The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt is most
well-known for its famous victory over the Mongols at ‘Ayn Jalut in 1260, and the ferocity
of its warrior Sultan Baybars al-Bunduqadari. What receives less attention is the messy and complex
way in which the Mamluks came to power in Egypt, a bloody political battle involving
‘Ayyubids, Turks, Crusaders and of course, the Mongols. In this video, we examine
the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate. This video is made available for free thanks to
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and we hope you
’ll consider joining in too. Firstly, it is important to understand what a
mamluk actually was. A mamluk was, in essence, a slave soldier; most usually children of non-Arab
and non-islamic origin who were purchased as slaves, and then raised to be a professional
military chaste, well-trained and well-provided for, in service to a lord. Before the thirteenth
century, they were most commonly called ghulams, and were a common feature of Islamic armies,
often forming their core and elite units.
The institution is perhaps most-known to European
audiences in the form of the famed Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire. These slave-soldiers were
often seen as the most disciplined and reliable parts of many a conqueror’s army, generally seen
as more trustworthy than ghazi, nomadic or other feudal elements of the army, including the ruler’s
own sons, who, it was thought, would put their own interests before those of the ruler. In contrast,
these slave soldiers were idealized to be utterly
loyal only to the monarch, though the reality was
often different. No shortage of Islamic princes lamented how their ghulams or mamluks tended
to be more loyal than their own sons; the sons awaited only the death of the father for a chance
to succeed him, while the ghulams wanted only his glory. Famously, the child-less Ghurid Sultan
Muhammad of Ghor is supposed to have remarked that, while other monarchs could have a few sons,
he had thousands in the form of his ghulams. Various Islamic st
ates from the eleventh century
onwards looked to the Turkic peoples of the Great Eurasian steppe as a source for these slaves.
Having already horse and archery skills from their youth made these boys ideal candidates.
Through raids, warfare or due to poverty sold by their families, these youths were sent abroad,
transported over the Mediterranean or over-land in Central Asia, to be sold to various amirs, maliks,
beys and sultans. Boys were chosen on account of their physical strength, healt
h and appearance,
with beauty often specified as a necessity for the boys who may adorn the sultan’s palace.
Once purchased, these boys were converted to Islam and given the finest training in military
matters, often with top of the line equipment, weapons and horses, in addition to receiving
education and even salaries. The result was a core of fierce warriors loyal not to previously
existing political or family ties, but to their fellow ghulams and their master, who sheltered
and provide
d for them. Depending on the area, some were even taught Arabic as well as
administrative and bureaucratic skills, though in the early generations of the
Egyptian Mamluks only select units appear to have reliably received such language education.
The ‘Ayyubid Dynasty of Saladin was one of many Islamic states that made great use of ghulams and
mamluks in their wars to retake the Holy Land from the Crusaders. After Saladin’s death in 1193,
his empire was increasingly split amongst his heirs an
d descendants. As-Salih ‘Ayyub, a grandson
of Saladin’s brother al-’Adil, became sultan of ‘Ayyubid Egypt in 1240, and seeking to rely on
more reliable military elements, began greatly expanding his mamluk regiments. He was fortunate,
for there was a steady stream of slaves on the market at that moment. Far to the north in Great
Eurasian Steppes, since the 1220s the expansion of the Mongol Empire had been displacing a great many
peoples, particularly of the Turkic Cuman-Qipchaq in the stepp
es stretching from the Aral Sea to
the Carpathians. Many raiders, seeking to take advantage of the instability, sold the children
of the fleeing Qipchaq to traders in Crimea, making their way to Egypt. With the price for good
Turkic children dropping, as-Salih bought as many as he could, heaping training and arms upon them.
Many hundreds, if not thousands, of Qipchaqs, Cuman, Qangli and others were arriving in
Egypt from the 1220s through to the 1240s, and as-Salih created several garrisons
of mamluks
around Cairo. Each garrison took its own identity and name for its location. The most famous
were called the Bahriyya, so named for the island in the Nile their garrison occupied.
