The Mamluks: Slave-Soldiers and Sultans of Medieval Egypt

Known as ghulam or mamluk in Arabic, the slave-soldier was a ubiquitous phenomenon in the world of medieval Islam. Usually pagan steppe nomads, mamluks were purchased in adolescence, converted to Islam, taught Arabic, and trained to lead armies. Sometimes manumitted and sometimes not, in either case mamluks rose to positions of privilege and prominence in numerous regimes in the medieval Middle East.Nowhere was the mamluk institution so fundamental as it was in Egypt between 1250 and 1517 CE, when Cairo was ruled by these slave-soldiers, their ranks constantly renewed by imports of new mamluks from the Black Sea and Caucuses. Born in the age of the crusades and ultimately conquered by the Ottoman Empire, the Mamluk Sultanate can be understood as a bridge between the worlds of medieval and early modern Islam, as well as between East and West, sitting astride the major Nile-Red Sea route that linked the Mediterranean world to that of the Indian Ocean and beyond. This class will investigate the rise and fall of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and its key roles in the commercial, diplomatic, and political history both of the medieval Middle East and the wider world.