Egypt - Mamluk Sultanate I

  General Description   The Mamluk Sultanate has two possible start dates: 1250 CE, when the last Ayyubid ruler in Egypt was deposed, or ten years later, once a period of disorder that included an attack from the Mongols had ended. Baybars (sultan from 1260 to 1277 CE) killed the first two Mamluk sultans after victories on the battlefield and, as a statesman and organizer, was ’the real founder of the Mamluk state’. ^[1] The sultans of the Bahri Dynasty or ’Dawlat al-Atrak’ (Empire of the Turks) ^[2] - so-called because the rulers were of Turkish origin - oversaw a new climax of sociopolitical development, wealth and splendour in Egypt, which peaked under the reign of Sultan Nasiri ^[3] before plague arrived in Alexandria in 1347 CE. ^[1] We end our early Mamluk Sultanate period in 1348 CE, a year when crisis struck Egypt.
The traditional chronological division of the Mamluk Sultanate into Bahri (Turkish) and Burji (Circassian) periods is not followed here because, according to the historian André Raymond, these periods ’correspond to no fundamental changes in the organization of the Mamluk state’. ^[4] We have chosen to split the sultanate in 1348 and 1412 CE instead in recognition of the crisis period following the Bahri period of prosperity. After the ’great plague epidemic’ of 1348, Mamluk troops were defeated by the Turco-Mongol conqueror Tamerlane (Timur) at the end of the 14th century, and, in 1403, the sultanate faced another political crisis and the ’disastrous reign of Faraj’. ^[4] The final Burji period began in 1412 CE and, while known for ’a return to normality and periods of brilliance’, was marked by demographic decline. ^[4]
Population and political organization
Since the children of mamluks could by law never become mamluks, ^[5] the Mamluk Sultanate was in every generation ruled by a foreign ’slave-elite’ that had to be constantly replaced by new ’slave’ recruits imported, educated, promoted, and manumitted specifically for the role. Manumission was essential because under Islamic law no slave could be sovereign. The sultan performed a ritual manumission at his inaugural ceremony but the legal manumission would usually have occurred when he was about 18 years old, following the mamluk training. ^[1] In the Bahri period the Mamluks were of Turkish origin (like those recruited by the last Ayyubid sultan), but later sultans recruited mostly Circassians from the Caucasus. ^[6] Mamluk recruits were employed in the central government, the military and as governors in the provinces. While promotion to the highest echelons of the government and military was ’granted according to precise rules’, succession to the highest position - the Sultanate itself - was often a chaotic contest in which ’seniority, merit, cabal, intrigue, or violence’ all jostled for prominence. ^[7] Nevertheless, the deck was stacked such that from 1290 to 1382 CE, the sultanate was inherited by 17 different descendants of Sultan Qalawun. ^[8]
The Mamluk sultan ruled from Cairo and during his absence from the capital, Egypt was governed by his viceroy, the na’ib al-saltana. ^[9] The bureaucracy did not tightly control the countryside. Rather, influence was projected informally through ’iqta holdings (allotments of land along with the right to their tax revenue) - first used in Egypt during the preceding Ayyubid Dynasty period. These were assigned as a way to remunerate the slave soldiers of the centrally organized professional military, ^[10] as well as more formally through the na’ib, governor of a mamlaka administrative district. ^[11] The Mamluk elite controlled the appointment of ’judges, legal administrators, professors, Sufi shaykhs, prayer leaders, and other Muslim officials. They paid the salaries of religious personnel, endowed their schools, and thus brought the religious establishment into a state bureaucracy’. ^[12] In Cairo, Islamic law was kept by three traditional magistracies called qadi (pl. qudah), whose courts had a wide remit over civil law. A law-enforcement official called the chief of the sergeant of the watch oversaw wulah (sg. wali) policemen who kept watch at night and also fought fires. ^[13]
Revenue and Resources
The Bahri Dynasty was highly effective at drawing revenue. In the 14th century CE, the annual revenue was 9.5 million dinars, which was ’higher than at almost any other time since the Arab conquest’. ^[14] This paid for the Al-Barid postal system initiated by Baybars (1260‒1277 CE), which was extremely expensive to set up. Horses were used for first time on routes such as Cairo to Qus in Upper Egypt; and Cairo to Alexandria, Damietta and Syria. ^[15] The Syrian region of the Mamluk Sultanate was run by a chief governor, who had governors below him. ^[11] Imperial communications via Palestine were reportedly so efficient that ’Baybars boasted that he could play polo in Cairo and Damascus in the same week, while an even more rapid carrier-pigeon post was maintained between the two cities’. ^[16]
The Mamluk rulers continued the tradition of dedicating much effort and resources to what might be termed public works projects, for which they largely used corvée labour. ^{[17] [1]} In addition to a permanent medical staff, lecture halls and laboratories, a hospital established by Sultan Qalaun (1279‒1290 CE) included a library stocked with books on medicine, theology and law. ^[18] The Mamluks followed Ayyubid precedents when they embarked on an ’intense period of construction’ in the first century of their rule, with building projects initiated by governors, generals, generals, rich merchants and judges. ^[19] André Raymond has identified 54 mosques and madrasas built in the 1293‒1340 CE period alone. ^[20] The Mamluks also built many ’tombs for venerated Muslim ancestors and for deceased rulers’. ^[12]
Private wealth was extensive at this time and the Karimi merchant and banking families operated fleets and agencies from China to Africa. ^[21] Cairo’s population was probably under 200,000 in the mid-14th century (only Constantinople could claim a great population in Western Eurasia), ^[22] and the sultanate as a whole reached about 6-7 million people. ^[23] This would have fluctuated, however, as severe bouts of famine struck Egypt in 1284, 1295, 1296 and 1335 CE. ^[24]

