Mamluk or Mamaluk (/ˈmæmluːk/; Arabic: مملوك, romanized: mamlūk (singular), مماليك, mamālīk (plural);[2] translated as "one who is owned",[5] meaning "slave")[7] were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-soldiers, and freed slaves who were assigned high-ranking military and administrative duties, serving the ruling Arab and Ottoman dynasties in the Muslim world.[11]
The most enduring Mamluk realm was the knightly military class in medieval Egypt, which developed from the ranks of slave-soldiers.[12] Originally the Mamluks were slaves of Turkic origins from the Eurasian Steppe,[15] but the institution of military slavery spread to include Circassians,[17] Abkhazians,[18][19][20] Georgians,[24] Armenians,[26] Russians,[10] and Hungarians,[9] as well as peoples from the Balkans such as Albanians,[9][27] Greeks,[9] and South Slavs[29] (see Saqaliba). They also recruited from the Egyptians.[13] The "Mamluk/Ghulam Phenomenon",[8] as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior class,[30] was of great political importance; for one thing, it endured for nearly 1,000 years, from the 9th century to the early 19th century.
Over time, Mamluks became a powerful military knightly class in various Muslim societies that were controlled by dynastic Arab rulers.[31] Particularly in Egypt and Syria,[32] but also in the Ottoman Empire, Levant, Mesopotamia, and India, mamluks held political and military power.[9] In some cases, they attained the rank of sultan, while in others they held regional power as emirs or beys.[13] Most notably, Mamluk factions seized the sultanate centered on Egypt and Syria, and controlled it as the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517).[33] The Mamluk Sultanate famously defeated the Ilkhanate at the Battle of Ain Jalut. They had earlier fought the western European Christian Crusaders in 1154–1169 and 1213–1221, effectively driving them out of Egypt and the Levant. In 1302 the Mamluk Sultanate formally expelled the last Crusaders from the Levant, ending the era of the Crusades.[9][34]
While Mamluks were purchased as property,[35] their status was above ordinary slaves, who were not allowed to carry weapons or perform certain tasks.[36] In places such as Egypt, from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, mamluks were considered to be "true lords" and "true warriors", with social status above the general population in Egypt and the Levant.[9] In a sense, they were like enslaved mercenaries.[38]
Daniel Pipes argued that the first indication of the Mamluk military class was rooted in the practice of early Muslims such as Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and Uthman ibn Affan who, before Islam, owned many slaves and practiced Mawla (Islamic manumission of slaves).[39] The Zubayrids army under Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, son of Zubayr, used these freed slave retainers during the second civil war.[39]
Meanwhile, historians agree that the massive implementation of a slave military class such as the Mamluks appears to have developed in Islamic societies beginning with the 9th-century Abbasid Caliphate based in Baghdad, under the Abbasid caliph al-Muʿtaṣim.[6] Until the 1990s, it was widely believed that the earliest Mamluks were known as Ghilman or Ghulam[8] (another broadly synonymous term for slaves)[Note 1] and were bought by the Abbasid caliphs, especially al-Muʿtaṣim (833–842).
By the end of the 9th century, such slave warriors had become the dominant element in the military. Conflict between the Ghilman and the population of Baghdad prompted the caliph al-Muʿtaṣim to move his capital to the city of Samarra, but this did not succeed in calming tensions. The caliph al-Mutawakkil was assassinated by some of these slave soldiers in 861 (see Anarchy at Samarra).[40]
Since the early 21st century, historians have suggested that there was a distinction between the Mamluk system and the (earlier) Ghilman system, in Samarra, which did not have specialized training and was based on pre-existing Central Asian hierarchies. Adult slaves and freemen both served as warriors in the Ghilman system. The Mamluk system developed later, after the return of the caliphate to Baghdad in the 870s. It included the systematic training of young slaves in military and martial skills.[41] The Mamluk system is considered to have been a small-scale experiment of al-Muwaffaq, to combine the slaves' efficiency as warriors with improved reliability. This recent interpretation seems to have been accepted.[42]
After the fragmentation of the Abbasid Empire, military slaves, known as either Mamluks or Ghilman, were used throughout the Islamic world as the basis of military power. The Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171) of Egypt had forcibly taken adolescent male Armenians, Turks, Sudanese, and Copts from their families to be trained as slave soldiers. They formed the bulk of their military, and the rulers selected prized slaves to serve in their administration.[25] The powerful vizier Badr al-Jamali, for example, was a Mamluk from Armenia. In Iran and Iraq, the Buyid dynasty used Turkic slaves throughout their empire. The rebel al-Basasiri was a Mamluk who eventually ushered in Seljuq dynastic rule in Baghdad after attempting a failed rebellion. When the later Abbasids regained military control over Iraq, they also relied on the Ghilman as their warriors.[43]
Under Saladin and the Ayyubids of Egypt, the power of the Mamluks increased and they claimed the sultanate in 1250, ruling as the Mamluk Sultanate.[13] Throughout the Islamic world, rulers continued to use enslaved warriors until the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire's devşirme, or "gathering" of young slaves for the Janissaries, lasted until the 17th century. Regimes based on Mamluk power thrived in such Ottoman provinces as the Levant and Egypt until the 19th century.
