Capture of Cairo (1517) | |||||||
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Part of the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517) | |||||||
Execution of Tuman bay II | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Ottoman Empire | Mamluk Sultanate | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Selim I | Tuman bay II 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 27-30 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 reduced from the previously the capital of the Mamluk Sultanate to a provincial city governed from Constantinople. The economic trends from the later years of the Mamluk Sultanate continued under Ottoman rule, with the country being increasingly subject to taxation by the imperial government and its status as a military base to launch further expansion into surrounding lands.
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 the Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire in Turkey and the Balkans were friendly. However during the last years of the 15th century, the competition to control south Turkey (Çukurova, Cilicia of the antiquity) deteriorated the relations.
Furthermore, during the Ottoman-Safavid (Persia) war the Dulkadirids, which was a Mamluk vassal, supported the 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 tensions between the two great powers led to conflict. Ottoman Sultan Selim I (reigned 1512-1520) won two decisive battles, the Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516 and the Battle of Ridaniya in 1517.
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 ), the capital. But he didn't enter Cairo. Because Tumanbay II the sultan of the Mamluks as well as Kayıtbay another leader of the Mamluks had managed to escape, 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 assistance of some 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 the Mamluks were still on the loose. [3]
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 smaller in size and capacity compared to 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 at the Bab Zuweila by a former Mamluk commander who had switched sides. [4] The Ottoman conquest of Egypt marked the end of the Mamluk-led Abbasid rule in Egypt. The final caliph Al-Mutawakkil III was captured together with his family and transported to Constantinople. [5]
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.
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.
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 Upper Mesopotamia 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 Peace of Amasya. Though the Safavids eventually reconquered Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia under the reign of Abbas the Great, they would be permanently ceded to the Ottomans by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab.
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.
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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.
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.
Al-Ashraf Abu Al-Nasr Tuman Bay, better known as Tuman Bay II and Tumanbay II was the 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 Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri by Ottoman Sultan Selim I at the Battle of Marj Dabiq the year prior. 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.
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.
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