The Mamluks
The Mamluks were slaves [the word means "slave" or "property" in Arabic], who were bought young and given military training. They came to become an elite force to many Muslim rulers and would later become a factor of power in their own right. They actually took control of several states. (Mamluk is sometimes written as mameluk, mamaluke, marmeluke, mamlouk, mamluq, mamluke, or mameluk.)
But why were slaves used militarily?
In Europe, the problem of loyalty was solved with the social hierarchy of feudalism, and the bond of faith that existed between the ruler and the feudal lords, and then gradually downwards in society. Slaves were used only for menial, unqualified work. Before the Black Death killed off a large part of the population, the availability of slaves was enormous. That is, slaves had no greater value and were treated badly. Arming them would had been madness.
It was completely different in the Orient. The slaves were few and relatively highly valued. They were not used for simple work. What was required of them was one thing above all: loyalty. They often reached high positions and had significant power. Rulers had them as high officials and private palace servants. Militarily, they were bred into a personal loyalty to the ruler that one could never expect from men of the local community. The slaves did not have social or political relations in society, no family or relatives who could require a rivalling loyalty. This ensured that their bonds to the ruler were absolute, their loyalty unquestionable.
According to Islamic law, the one born to be a Muslim was not allowed to be a slave. Of course that reduced the availability of slaves, but it also guaranteed that they did not have other loyalty ties to powerful families in Muslim-dominated countries.
The Mamluk system was a military training of slaves to military elite units, organised by Muslim rulers.
The origin of the system is not clear. Previously, it was held that its origin was the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad and the slaves purchased by the Caliph al-Mu'tasim (833-842). These slaves were used militarily and they gradually became a dominant force of the army.
(Below A Mamluk soldier in full armour, Picture by Georg Moritz Ebers, 1878. In the Public Domain.)
Tensions between the slaves and the people of Baghdad should have caused al-Mu'tasim to move his capital to Samarra, where a systematic training of new slaves would have been organised.
There is another theory, suggesting that the origin was a small-scale experiment, started by the Caliph al-Muwaffaq upon the caliphate's return to Baghdad in the 870s.
Both explanations may be correct, but it is likely that the latter was what really developed further into the Mamluk system.
The rulers eventually held themselves with a bodyguard of Mamluks, and in some instances they became such a great power factor that they took over the state.
So was the case in the 13th century Delhi Sultanate, in India; so also in Egypt, where the Mamluks of the Ayyubid Sultanate in 1250 murdered the last actual Ayyubid Sultan, Turan Shah, and claimed the Sultanate as their own. First under the nominal Ayyibid Sultan al-Ashraf Musa until 1254, then with their own Sultans. They formed what is commonly called the Mamluk Sultanate (which, besides Egypt, included Syria and some other lands). It lasted until 1517, when the Ottoman Turks invaded Egypt and made it to an Ottoman province. The Mamluks, however, remained a powerful military and social group, some sort of nobility in Egypt, until the 19th century, when they were made almost extinct in a campaign with accompanying massacres instituted by Muhammad Ali.
(Below Three Mamelukes with lances on horseback, etching by Daniel Hopfer, (ca 1470-1536). In the Public Domain.)
The Mamluk Sultans are historically divided into the Bahri dynasty and the Burji dynasty. The former were mainly of Turkish descent and the latter of Cirkassian. Still, it is not correct to talk about two dynasties. Although dynastic succession occurred, and a son sometimes inherited the throne after his father, it was far from the rule. Bahri and Burji are rather names of two different ethnic groups from which the Sultans were taken.
The names of these so-called dynasties are derived from where their military bases were deployed. "Bahri" comes from "al-bahr", which means "the sea", but refers to the waters of the Nile. Their centre was on the island Rhoda (or Rawdah), in the Nile, in the middle of Cairo. "Burji" comes from "al-burj", which means the castle and refers to the Citadel of Cairo.
Shajar al-Durr
In 1250, The Mamluks seized the real power in Egypt. As throughout their whole history, the time was like a drama of Shakespeare - violent and full of betrayal and conspiracies. At the centre stood, surprisingly, a woman: Shajar al-Durr, originally a Turkish slave girl. De facto, she was the first Mamluk ruler, and the first woman to rule Egypt after Cleopatra (VII).
Shajar al-Durr's name is sometimes transcribed as Shajarat al-Durr - or Shaggar, Shagar, or Shagarat. In Arabic, it is [شجر الدر]. It means “Tree of Pearls”. Her complete royal name was Al-Malikah ad-Din Umm-Khalil Shajarat al-Durr [الملكة عصمة الدين أم خليل شجر الدر].
