Capture of Cairo (1517)

Last updated
Capture of Cairo (1517)
Part of the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517)
Tomanbay Idam.png
Execution of Tuman bay II
Date27-30 January 1517
Location
Cairo, present-day Egypt
Result

Ottoman victory

  • Cairo captured by the Ottomans
  • Egypt annexed by the Ottoman Empire
Belligerents
Ottoman red flag.svg Ottoman Empire Mameluke Flag.svg Mamluk Sultanate
Commanders and leaders
Ottoman red flag.svg Selim I Mameluke Flag.svg Tuman bay II   Skull and Crossbones.svg
Abbasid banner.svg Al-Mutawakkil  (POW)
Strength
unknown 10,000–20,000
Casualties and losses
unknown heavy losses
50,000 civilians dead [1] [2]

The capture of Cairo was the final major engagement of the Ottoman Mamluk war of 1516-1517. The city of Cairo, the capital of the Mamluk Sultanate, was sacked and fell into the hands of the Ottoman forces led by Sultan Selim I during the 27th-30th January 1517. Following Cairo's fall and the subsequent execution of the last Mamluk Sultan and member of the Abbasid dynasty: Tuman Bay II, the Mamluk Sultanate was absorbed into the expanding Ottoman Empire. Following its conquest, Cairo saw its status being reduced from the once prosperous capital of the Mamluk Sultanate to a provincial city governed from Constantinople. The economic decline present from the later years of the Mamluk Sultanate would continue under Ottoman rule, with the country being increasingly burdened by taxation by the imperial government and its status as a military base with the purpose of launching further expansion into surrounding lands.

Contents

Background

The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt was a Muslim dynasty in Egypt (1250–1517). The Mamluks constituted a class of military slaves of either Turkic or Circassian origin. After a coup in 1250 they began ruling in Egypt and they annexed Syria and Palestine to their realm. Initially the relations between Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire in Turkey and Balkans was friendly. But during the last years of the 15th century, the competition to control south Turkey (Çukurova, Cilicia of the antiquity) deteriorated the relations. Furthermore, during Ottoman-Safavid (Persia) war the Dulkadirids, which was a Mamluk vassal, supported Safavids. After the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, Ottoman vizier (later grand vizier) Hadim Sinan Pasha retaliated by annexing Dulkadirid territory (most of South East Anatolia) after the Battle of Turnadag to the Ottoman realm in 1515. The war between the two great powers was inevitable.[ opinion ] Ottoman Sultan Selim I (the inflexible, r.1512-1520) won two decisive battles Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516 and Battle of Ridaniya in 1517.

Conquest of Cairo

After the battle of Ridaniya (23 January 1517) Selim encamped on the island of Vustaniye (or Burac) facing Cairo (at 30°04′N31°13′E / 30.067°N 31.217°E / 30.067; 31.217 ), the capital. But he didn't enter Cairo. Because Tumanbay II the sultan of Mamluks as well as Kayıtbay another leader of Mamluks had managed to escape and Selim decided to concentrate on arresting the leaders before entering Cairo. Thus he sent only a vanguard regiment to Cairo on 26 January. Although the regiment was able to enter the capital without much fighting, the same night Tumanbay also secretly came to the capital. With the help of Cairo citizens he raided the Ottoman forces in the capital and began controlling Cairo. After hearing the news of Tumanbay's presence in Cairo, Selim sent his Janissaries to the city. After several days' fighting the Ottoman forces entered the city on 3 February 1517. Selim entered the city and sent messages of victory (Turkish : zafername) to other rulers about the conquest of Cairo. Nevertheless, the leaders of Mamluks were still on the loose. [3]

Aftermath

Tumanbay escaped from Cairo and tried to organize a new army composed of Egyptians together with what was left out of the Mamluk army. His army was no match for the Ottoman army. But he was planning to raid Selim's camp on Vustatiye island. However Selim heard about his plan and sent a force on Tumanbay to forestall his plans. After some small scale clashes Tumanbay was arrested on 26 March 1517. Selim's initial decision was to send Mamluk notables to İstanbul. But after a while, he changed his decision. Tumanbay and the other notable Mamluks were executed on 13 April 1517 by a former Mamluk commander who had switched sides. [4] The Ottoman conquest of Egypt marked the end of the Abbasid dynasty, and the final caliph Al-Mutawakkil III was captured together with his family and transported to Constantinople. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamluk</span> Slave-soldiers and enslaved mercenaries in the Muslim world