The first test of the new ‘Ayyubid Mamluk army was against the forces of King Louis IX in the
Seventh Crusade, which invaded Egypt in 1249, which was to be the impetus for their own rise
to power. The French King had hoped to take Cairo and use it as a base from which to retake
Jerusalem, and had unkno
wingly made good timing; soon after his arrival, Sultan ‘as-Salih ‘Ayyub
succumbed to illness. As Louis and his knights moved down the Nile from the coast, the ‘Ayyubid
leadership was embroiled in the power dispute, an alliance forming between the top military man,
Fakhr al-Din, the vizier, and a widow of Sultan as-Salih, Shajar al-Durr. In a macabre facade,
they pretended as-Salih was still alive, having meals sent to him and signing papers in his name.
In February 1250 a surprise early mo
rning cavalry charge by Louis’ troops resulted in the death of
Fakhr al-Din, but pursuing the survivors into the fortified site of Mansura led the Crusaders right
into the Bahriyya Mamluks. It was a slaughter. 600 knights entered, only a handful straggled out. The
Seventh Crusade fell apart in the following weeks, and in April the Mamluks captured King Louis,
quite literally asking for a king’s ransom. The Mamluks not only led the counter attack that
defeated the Crusader troops, but had ca
ptured the French king. Coupled with their pride at being
the military elite, they quickly proved to be a dangerous element within the fragile strings that
‘Ayyubid rulership still clung to. As-Salih’s son al-Muazzam Turanshah arrived in Egypt to succeed
his late father, only to be assassinated a few days after the capture of King Louis by the leader
of the Bahriyya Mamluks, Aqtay. By May 1250, as-Salih’s widow Shajar al-Durr was appointed
as Sultan, and considered by some to be the first M
amluk Sultan, though she was not a Mamluk
and was a figurehead. Her brief tenure as sultan ended after only a few months when she was forced
to marry an emir named Aybeg, who was in turn forced by the Bahriyya Mamluks to take on a child
‘Ayyubid puppet sultan. In the glow of the great victory at Mansura, the political situation began
tenuous: in Syria, a great-grandson of Saladin named an-Nasir Yusuf took power in Damascus
and even invaded Egypt, reaching the suburbs of Cairo before the Mam
luks pushed him back in
winter 1250. By 1252, the restless emir Aybeg replaced the child sultan with another child, and
in 1254 Aybeg and one of his own mamluks, Qutuz, assassinated the Bahriyya Mamluk chief Aqtay,
decapitating him and throwing his severed head out of the palace to the other Bahriyya Mamluks below.
The rest of the Bahriyya Mamluks fled Egypt under Aqtay’s second-in-command, Baybars al-Bunduqdari.
A Qipchaq, Baybars was a proud and courageous warrior, highly skilled and a cl
ose friend
to Aqtay. The murder of Aqtay filled him with vengeance, and Baybars spent the rest of the 1250s
hopping between the Ayyubid princes of Damascus, an-Nasir Yusuf, and Karak, al-Mughith ‘Umar,
encouraging both to invade Egypt and overthrow Aybeg and Qutuz. The efforts were unsuccessful,
and in the end Baybars was denied his revenge against Aybeg, for Shajar al-Durr had him
assassinated in 1257; Aybeg’s supporters soon killed her. The emirs fought for control of
the child sultan, w
ith the Mamluk Qutuz emerging as the dominant power. Maintaining the puppet
Sultan, Qutuz was the real power behind the throne for two years until 1259, when news came
of the approach of Mongol prince Hülegü and his army into Syria. That November, Qutuz removed
the boy sultan and took the title himself. Now ruling openly, Qutuz found himself the only
power against whom Hülegü had left to march. Meanwhile in Syria, Baybars al-Bunduqdari and
his followers were in Damascus in the court of the
‘Ayyubid prince an-Nasir Yusuf as Hülegü
approached the Euphrates River. Baybars urged an-Nasir Yusuf to confront the advancing Mongols
as they crossed the river. But an-Nasir refused, trusting instead in the walls of Aleppo
and Damascus, despite sending antagonizing messages to the Mongols and reneging on
the tribute had sent them since 1243. Some members of his court encouraged the sultan to
maintain the relationship with the Mongols, while only worsened an-Nasir’s vacillating
nature. Ba
ybars, in his frustration to urge an-Nasir into resistance, on at least one occasion
physically beat the chief proponent of peace in an-Nasir’s court in a bout of frustration.
