In response to the crusade, the Mamulk atābakYalbugha al-Umari ordered the construction of a fleet at Cairo. Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba dates this to November–December 1365, but al-Maqrizi, who is probably more reliable, places it in January–February 1366, at the same time as a fleet was ordered in Beirut.[1]
Procurement in Cairo was to be the responsibility of the vizier Mājid ibn al-Qazwīna, while construction was overseen by Ṭaybughā and Bahāʾ al-Dīn ibn al-Mufassar. According to al-Maqrizi, the craftsmen and sailors were imported from the Maghreb or recruited from among the Turcomans of Upper Egypt. According to al-Nuwayri, the fleet cast off on 28 November 1366. According to al-Maqrizi, there were 100 ships, each under the command of an emir. The Prise d'Alexandrie, however, puts the number of ships at 200.[1]
Raid on Cyprus
In May 1366, the Ottomans offered to send 100 ships in a joint attack on Cyprus, but the Mamluks could not commit, since their fleet was still under construction.[1] In March 1368, the privateer brothers Peter and John Grimante, sailing from Famagusta raided Alexandria and Damietta, seizing several ships.[1][2] In Alexandria, they faced strong resistance from the captain of the arsenal, Ibrahim al-Tazi, who was from the Maghreb.[1]
Sultan al-Ashraf Sha'ban immediately summoned al-Tazi to Cairo and offered him command of the fleet, moored at Boulaq, for a raid against Cyprus. Al-Tazi opted to take only a single ship from Cairo together with one other ship from Alexandria.[1] He set sail from the port of Alexandria with 500 of his crew for an armed reconnaissance of the Cypriot coast.[1][3] According to al-Nuwayri, he sent back a boat full of booty on 30 March. He captured one or two boats before being forced to retreat by Genoese galleys in Cypriot service. He returned to Alexandria in mid-April or early May.[1] The sources are not entirely consistent,[1] but the raid lasted about 23 days.[3] It netted 35 Cypriot prisoners.[4][5]
References
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Clément Onimus, "Peter I of Lusignan's Crusade and the Reaction of the Mamluk Sultanate", in Alexander D. Beihammer and Angel Nicolaou-Konnari, eds., Crusading, Society, and Politics in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Age of King Peter I of Cyprus (Brepols, 2022), pp. 251–271, at 258–259.
↑ George Francis Hill, A History of Cyprus, Vol. 2: The Frankish Period, 1192–1432 (Cambridge University Press, 1948), p. 354.
↑ Ḥasan Saʻīd, Ibrāhīm (1973). تايخ البحرية المصرية (in Arabic). Jāmiʻat al-Iskandarīyah.
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Mamluk Sultanate 
Kingdom of Cyprus