Mamluk or Mamaluk were non-Arab, ethnically diverse enslaved mercenaries, slave-soldiers, and freed slaves who were assigned high-ranking military and administrative duties, serving the ruling Arab and Ottoman dynasties in the Muslim world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burji Mamluks</span> Dynasty of Egyptian monarchs (1382–1517 CE)

The Burji Mamluks or Circassian Mamluks, sometimes referred to as the Burji dynasty, were the rulers of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt from 1382 until 1517. As with the preceding Bahri Mamluks, the members of the Burji Mamluk ruling class were purchased as slaves (mamluks) and manumitted, with the most powerful among them taking the role of sultan in Cairo. During this period, the ruling Mamluks were generally of Circassian origin, drawn from the Christian population of the northern Caucasus. The name Burji, meaning 'of the tower', refers to the traditional residence of these Mamluks in the barracks of the Citadel of Cairo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Chaldiran</span> 16th century Ottoman-Safavid military conflict

The Battle of Chaldiran took place on 23 August 1514 and ended with a decisive victory for the Ottoman Empire over the Safavid Empire. As a result, the Ottomans annexed Eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq from Safavid Iran. It marked the first Ottoman expansion into Eastern Anatolia, and the halt of the Safavid expansion to the west. The Battle of Chaldiran was just the beginning of 41 years of destructive war, which only ended in 1555 with the Treaty of Amasya. Though Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia were eventually reconquered by the Safavids under the reign of Shah Abbas the Great, they would be permanently ceded to the Ottomans by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hayır Bey</span> Governor of Egypt from 1517 to 1522

Hayır Bey or Khayrbak ruled Egypt in the name of the Ottoman Empire from 1517 until his death in 1522. He was granted the position of governor by sultan Selim I of the Ottoman Empire for his help in the conquest of Egypt.

Al-Mutawakkil III was the seventeenth Abbasid caliph of Cairo for the Mamluk Sultanate from 1508 to 1516, and again in 1517.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghuri</span> Sultan of Egypt

Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghuri or Qansuh II al-Ghawri was the second-to-last of the Mamluk Sultans. One of the last and most powerful of the Burji dynasty, he reigned from 1501 to 1516.

The Ramadanid Emirate was an autonomous administration and a de facto independent emirate that existed from 1352 to 1608 in Cilicia, taking over the rule of the region from the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The emirate was a protectorate of the Mamluk Sultanate until the end of the 14th century, then it was de facto independent for more than a century, and then, from 1517, a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire. The capital was Adana.

The Battle of Ridaniya or Battle of Ridanieh was fought on January 22, 1517, in Egypt. The Ottoman forces of Selim I defeated the Mamluk forces under Al-Ashraf Tuman bay II. The Turks marched into Cairo, and the severed head of Tuman bay II, Egypt’s last Mamluk Sultan, was hung over an entrance gate in the Al Ghourieh quarter of Cairo. Or, alternatively, he was hung from the gate and buried after three days. The Ottoman grand vizier, Hadım Sinan Pasha, was killed in action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Marj Dabiq</span> Part of Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–17)

The Battle of Marj Dābiq, a decisive military engagement in Middle Eastern history, was fought on 24 August 1516, near the town of Dabiq, 44 km north of Aleppo. The battle was part of the 1516–17 war between the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate, which ended in an Ottoman victory and conquest of much of the Middle East and brought about the destruction of the Mamluk Sultanate. The Ottoman victory in the battle gave Selim's armies control of the entire region of Syria and opened the door to the conquest of Egypt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuman bay II</span> Mamluk Sultan of Egypt

