The Feared Turkish Mamluk Warriors

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• published: 29 Dec 2013
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The most enduring Mamluk realm was the military caste in medieval Egypt that rose from the ranks of slave soldiers who were mainly of Kipchak Turk, Circassian and Georgian origin, although in the Burji (post-1389) Mamluk sultanate many Mamluks could also be of Balkan origin (Albanian, Greek, South Slavic). The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior class, was of great political importance and was extraordinarily long-lived, lasting from the 9th to the 19th century AD. Over time, mamluks became a powerful military caste in various Muslim societies. Particularly in Egypt, but also in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and India, mamluks held political and military power. In some cases, they attained the rank of sultan, while in others they held regional power as amirs or beys. Most notably, mamluk factions seized the sultanate for themselves in Egypt and Syria in a period known as the Mamluk Sultanate (1250--1517). The Mamluk Sultanate famously beat back the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut and fought the Crusaders, effectively driving them out from the Levant by 1291 and officially in 1302 ending the era of the Crusades. While mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, who were not allowed to carry weapons or perform certain tasks. In places such as Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, mamluks were considered to be "true lords", with social status above freeborn Muslims The origins of the Mamluk system are disputed. Everybody agrees that the story of an entrenched military caste like the mamluks in Islamic societies begins with the Abbasid caliphs of the 9th century Baghdad. The question is more precisely when in the 9th century. The dominant narrative up to the 1990s was that the earliest mamluks were known as ghilman (another term for slaves, broadly synonymous) and were bought by the Abbasid caliphs, especially al-Mu'tasim (833-842). By the end of the 9th century, these slaves had become the dominant element in the military. Conflict between these ghilman and the population of Baghdad prompted the caliph al-Mu'tasim to move his capital to the city of Samarra, but this did not succeed in calming tensions; the caliph al-Mutawakkil was assassinated by some of these slave-soldiers in 861 (see Anarchy at Samarra). A more recent interpretation would distinguish between a ghilman system, in Samarra, without training and relying on pre-existing Central Asian hierarchies, mixing adult slaves and freemen, and a later creation of an actual mamluk system, with the systematic training of young slaves, after the return of the caliphate to Baghdad in the 870's ). The mamluk system would have been a small-scale experiment of al-Muwaffaq, combining the efficiency of the steppic warriors with improved reliability. This recent interpretation seems to have been accepted ). The use of mamluk soldiers gave rulers troops who had no link to any established power structure. Local non-mamluk warriors were often more loyal to their tribal sheikhs, their families, or nobles than to the sultan or caliph. If a commander conspired against the ruler, it was often not possible to deal with the conspiracy without causing unrest among the nobility. The mamluk slave-troops were foreigners of the lowest possible status who could not conspire against the ruler and who could easily be punished if they caused trouble, making them a great military asset. After the fragmentation of the Abbasid Empire, military slaves, known as either mamluks or Ghilman, became the basis of military power throughout the Islamic world. The Fatimids of Egypt bought Armenian, Turkic and Sudanese slaves, who formed the bulk of their military and often their administration. The powerful vizier Badr al-Jamali, for example, was a mamluk of Armenian origin. In Iran and Iraq, the Buyids used Turkic slaves throughout their empire, such as the rebel al-Basasiri who eventually ushered in Saljuq rule in Baghdad after attempting a failed rebellion. When the later Abbasids regained military control over Iraq, they also relied on the military slaves called Ghilman. Under Saladin and the Ayyubids of Egypt, the power of the mamluks increased until they claimed the sultanate in 1250, ruling as the Mamluk Sultanate. Military slavery continued to be employed throughout the Islamic world until the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire's devşirme, or "gathering" of young slaves for the Janissary corps, lasted until the 17th century, while mamluk-based regimes thrived in such Ottoman provinces as Iraq and Egypt into the 19th century.