in his service. To provision his mamluks, al-Salih seized the (akin to fiefs; singular ) of his predecessors' emirs. Al-Salih created a paramilitary apparatus in Egypt loyal to himself, and his aggressive recruitment and promotion of mamluks led contemporaries to view Egypt as "Salihi-ridden", according to historian Winslow William Clifford. Despite his close relationship with his mamluks, tensions existed between al-Salih and the Salihiyya, and a number of Salihi mamluks were imprisoned or exiled throughout al-Salih's reign. While historian Stephen Humphreys asserts that the Salihiyya's increasing dominance of the state did not personally threaten al-Salih due to their fidelity to him, Clifford believes that the Salihiyya developed an autonomy within the state that fell short of such loyalty. Opposition among the Salihiyya to al-Salih rose when the latter ordered the assassination of his brother Abu Bakr al-Adil in 1249, a task that affronted many of the Salihiyya and one which they largely rejected; four of the Salihiyya agreed to execute the controversial operation.
Rise to power Conflict with the Ayyubids Tensions between al-Salih Ayyub and his mamluks culminated in 1249 when Louis IX of France's forces captured Damietta in their bid to conquer Egypt during the Seventh Crusade. Al-Salih believed Damietta should not have been evacuated and was rumored to have threatened punitive action against the Damietta garrison. The rumor, accentuated by the execution of civilian notables who had left Damietta, provoked a mutiny by the garrison of his camp in al-Mansura, which included several Salihi mamluks. The situation calmed after the intervention of the (commander of the military), Fakhr ad-Din ibn Shaykh al-Shuyukh.
As the Crusaders advanced, al-Salih died and was succeeded by his son al-Mu'azzam Turanshah, who was in the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) at the time. Initially, the Salihiyya welcomed Turanshah's succession, with many greeting him and requesting confirmation of their administrative posts and assignments at his arrival to the Egyptian frontier. Turanshah nevertheless challenged the dominance of the Salihiyya in the paramilitary apparatus by promoting his Kurdish retinue from the Jazira and Syria as a counterweight to the predominantly Turkic Salihiyya.
Before Turanshah's arrival at the war front with the Crusaders, the Bahriyya, a junior regiment of the Salihiyya commanded by Baybars al-Buduqdari, defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of al-Mansura on 11 February 1250. On 27 February, Turanshah arrived in Egypt from Hisn Kayfa, where he had been emir since 1238/1239, and went directly to al-Mansura to lead the Egyptian army. On 5 April 1250, covered by the darkness of night, the Crusaders evacuated their camp opposite al-Mansura and began to flee northward towards Damietta. The Egyptians followed them into the Battle of Fariskur where the Egyptians destroyed the Crusaders on 6 April. King Louis IX and a few of his surviving nobles surrendered and were taken as prisoners, effectively ending the Seventh Crusade.
Turanshah proceeded to place his own entourage and mamluks, known as the 'Mu'azzamiya', in positions of authority to the detriment of Salihi interests. On 2 May 1250, a group of disgruntled Salihi officers assassinated Turanshah in his camp at Fariskur. According to Humphreys, al-Salih's frequent wars against his Ayyubid relatives likely voided the Salihiyya's loyalty to other members of the Ayyubid dynasty. Nonetheless, the Salihiyya were careful to portray the assassination of Turanshah not as an assault against Ayyubid legitimacy, but rather an act against a deviant of the Muslim polity. An electoral college dominated by the Salihiyya convened to choose a successor to Turanshah among the Ayyubid emirs, with opinion largely split between al-Nasir Yusuf of Damascus and al-Mughith Umar of al-Karak. Consensus settled on al-Salih's widow, Shajar ad-Durr.
Shajar ad-Durr ensured the Salihiyya's dominance of the paramilitary elite, and inaugurated patronage and kinship ties with the Salihiyya. In particular, she cultivated close ties with the Jamdari (pl. Jamdariyya) and Bahri (pl. Bahriyya) elements of the Salihiyya, by distributing to them and other benefits. The Bahriyya were named after the Arabic word , meaning 'sea' or 'large river', because their barracks was located on the Nile River island of Roda. They were mostly drawn from among the Cumans-Kipchaks who dominated the steppes north of the Black Sea. Shajar al-Durr's efforts and the lingering desire among the military in Egypt to maintain the Ayyubid state was made evident when the Salihi mamluk and , Aybak, attempted to claim the sultanate, but was prevented from monopolizing power by the army and the Bahriyya and Jamdariyya, which asserted that only an Ayyubid could exercise sultanic authority. The Bahriyya compelled Aybak to share power with al-Ashraf Musa, a grandson of Sultan al-Kamil.
Factional power struggles
Aybak was one of the eldest Salihi mamluks and a leading member of al-Salih's inner circle, despite only being an (middle-ranking emir). He served as the principal bulwark against the more junior Bahri and Jamdari emirs, and his promotion to was met with Bahri rioting in Cairo, the first of many incidences of intra-Salihi tensions surrounding Aybak's ascendancy. The Bahriyya and Jamdariyya were represented by their patron, Faris al-Din Aktay, a principal organizer of Turanshah's assassination and the recipient of Fakhr ad-Din's large estate by Shajar al-Durr; the latter viewed Aktay as a counterweight to Aybak. Aybak moved against the Bahriyya in 1251 by shutting their Roda headquarters in a bid to sap Aktay's power base. Aybak was unable to promote his own mamluks, known as the 'Mu'izziya', to senior posts until 1252. That year, he managed to dispatch Aktay to Upper Egypt to suppress a Bedouin uprising. Instead of isolating Aktay, as Aybak intended, the assignment allowed Aktay to impose extortionate taxes in Upper Egypt and provide him the funds to finance his patronage of the Bahriyya. In 1254, Aybak had his Mu'izzi mamluks assassinate Aktay in the Citadel of Cairo.
Afterward, Aybak purged his retinue and the Salihiyya of perceived dissidents, causing a temporary exodus of Bahri mamluks, most of whom settled in Gaza, but also in Upper Egypt and Syria. The purge caused a dearth of military support for Aybak, which led to Aybak's recruitment of new supporters from among the army in Egypt and the Turkic Nasiri and Azizi mamluks from Syria, who had defected from al-Nasir Yusuf and moved to Egypt in 1250. The Syrian mamluks were led by their patron Jamal ad-Din Aydughdi and were assigned most of the of Aktay and his allies. Aybak felt threatened by Aydughdi's growing ambitions. After Aybak learned of Aydughdi's plot to topple him and recognize al-Nasir Yusuf as Ayyubid sultan, which would likely leave Aydughdi as practical ruler of Egypt, Aybak imprisoned Aydughdi in Alexandria in 1254 or 1255.