Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
After the fragmentation of the Abbasid Empire, military slaves, known as either Mamluks or Ghilman, were used throughout the Islamic world as the basis of military power. The Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171) of Egypt had forcibly taken adolescent male Armenians, Turks, Sudanese, and Copts from their families to be trained as slave soldiers.
The Mamluks were motivated by personal piety or political expediency for Islam was both an assimilating and unifying factor between the Mamluks and the majority of their subjects; the early mamluks had been brought up as Sunni Muslims and the Islamic faith was the only aspect of life shared between the Mamluk ruling elite and its subjects.
Most of the mamluks in the Ayyubids' service were ethnic Kipchak Turks from Central Asia, who, upon entering service, were converted to Sunni Islam and taught Arabic. A mamluk was highly committed to his master, to whom he often referred as 'father', and was in turn treated more as a kinsman than as a slave. [8]
While the mostly Christian or non-Sunni Muslim-populated mountain regions between the coast and the interior plains of the Levant were not treated with suspicion as potential Crusader allies by the Mamluks, the Kisrawan's inhabitants were viewed differently. The Druze in the hills south and east of Beirut allied with the Mamluks.
The Muslim Mamluks defeated the Mongols in all battles except one. Beside a victory to the Mamluks in Ain Jalut, the Mongols were defeated in the second Battle of Homs, Elbistan and Marj al-Saffar. After five battles with the Mamluks, the Mongols only won at the Battle of Wadi al-Khaznadar. [24] They never returned to Syria again.
Thus freed of other concerns, by 1516, the Ottoman Empire turned its full might against the Mamluks to complete the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East. [2] Sultan Selim alleged that the Mamluks were Muslim oppressors and that they were allied with the Shia Safavids. Based on these accusations, a fatwa appeared, stating: “Whoever helps people ...
The Mamluk dynasty (lit. ' Slave dynasty '), or the Mamluk Sultanate, is the historiographical name or umbrella term used to refer to the three dynasties of Mamluk origin who ruled the Ghurid territories in India and subsequently, the Sultanate of Delhi, from 1206 to 1290 [9] [10] [11] — the Qutbi dynasty (1206–1211), the first Ilbari or Shamsi dynasty (1211–1266) and the second Ilbari ...
Despite being two Sunni Muslim states, the relationship between the Ottomans and the Mamluks was adversarial: both states vied for control of the spice trade, and the Ottomans aspired to eventually take control of the Holy Cities of Islam. [1] The two states however were separated by a buffer zone occupied by Turkmen states such as Karamanids ...