Mamluk Dynasty
During a time when Egypt’s Ayyubid monarchy was under threat from outside, the Mamluk dynasty rose to power. They were slaves that Sultan al-Salih Ayyub (r. 1240–1249) bought in large numbers. The slaves were trained as troops, converted to Islam, and then made free.
The Mamluks put together a group of elite soldiers who were only loyal to their old boss.
When the Mongols came to the Kipchak steppe in what is now Russia, they brought with them a lot of Turks. King Louis IX (1226–1270) of France led the Seventh Crusade in 1249. It was the first outside threat that made the Mamluks rise to power.
Al-Salih Ayyub died when King Louis’s army attacked Egypt. His son, al-Mu’azzam Turan-shah (r. 1249–1250), wasn’t there right away, so the Ayyubids of Egypt didn’t have a head for a short time. At the same time, King Louis’s army had stopped at Mansurah, a protected city. His front line routed all opponents and entered the city, but the Bahriyya company of al-Salih’s Mamluks trapped and killed them.
The Mamluks’ Muslim troops quickly surrounded the crusaders and King Louis. King Louis gave up because his army was seriously sick and could be wiped out. After the win, Sultan Turan-shah came to Egypt and became its ruler in 1249. Because of what they did at Mansurah, the Bahriyya Mamluks and other Mamluks wanted more power in the government.
Turan-shah, on the other hand, didn’t agree and only put his own Mamluks in powerful roles, which made his father’s Mamluks dislike him. Because of this, Rukn al-Din Baybars, who led troops at Mansurah, and other Mamluk leaders put together a coup and killed Turanshah three weeks after the win at Mansurah. After that, the Mamluk Dynasty put al-Mu’izz Aybak al-Turkmani (1250–1257) on the throne.
During Aybak’s rule, there was a power battle between the Bahriyya and other regiments. Most of the Bahriyya fled to Syria and Rum, which is now Turkey. Al-Mansur ‘Ali (1257–1259), Aybak’s son, took the throne even though he was only fifteen years old after Shajar al-Durr, Aybak’s queen, killed him in 1257. Kutuz led the Mu’izziyya.
In any case, he was just a figurehead while the Mamluk Dynasty masters fought for power behind the throne. The invasion of the Mongols was the second crisis that made the Mamluk kingdom strong. In 1258, the Mongol forces led by Hulegu (d. 1265), a grandson of Chinggis Khan (1162-127), destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. They then marched into Syria and easily took over Aleppo and Damascus by 1260.
After the Mongols took over more land in Syria, there wasn’t much reason to think they wouldn’t also attack Egypt. When they got there, the Mamluks changed how they did things. With al-Muzaffar Kutuz (1259–1260), Sultan al-Mansur ‘Ali’s rule came to an end. It was thought that it would be better to have an experienced warrior than a child as king. Additionally, the Baybars-led Bahriyya unit returned to Egypt to engage in combat with the Mamluks.
After killing the Mongol messengers, Kutuz chose to attack instead of waiting for the Mongols to come. His choice came at a good time, since most of Hulegu’s army had already left Syria. There was only a small group left, and Kutuz and Baybars defeated them at the battle of ‘Ayn Jalut. Kutuz’s fame didn’t last long, though, because Baybars overthrew him when they got back to Syria.
So, between 1260 and 1277, Rukn al-Din Baybars Bunduqari became king of Egypt and Syria, making him the Mamluk Dynasty king. Baybars started protecting his throne right away by fighting the Ayyubid princes of Syria and any Mamluk groups that were against him.
The Mongol Il-Khanate of Iran and Iraq was still a very dangerous enemy, even though the Mongol Empire broke up into four different empires and got involved in a civil war.
To fight back, Baybars made a deal with the so-called “Mongol Golden Horde,” which controlled the northern parts of Russia and also fought the Il-Khanate. Baybars also led offensives against the Crusader lord Bohemund of Antioch (1252–1275) and Tripoli, as well as the Mongol supporters in Cilicia or Lesser Armenia.
When Baybars invaded their lands, they took away their power as a danger. Not all Crusaders were on the same side as the Mongols, like Bohemund. At first, Baybars left these alone while he dealt with more important problems. He did, however, a lot to make sure they failed.
He was able to use diplomacy to move another crusade that King Louis IX was leading to Tunis with the aid of the king’s brother, Charles D’Anjou. Egypt was a good business and political partner for Charles D’Anjou, so he didn’t want to hurt those ties by invading. Without help from another Crusade, the Crusaders who stayed in Palestine could only protect their own lands.
They lost a lot of bases very quickly to the Baybars. These included Crac des Chevaliers, Antioch, Caesarea, Haifa, Arsuf, and Safad. He also won his last battle against the Mongols at Elbistan in 1277, which was the pinnacle of his military career. He passed away in 1277.
His military success was due to both his skill as a general and his ability to use diplomacy to make friends. This kept the Mongols of Iran from focusing on him. Baybars spent a lot of his time in power protecting Syria from the Mongols. This led him to fight against the Crusader states and Cilicia. In Egypt, he also strengthened the Mamluks’ power, which meant that they could keep ruling after he died.
Al-Malik al-Sa’id Muhammad Barka Khan, Baybars’s son and ruler (1277–1279), did not have the chance to do as much as his father. Even though he was made joint sultan in 1266 and secretly given power while his father was dying, there was soon another coup. This time, a Mamluk emir named Qalawun killed the previous kings and quickly took the throne in 1279.
To keep his power, Qalawun (1279–1290) got rid of the al-Zahirriya, who were the Mamluks of Baybars. He then stopped any rebellion within the group.
But, like Baybars, Qalawun still had to deal with the Mongols. The ruler of the Il-Khanate of Persia from 1265 to 1282, Abaqa, sent another army into Syria in 1281. But this force had the same end as the ones that came before it. Qalawun’s army beat the Mongols and came out on top.
Once Qalawun had this win, he could go after the remaining Crusaders. Qalawun slowly took down each Crusader castle one by one by using both peace talks and force. By the year 1290, the Crusaders only controlled Acre and a few small buildings. He laid siege to Acre, but Qalawun died in 1290, so he would not live to see this last fortress fall.
However, Qalawun was a little better than Baybars at setting up a direct succession. His son, al-Ashraf Khalil (1290–1293), kept the siege going and, in 1291, took Acre. With this victory, he was able to fully take the throne. After this, al-Ashraf wiped out the last of the Crusaders’ strongholds, ending their two hundred-year stay in Palestine. The Mamluk sultanate, on the other hand, was always at risk of regicide.
When al-Ashraf tried to replace the mostly Turkic Mamluk army with Circassian soldiers, the Mamluks rose up again. Qalawun first brought the Circassians in, but al-Ashraf’s continued support and pride led to a second uprising.
Al-Ashraf Khalil was killed with a sword in 1293, but his Mamluk Dynasty family, the Burjiyya, took over Cairo and the sultanate. This meant that the Qalawunid dynasty could live on in name only, not in power. People all around the Mamluk nation did not trust them as rulers, and the Mongols posed a threat in the Middle East. This made it hard for the Mamluks to pursue their goals in Africa.
There was always trade with North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Also, the Mamluk Dynasty kept their control over southern Egypt stable by putting down the Beduin groups. The Mongols and Crusaders were no longer a threat to the Mamluks, so they started to work with other countries to the south and west more.
Also Read: A Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt
