Mamluk (Ottoman Egypt)
맘루크 (오스만기 이집트)
Slave-origin Muslim military elite retained as Egypt's ruling class and military caste under Ottoman rule. After the Ottomans ended the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517 the emirs survived with their fiefs and offices, competed for power with the sultan's representatives, and remained semi-autonomous until Napoleon's 1798 invasion and Muhammad Ali's 1811 massacre destroyed their power. Distinct from the Mamluk Sultanate of 1250–1517.
In depth
Origins and general character
Mamluks (Arabic mamlūk, 'one who is owned') were non-Arab and ethnically diverse, mainly Turkic, Circassian, Caucasian and Balkan, bought as military slaves, converted to Islam and trained in martial and courtly skills. On manumission they remained part of the ruling military caste, formed elite regiments and in some periods and regions rose to sovereign power. The term covers the 9th to 19th centuries.
Distinction from the Mamluk Sultanate
This entry is not the Mamluk Sultanate itself, established by the overthrow of the Ayyubid dynasty in 1250 and conquered by the Ottomans in 1517, divided into the Bahri/Turkic period (1250–1382) and the Burji/Circassian period (1382–1517). It covers the elite that persisted inside the Ottoman order in Egypt after that sultanate fell, periodized from the Ottoman conquest of 1516–1517 to the destruction of Mamluk power in Egypt in 1811.
Ottoman conquest and survival
The Battle of Marj Dabiq (24 August 1516) and Selim I's capture of Cairo (20 January 1517) ended the Mamluk Sultanate and made Egypt an Ottoman province (eyalet). The Ottomans nevertheless retained the Mamluks as an Egyptian ruling class and military caste: Mamluk emirs were kept in office as heads of twelve sanjaks, and the land register that made much of the land a Mamluk fief was left unchanged, allowing them to quickly regain great influence. The 1527 survey divided Egyptian lands into the sultan's domain, fiefs, army land and religious foundations. The central dynamic of early Ottoman rule in Egypt was competition for power between the Mamluks and the representatives of the Ottoman Sultan. The Mamluks remained the country's centuries-old military caste and Egypt stayed semi-autonomous under them until Napoleon's invasion in 1798.
The Mamluk beys in the 17th century
From the 17th century local Mamluk beys dominated the Egyptian administration, controlled the treasury and provincial administrations and held key military posts, enabling them to challenge Ottoman-appointed governors. Ridwan Bey, for example, exercised de facto authority in 1631–1656.
Napoleon's invasion and the end
In 1798 Napoleon's Armée d'Orient defeated a Mamluk army at the Battle of the Pyramids, driving the survivors to Upper Egypt. After the French departure in 1801 the Mamluks struggled for independence against the Ottomans. On 1 March 1811 Muhammad Ali invited the leading Mamluks to the Cairo Citadel and his forces killed almost all of the 600–700 assembled (the Massacre of the Citadel); an estimated 3,000 Mamluks and relatives were killed across Egypt in the following week, ending Mamluk power in Egypt.