The Mamluks, whose name in Arabic means “those who are owned”, were a warrior class of slave soldiers. They were assigned various military and administrative duties on behalf of Arab dynasties in the Muslim world. The slave soldiery system began in the ninth century with Turkic slaves from the Eurasian Steppe. It then spread to include those from the Caucasus, the Balkans, Russia, and elsewhere. It lasted for a thousand years, into the nineteenth century. Although they began as slaves, the Mamluks eventually came to dominate the societies in which they operated. They were present in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and India, but their strongest hold was in Egypt. Below are some interesting about the Egyptian Mamluks, the slave soldiers who dominated Egypt for centuries.
The Slave Soldiers Who Became Egypt’s Masters
The Mamluks directly ruled Egypt, along with the Levant, as the Mamluk Sultanate from 1250 to 1517, until they were defeated by the Ottoman Turks. Although defeated and their lands conquered, the Mamluks were allowed to continue as a privileged class. They retained a higher social status than that of the rest of the population. Their direct rule was over, but they had governed Egypt for centuries and knew it well. The victorious Ottomans deemed it expedient to let them administer the country on their behalf.
Mamluks continued to serve as district administrators, tax collectors, bureaucrats, and an auxiliary military force to help – and balance or counter if Egypt’s Ottoman governor grew ambitious – the Ottoman garrison in Egypt. The Mamluks were deemed to be Egypt’s “true lords” and “true warriors”. They were often the country’s de facto rulers who paid only lip service to the Ottoman Sultan. In practice, they ran Egypt as a nearly independent realm. Their centuries-long dominance of Egypt did not come to an end until 1811, when their leaders accepted an invitation to a feast from that country’s ruthless new ruler, Muhammad Ali Pasha. It was to be their final feast.
The Arrival of Muhammad Ali Pasha
The Mamluks’ host, Muhammad Ali Pasha (1769 – 1849), is considered to be the founder of modern Egypt. Born in Ottoman-ruled Greece to an Albanian family, he began his career as a tax collector for the local authorities. He first arrived in Egypt in 1801, as an officer in an Albanian mercenary unit. It was part of a larger force sent by the Ottomans to reoccupy the country after Napoleon Bonaparte withdrew French forces from there. The French had defeated the Mamluks and conquered Egypt in 1798, but although weakened by their defeat, the Mamluks had not been destroyed. They jockeyed with and clashed with the Ottoman forces for power.
Amidst the turmoil that ensued, Muhammad Ali proved himself a wily political operator. He used his Albanian mercenaries to work with both factions, and his power and prestige rose steadily. Muhammad Ali also allied with native Egyptian leaders who distrusted and disliked both Mamluks and Ottomans, and worked hard to gain the general public’s support. As a result of his machinations, Egyptian notables demanded in 1805 that the Ottoman Sultan replace his governor in Egypt with Muhammad Ali, and he was forced to yield. Now viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali turned his attention to the Mamluks, who by then had dominated Egypt for six centuries. They posed a serious threat, and he knew that he would have to deal with them.
The Troublesome Mamluks
The Mamluks as a class were Egypt’s feudal lords, and their vast landed estates were the country’s greatest source of wealth and power. Although Muhammad Ali Pasha had received the title of Governor of Egypt in 1805, his undisputed authority was limited to Cairo. Beyond its walls, he was everywhere challenged by the Mamluks. So he decided upon a two-stage strategy, to first eliminate the Mamluk leaders, and then eliminate the entire Mamluk class. He started off with a ruse. On August 17th, 1805, he fed false intelligence to Mamluk forces encamped north of Cairo, that he would leave the city that day with most of his army to a attend a ceremony some miles away.
Believing Cairo to be undefended, the Mamluks rushed in to seize the city, only to fall into a carefully prepared ambush by Muhammad Ali and his forces. Surrounded in the city’s streets, many Mamluks were massacred. Dozens of their key leaders were captured, tortured, executed, and their heads were sent to the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople, with a boast that Mamluk power in Egypt had been broken. The 1805 defeat and massacre of the Mamluks greatly weakened but did not eradicate them. Survivors retreated to Upper Egypt, from which they conducted a guerrilla war against Muhammad Ali, and began to unsuccessfully negotiate for a compromise.
An Uneasy Peace
Muhammad Ali led an expedition that defeated the Mamluks in 1807. They were saved from utter destruction at the last minute, when news arrived of a British invasion of Alexandria and the surrounding Nile Delta region. Alarmed, the Pasha offered the Mamluks concessions if they joined him to expel the invaders, and they accepted. Together, the two forces marched north to deal with the invaders. Divisions soon arose among the Mamluks, however, when one faction advocated cooperation with the British, while the other sought to honor the agreement with Muhammad Ali.
It became moot when the British, who had invaded on the assumption that the Mamluks would join them, finally grew disgusted with their dissensions, despaired of their assistance, and evacuated Alexandria in September, 1807. An uneasy peace then descended between Muhammad Ali and the Mamluks. Some of their leaders were appointed administrators of certain Egyptian districts on condition that they pay taxes. Many of them returned to Cairo and resumed their residence there. However, Mamluk forces continued to clash with those of Egypt’s governor, until as seen in Part II, he took a final step to deal with them once and for all.
[This is the first of two articles about the destruction of the Egyptian Mamluks. For Part II, the conclusion, click here]
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Some Sources & Further Reading
Dodwell, Henry – The Founder of Modern Egypt: A Study of Muhammad Ali (1931)
Rawi, Egypt’s Heritage Review – Coffee With the Pasha: The Story of Egypt’s Most Famous Massacre