Shajar al-Durr came to Cairo in 1240, as a wife of the Ayyubid Sultan Al Salih Ayyub. (According to some sources, she was his mistress and did not marry him until she was already in Cairo and also had born him a son.) At this time, the area was heavily pressed by the Mongols under Hülegü Khan, and in 1249, there was also an invasion, the 7th Crusade, led by the French King Louis IX. Louis' army managed to take Damietta and threatened Cairo. The Sultan, who had bad health, died, and it looked quite dark for Egypt. Shajar al-Durr managed to hide the Sultan's death, took the command, let the Mamluk troops push back the crusader army – which was practically destroyed at the battle of al Mansourah - and captured the French king. He was subsequently released for 400,000 livres tournois (about one third of the French Treasury's annual income) and the return of Damietta.
Al-Salih Ayyub's son, Turan Shah, was installed as the new Sultan in 1249, but the Mamluks did not like him, so they murdered him already in 1250. Shajar al-Durr then formally took the power, supported by the Mamluks. However, the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad refused to recognise her as the ruler, and so did the Ayyubids in Syria. (It should be remembered that all Muslim rulers were, in formal terms, subject to the Caliph, even those who actually had more power than he had - and the power of the Caliph was sometimes limited to the formal recognition of titles and powers.) A solution was designed: Shajar al-Durr should marry Aybak, the Mamluk who, in official history, is referred to as the first Mamluk Sultan.
Of course the marriage led to a power struggle between Shajar al-Durr and her husband. In 1257, she had Aybak killed. But she could not enjoy the victory for a long time. Within a few weeks, Shajar al-Durr was killed as well. A revenge on orders by one of Aybak's sons. Her body was thrown down from a wall on the Citadel.
It is justified to say that Shajar al-Durr was in fact the first Mamluk Sultan. She was truly proclaimed the Sultana by the Mamluks - and she was of slavery origin. The absence of recognition by the Caliph in Baghdad and the Ayyubids of Syria, led to an unfortunate compromise that became her fall. However, the Mamluk Sultanate she started would live on for more than 250 years.
Baibars
Al-Zahir Rukn-ad-Din Baibars al-Bunduqdari, or, more commonly, Baibars, (1223-1277) was the Mamluk Sultan 1260-1277. He was the first of the "Great" Sultans, and accomplished a lot even before he became the Sultan.
Baibars was Kipchak Turk and he was sold as a slave after the Mongolian invasion of the Kipchak Turkish land by the Black Sea. He was cheap because he was blind on one eye. The Ayyubid sultan in Egypt bought him and sent him to military education on an island in the Nile. He proved to be a great military talent and advanced quickly, Baibars was the commander of the army defeating Louis IX's crusader army at Al Mansourah, where the French King was captured. He was also the leader of the Mamluks who killed Turan Shah. However, there was bad blood between him and Aybak, the first Mamluk Sultan after Shajar al-Durr, so he left Egypt for Syria during Aybak's time. However, favoured by the Sultan al-Muzaffar Saif Ad-Din Qutuz, he returned in 1260, after which he killed Qutuz and became the new Sultan.
As a ruler, he merged Egypt and Syria into one state, defeating all important remaining crusader forces. He also liberated Syria from the so-called Assassins, and won decisive victories over the Mongols in Persia. He established diplomatic relations and trade agreements with several European potentates, and he built bridges and canals, and of course mosques.
(Below A Lion (passant), the heraldic symbol of Baibars from about 1260, The image, retraced from a stone carving in the Egyptian Museum of Islamic Arts in Cairo, was created by LadyofHats. CCO/Released to Public Domain.)
One of his most advanced political moves was to make a descendant of Baghdad's Abbasid Dynasty to Caliph and place him in Cairo. He needed a caliph to legitimise his own regime, and in practice the caliphate had ceased to exist when the Mongols killed the Caliph in Baghdad. Then Baibars acquired one who remained under his own control as long as he needed him. This puppet Caliph was sent to Syria for a war, but Baibars was warned that the Caliphate's relocation to Baghdad could rob him of its control. For some reason, the Caliph was murdered on the way.
Baibars's life ended abruptly. Strangely enough, he seems to have murdered himself by mistake. Perhaps a suitable end to a man whose entire life had been full of plots, betrayals and murders, a man who seems to have been hated by everyone in his environment. Baibars tried to poison a rival prince, Malik Kaher. He, however, secretly switched glasses with Baibars, who drank his own poison.
Egypt and the Arab world have heroized Baibars as few others. Many stories are pure fairy tales, in part a result of Baibars's own attempt to create a cult around himself as the great hero. Undoubtedly, Baibars was a capable prince and a distinguished military commander, but his total absence of scruples gave him too many enemies.
Egypt, on the other hand, began one of its historic peaks during Baibars's rule, both militarily and culturally. And he influenced the history of the world forever by a decisive contribution to ending the Crusades and stopping the Mongol expansion.
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