Summary Notes: Egyptian Mamluki State

Summary Notes: Egyptian Mamluki State

A brief history of the Mamluki Egypt

The unique achievement of Cairene mamluki government was the independence, geographic extent, and duration of power. A mamluki sultan ruled Egypt, Syria, and the Hegaz from AD1249 until the Ottoman conquest of AD1517. From that conquest until after Napoleon's expedition, Istanbul relied on mamluk beys and their patron-client administrative network and militias to help control Egypt. The mamalik formed an Egyptian nobility. After the the French exit, Istanbul solidified control of Egypt in AD1807. Albanian Ottoman Muhammad 'Ali Basha drafted ordinary Egyptians into a European-style army. Mamalik soldiers were useless to him, especially when he remembered that disciplined French conscripts had readily defeated the beys. Muhammad 'Ali Basha was modernist to his soul: his state was a bureaucracy. Mamalik annoyed him. Muhammad 'Ali Basha's retainers and Albanian infantry murdered the mamluki leadership on the night of 01 March 1811 and the remaining Egyptian mamalik in the following days. He killed perhaps 3,000 mamalik and their family members. Aside from the human toll, and even considering the territorial mastery and political success of Muhammad 'Ali Basha's own regime, it was the end of an exceptional era in Arab, Turkish, Islamic, and world history.

Brian Carter Broadus AIA

Brian Carter Broadus LLC

AD2010

Brian Carter Broadus AIA

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20100610_Mamluki_Egypt_Summary.pdf