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Mamluk

Slave-soldiers and enslaved mercenaries in the Muslim world

  • 21 min read
  • 9 chapters
Hopfer, Daniel (ca 1470-1536): Etching, Three Mamelukes with lances on horseback. “Mamelucke” Bartsch 56, Holl.65 i/ii, before the Funck number. “Vor der Nummer. Ganz ausgezeichneter, kräftiger Druck
Daniel Hopfer · Public domain

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The most enduring Mamluk legacy was the knightly military class in medieval Egypt, which developed from the ranks of slave-soldiers. Originally the Mamluks were slaves of Turkic origins from the Eurasian Steppe, but the institution of military slavery spread to include Circassians, Mongols, Abkhazians, Georgians, Armenians, Russians, and Hungarians, as well as peoples from the Balkans such as Albanians, Greeks, and South Slavs (see Saqaliba). They also recruited from the Egyptians. The "Mamluk/­Ghulam Phe­nom­enon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior class, was of great political importance; for one thing, it endured for nearly 1,000 years, from the 9th century to the early 19th. (See: Ghilman.)

Over time, Mamluks became a powerful military knightly class in various Muslim societies that were controlled by dynastic Arab rulers. Particularly in Egypt and Syria, but also in the Ottoman Empire, 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 emirs or beys. Most notably, Mamluk factions seized the sultanate centered on Egypt and Syria, and controlled it as the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517). The Mamluk Sultanate famously defeated the Ilkhanate at the Battle of Ain Jalut. They had earlier fought the western European Christian Crusaders in 1154–1169 and 1213–1221, effectively driving them out of Egypt and the Levant. With the capture of Ruad in 1302, the Mamluk Sultanate formally expelled the last Crusaders from the Levant, ending the era of the Crusades.

While Mamluks were purchased as property, they were enslaved mercenaries and their status was above that of 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, Mamluks were considered to be "true lords" and "true warriors", with social status above that of the general population in the Middle East.

Overview

Daniel Pipes argued that the first indication of the Mamluk military class was rooted in the practice of early Muslims such as Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and Uthman ibn Affan who, before Islam, owned many slaves and practiced Mawla (Islamic manumission of slaves). The Zubayrids army under Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, son of Zubayr, used these freed slave retainers during the second civil war.

Meanwhile, historians agree that the massive implementation of a slave military class such as the Mamluks appears to have developed in Islamic societies beginning with the 9th-century Abbasid Caliphate based in Baghdad, under the Abbasid caliph al-Muʿtaṣim. Until the 1990s, it was widely believed that the earliest Mamluks were known as Ghilman or Ghulam (another broadly synonymous term for slaves) and were bought by the Abbasid caliphs, especially al-Muʿtaṣim (833–842).

By the end of the 9th century, such slave warriors had become the dominant element in the military. Conflict between the Ghilman and the population of Baghdad prompted the caliph al-Muʿtaṣim 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).

Since the early 21st century, historians have suggested that there was a distinction between the Mamluk system and the (earlier) Ghilman system, in Samarra, which did not have specialized training and was based on pre-existing Central Asian hierarchies. Adult slaves and freemen both served as warriors in the Ghilman system. The Mamluk system developed later, after the return of the caliphate to Baghdad in the 870s. It included the systematic training of young slaves in military and martial skills. The Mamluk system is considered to have been a small-scale experiment of al-Muwaffaq, to combine the slaves' efficiency as warriors with improved reliability. This recent interpretation seems to have been accepted.

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. They formed the bulk of their military, and the rulers selected prized slaves to serve in their administration. The powerful vizier Badr al-Jamali, for example, was a Mamluk from Armenia. In Iran and Iraq, the Buyid dynasty used Turkic slaves throughout their empire. The rebel al-Basasiri was a Mamluk who eventually ushered in Seljuq dynastic rule in Baghdad after attempting a failed rebellion. When the later Abbasids regained military control over Iraq, they also relied on the Ghilman as their warriors.

Under Saladin and the Ayyubids of Egypt, the power of the Mamluks increased, and they claimed the sultanate in 1250, ruling as the Mamluk Sultanate. Throughout the Islamic world, rulers continued to use enslaved warriors until the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire's devşirme, or "gathering" of young slaves for the Janissaries, lasted until the 17th century. Regimes based on Mamluk power thrived in such Ottoman provinces as the Levant and Egypt until the 19th century.

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