Al-Ashraf Abu Al-Nasr Tuman bay, better known as Tuman bay II was the final Mamluk Sultan of Egypt before the country's conquest by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. He ascended to the sultanic throne during the final period of Mamluk rule in Egypt, after the defeat of his predecessor, Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri, by Ottoman Sultan Selim I at the Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516. He was the last person to hold the title of Sultan of Egypt until the re-establishment of the sultanate 397 years later under Hussein Kamel in 1914.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamluk Sultanate</span> State in Egypt, Hejaz and the Levant (1250–1517)

The Mamluk Sultanate, also known as MamlukEgypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz from the mid-13th to early 16th centuries. It was ruled by a military caste of mamluks headed by a sultan. The sultanate was established with the overthrow of the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt in 1250 and was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Mamluk history is generally divided into the Turkic or Bahri period (1250–1382) and the Circassian or Burji period (1382–1517), called after the predominant ethnicity or corps of the ruling Mamluks during these respective eras.

Hadım Sinan Pasha was Bosnian-Ottoman nobleman, politician and statesman. He served as the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1517. He was a eunuch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamluk–Portuguese conflicts</span> 1505–1517 conflict in the Indian Ocean

Egyptian Mamluk–Portuguese conflicts refers to the armed engagements between the Egyptian state of the Mamluks and the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, following the expansion of the Portuguese after sailing around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498. The conflict took place during the early part of the 16th century, from 1505 to the fall of the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yunus Pasha</span> Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (1517)

Yunus Pasha was an Ottoman statesman. He was Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire for eight months in 1517, serving from January 30 until his death on September 13.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517)</span> Imperial Ottoman conquest of Egypt and the Levant

The Ottoman–Mamluk War of 1516–1517 was the second major conflict between the Egypt-based Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire, which led to the fall of the Mamluk Sultanate and the incorporation of the Levant, Egypt, and the Hejaz as provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The war transformed the Ottoman Empire from a realm at the margins of the Islamic world, mainly located in Anatolia and the Balkans, to a huge empire encompassing much of the traditional lands of Islam, including the cities of Mecca, Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo. Despite this expansion, the seat of the empire's political power remained in Constantinople.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottoman wars in Africa</span> Series of military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and various African states

The Ottoman Empire was founded at the beginning of the 14th century. Beginning in the 16th century, it also began acquiring possessions following series of wars in coastal North Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ala al-Dawla Bozkurt</span> Beg of Dulkadir from 1480 to 1515

Alā al-Dawla Bozkurt Beg was the ruler of the Dulkadirids from 1480 to 1515.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circassians in Egypt</span> Egyptians of partial or full ethnic Circassian origin

The Circassians in Egypt are people of Egypt with Circassian origin. For centuries, Circassians have been part of the ruling elite in Egypt, having served in high military, political and social positions. The Circassian presence in Egypt traces back to 1297 when Lajin became Sultan of Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. Under the Burji dynasty, Egypt was ruled by twenty one Circassian sultans from 1382 to 1517. Even after the abolishment of the Mamluk Sultanate, Circassians continued to form much of the administrative class in Egypt Eyalet of Ottoman Empire, Khedivate of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt and Kingdom of Egypt. Following the Revolution of 1952, their political impact has been relatively decreased.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Selim I</span> 9th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520

Selim I, known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute, was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Despite lasting only eight years, his reign is notable for the enormous expansion of the Empire, particularly his conquest between 1516 and 1517 of the entire Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, which included all of the Levant, Hejaz, Tihamah and Egypt itself. On the eve of his death in 1520, the Ottoman Empire spanned about 3.4 million km2 (1.3 million sq mi), having grown by seventy percent during Selim's reign.

References

  1. Иванов Н. А. 1984.
  2. Петросян 2013.
  3. Joseph von Hammer: Geschichte der osmanischen Dichtkunst Vol I (translation: Mehmet Ata) Milliyet yayınları, pp 275–276.
  4. Prof. Yaşar Yüce-Prof. Ali Sevim: Türkiye tarihi Cilt II, AKDTYKTTK Yayınları, İstanbul, 1991, p 250.
  5. Naylor, Phillip C. (2009-12-03). North Africa: A History from Antiquity to the Present. University of Texas Press. p. 115. ISBN   978-0-292-77878-8.

Bibliography

30°04′N31°13′E / 30.067°N 31.217°E / 30.067; 31.217