[1]: (Hrbek 1977, 39-67) Ivan Hrbek. 1977. ’Egypt, Nubia and the Eastern Deserts’, in The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3: From c. 1050 to c. 1600, edited by Roland Oliver, 10-97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[2]: (Hrbek 1977, 41) Ivan Hrbek. 1977. ’Egypt, Nubia and the Eastern Deserts’, in The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3: From c. 1050 to c. 1600, edited by Roland Oliver, 10-97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[3]: (Raymond 2000, 137) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[4]: (Raymond 2000, 116-17) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[5]: (Oliver and Atmore 2001, 16) Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore. 2001. Medieval Africa, 1250-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[6]: (Raymond 2000, 112) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[7]: (Raymond 2000, 113-14) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[8]: (Raymond 2000, 114) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[9]: (Raymond 2000, 152) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[10]: (Lapidus 2012, 250) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[11]: (Drory 2004, 169) Joseph Drory. 2004. ’Some Remarks Concerning Safed and the Organization of the Region in the Mamluk period’, in The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian Politics and Society, edited by Michael Winter and Amalia Levanoni, 163-90. Leiden: Brill.

[12]: (Lapidus 2012, 249) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[13]: (Raymond 2000, 153) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[14]: (Raymond 2000, 116) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[15]: (Silverstein 2007, 173) A. J. Silverstein. 2007. Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[16]: (Oliver and Atmore 2001, 17) Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore. 2001. Medieval Africa, 1250-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[17]: (Dols 1977, 152) M. W. Dols. 1977. The Black Death In The Middle East. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

[18]: (Dols 1977, 177) M. W. Dols. 1977. The Black Death In The Middle East. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

[19]: (Lapidus 2012, 248) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[20]: (Raymond 2000, 120) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[21]: (Oliver and Atmore 2001, 19) Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore. 2001. Medieval Africa, 1250-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[22]: (Raymond 2000, 136-37) André Raymond. 2000. Cairo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[23]: (McEvedy and Jones, 1978, 138-47, 227) Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. London: Allen Lane.

[24]: (Nicolle 2014, 11-12) David Nicolle. 2014. Mamluk ’Askari 1250-1517. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.