Baybars knew overly trusting in the fortifications was foolish; the approaching Mongol army was led
by Hülegü, whose great hosts had taken the great Isma’ili fortresses and sacked Baghdad in 1258.
While Aleppo and Damascus were well-fortified, Baybars knew an-Nasir Yusuf’s leadership was too
weak, and the submission of
Cilician Armenia and the Crusader County of Tripoli to the Mongols
meant the ‘Ayyubids had no local allies. Baybars and his regiments thus abandoned an-Nasir Yusuf
and fled for Egypt. The decision was wise: while Baybars was a highly skilled, professional soldier
and never short on courage or vigour, he always read a military situation with a clear head. And
Baybars knew that the great army that had overrun everything east as far as the rising Sun would be
undaunted by a man of wavering co
urage and little resolution like an-Nasir Yusuf. An-Nasir soon fled
too, and Aleppo fell in less than a week to Hülägü and his Christian subjects, King Het’um I of
Cilician Armenia and Duke Bohemond VI of Antioch and Tripoli. By the start of March, Damascus was
in Mongol hands, and soon after an-Nasir Yusuf was captured. Baybars al-Bunduqdari and his followers
came to a truce with their foe Qutuz, in Egypt, and found shelter there. By the start of summer
1260, only Cairo stood against the M
ongol advance. Qutuz and Baybars, despite their mutual dislike
for each other, put aside their differences and began forming a place again the Mongols, espousing
a deliberate, antagonistic policy. Qutuz, taking advantage of his origins as a Qangli from
Central Asia, encouraged claims that he was in fact a descendant of Jalal al-Din Mingburnu,
a Khwarezmian prince famous for his resistance against the Mongols almost forty years prior.
Their efforts were ultimately rewarded with their victory
at ‘Ayn Jalut in Spring 1260, as we
have covered in detail in earlier videos. Qutuz and Baybars pushed the Mongols to the back over
the Euphrates and set about gaining submission of regional princes, rewarding those like al-’Ashraf
Musa who had allied with them, or punishing those who had allied with the Mongols. Qutuz was
not long to enjoy his victory; Baybars had not forgotten his hatred for Qutuz, and it seems there
was some competition between the two over who deserved the most credit f
or the victory. Baybars
orchestrated an assassination during the march back to Cairo. According to the account written
by Baybars’ chancellor and favoured biographer, Ibn ‘Abd al-Ẓāhir, Baybars’ sword, rightly guided
by Allah, struck down Qutuz. Given the proximity of Ibn ‘Abd al-Zahir to Baybars, it seems likely
this was the version of events approved by Baybars himself, emphasizing how no others took part in
the murder. However, later accounts written after Baybars’ death began adding new
details,
adding more participants and resistance on the part of Qutuz, giving Baybars only the
killing blow. Whatever the truth of the day, the only consistent detail remains Baybars’ direct
involvement in the death of his predecessor. Returning to Cairo, Baybars was enthroned as
Sultan, legitimized through his victories as well as a newly established puppet Caliph, a scion
of the house of ‘Abbas who had survived the fall of Baghdad. With Baybars’ enthronement, the new
Mamluk Sultanate wa
s secured; after the upheavals of the 1250s, Baybars’ 17-year long reign proved
a period of stability and allowed the Mamluks not only to whether the storm of the Mongols, but
to rule Egypt, Syria and the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina until the sixteenth century. But
Baybars failed only in establishing own dynasty; his hopes for his sons al-Said Barakah or
Sulamish to rule after him were dashed, as both youths were forced to abdicate and
flee, as one of Baybars’ own Mamluks, Qalawun, esta
blished his own dynasty instead. The house of
Qalawun would on and off rule the Mamluks of Egypt until the late fourteenth century. For more on
how Baybars solidified his new dynasty and fought against the Mongols, be sure to watch our previous
videos on how the Mamluks Defended Against the Mongols. We will continue talking about the
Mamluks and Mongols in the future episodes, so make you are subscribed and have pressed the
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