Under the Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo, Mamluks were purchased while still young males. They were raised in the barracks of the Citadel of Cairo. Because of their isolated social status (no social ties or political affiliations) and their austere military training, they were trusted to be loyal to their rulers.[37] When their training was completed, they were discharged, but remained attached to the patron who had purchased them. Mamluks relied on the help of their patron for career advancement, and likewise the patron's reputation and power depended on his recruits. A Mamluk was "bound by a strong esprit de corps to his peers in the same household".[37]
Mamluks lived within their garrisons and mainly spent their time with each other. Their entertainments included sporting events such as archery competitions and presentations of mounted combat skills at least once a week. The intensive and rigorous training of each new recruit helped ensure continuity of Mamluk practices.[13]
Sultans owned the largest number of mamluks, but lesser amirs also owned their own troops. Many Mamluks were appointed or promoted to high positions throughout the empire, including army command.[13] At first their status was non-hereditary. Sons of Mamluks were prevented from following their father's role in life. However, over time, in places such as Egypt, the Mamluk forces became linked to existing power structures and gained significant amounts of influence on those powers.[13]
In Egypt, studies have shown that mamluks from Georgia retained their native language, were aware of the politics of the Caucasus region, and received frequent visits from their parents or other relatives. In addition, they sent gifts to family members or gave money to build useful structures (a defensive tower, or even a church) in their native villages.[44]
The practice of recruiting slaves as soldiers in the Muslim world and turning them into Mamluks began in Baghdad during the 9th century CE,[4] and was started by the Abbasid caliph al-Muʿtaṣim.[6]
From the 900s through the 1200s, medieval Egypt was controlled by dynastic foreign rulers, notably the Ikhshidids, Fatimids, and Ayyubids. Throughout these dynasties, thousands of Mamluk slave-soldiers and guards continued to be used and even took high offices.[3] This increasing level of influence among the Mamluks worried the Ayyubids in particular. Eventually, a Mamluk rose to become Sultan of Egypt.[6][13][45] The Mamluks in medieval Egypt were predominantly of White Turkic and Circassian origins,[3][13] and most of them descended from enslaved Christians.[13] After they were taken from their families, they became renegades.[13] Because Egyptian Mamluks were enslaved Christians, Muslim rulers and clerics did not believe they were true believers of Islam despite the fact that they were deployed for fighting in wars on behalf of several Islamic kingdoms as slave-soldiers.[13]
By 1200, Saladin's brother al-ʿĀdil succeeded in securing control over the whole empire by defeating and killing or imprisoning his brothers and nephews in turn. With each victory, al-ʿĀdil incorporated the defeated Mamluk retinue into his own. This process was repeated at al-ʿĀdil's death in 1218, and at his son al-Kāmil's death in 1238. The Ayyubids became increasingly surrounded by the Mamluks, who acted semi-autonomously as regional atabegs. The Mamluks increasingly became involved in the internal court politics of the kingdom itself as various factions used them as allies.[13]
In June 1249, the Seventh Crusade under Louis IX of France landed in Egypt and took Damietta. After the Egyptian troops retreated at first, the sultan had more than 50 commanders hanged as deserters.
When the Egyptian sultan as-Salih Ayyub died, the power passed briefly to his son al-Muazzam Turanshah and then his favorite wife Shajar al-Durr, a Turk according to most historians, while others say she was an Armenian. She took control with Mamluk support and launched a counterattack against the French. Troops of the Bahri commander Baibars defeated Louis's troops. The king delayed his retreat too long and was captured by the Mamluks in March 1250. He agreed to pay a ransom of 400,000 livres tournois to gain release (150,000 livres were never paid).[46]
Because of political pressure for a male leader, Shajar married the Mamluk commander, Aybak. He was assassinated in his bath. In the ensuing power struggle, viceregent Qutuz, also a Mamluk, took over. He formally founded the Mamluke Sultanate and the Bahri mamluk dynasty.
The first Mamluk dynasty was named Bahri after the name of one of the regiments, the Bahriyyah or River Island regiment. Its name referred to their center on Rhoda Island in the Nile. The regiment consisted mainly of Kipchaks and Cumans.[citation needed]
When the Mongol Empire's troops of Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad in 1258 and advanced towards Syria, the Mamluk emir Baibars left Damascus for Cairo. There he was welcomed by Sultan Qutuz.[47] After taking Damascus, Hulagu demanded that Qutuz surrender Egypt. Qutuz had Hulagu's envoys killed and, with Baibars' help, mobilized his troops.
When Möngke Khan died in action against the Southern Song, Hulagu pulled the majority of his forces out of Syria to attend the kurultai (funeral ceremony). He left his lieutenant, the Christian Kitbuqa, in charge with a token force of about 18,000 men as a garrison.[48] The Mamluk army, led by Qutuz, drew the reduced Ilkhanate army into an ambush near the Orontes River, routed them at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, and captured and executed Kitbuqa.
After this great triumph, Qutuz was assassinated by conspiring Mamluks. It was widely said that Baibars, who seized power, had been involved in the assassination plot. In the following centuries, the Mamluks ruled discontinuously, with an average span of seven years.
The Mamluks defeated the Ilkhanids a second time in the First Battle of Homs and began to drive them back east. In the process they consolidated their power over Syria, fortified the area, and formed mail routes and diplomatic connections among the local princes. Baibars' troops attacked Acre in 1263, captured Caesarea in 1265, and took Antioch in 1268.
.jpg/1280px-Siege_of_Tripoli_Painting_(1289).jpg)
Mamluks also defeated new Ilkhanate attacks in Syria in 1271 and 1281 (the Second Battle of Homs). They were defeated by the Ilkhanids and their Christian allies at the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar in 1299. Soon after that the Mamluks defeated the Ilkhanate again in 1303/1304 and 1312. Finally, the Ilkhanids and the Mamluks signed a treaty of peace in 1323.
By the late fourteenth century, the majority of the Mamluk ranks were made up of Circassians from the North Caucasus region, whose young males had been frequently captured for slavery.[16] In 1382 the Burji dynasty took over when Barquq was proclaimed sultan. The name "Burji" referred to their center at the citadel of Cairo.
Barquq became an enemy of Timur, who threatened to invade Syria. Timur invaded Syria, defeating the Mamluk army, and he sacked Aleppo and captured Damascus. The Ottoman sultan, Bayezid I, then invaded Syria. After Timur's death in 1405, the Mamluk sultan an-Nasir Faraj regained control of Syria. Frequently facing rebellions by local emirs, he was forced to abdicate in 1412. In 1421, Egypt was attacked by the Kingdom of Cyprus, but the Egyptians forced the Cypriotes to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Egyptian sultan Barsbay. During Barsbay's reign, Egypt's population became greatly reduced from what it had been a few centuries before; it had one-fifth the number of towns.
Al-Ashraf came to power in 1453. He had friendly relations with the Ottoman Empire, which captured Constantinople later that year, causing great rejoicings in Muslim Egypt. However, under the reign of Khushqadam, Egypt began a struggle with the Ottoman sultanate. In 1467, sultan Qaitbay offended the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II, whose brother was poisoned. Bayezid II seized Adana, Tarsus and other places within Egyptian territory, but was eventually defeated. Qaitbay also tried to help the Muslims in Spain, who were suffering after the Catholic Reconquista, by threatening the Christians in Syria, but he had lit