Egyptian Society Under Ottoman Rule, 1517-1798

Michael Winter

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781134975136
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Michael Winter's book presents a panoramic view of Ottoman Egypt from the overthrow of the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517 to Bonaparte's invasion of 1798 and the beginning of Egypt's modern period.

Drawing on archive material, chronicle and travel accounts from Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew and European sources as well as up-to-date research, this comprehensive social history looks at the dynamics of the Egyptian-Ottoman relationship and the ethnic and cultural clashes which characterised the period. The conflicts between Ottoman pashas and their Egyptian subjects and between Bedouin Arabs and the more sedentary population are presented, as is the role of women in this period and the importance of the doctrinal clash of Islam both orthodox and popular, Christianity and Judaism.

Winter's broad survey of a complex and dynamic society draws out the central theme of the emergence, from a period of ethnic and religious tension, of an Egyptian consciousness fundamental to Egypt's later development.

1
Historical Background

THE MAMLUK SULTANATE (1250–1517)

After a long period of decline and passivity under the later Fatimid caliphs, Egypt once again became the center of a vigorous empire ruled by Salah al-Din (Saladin) and his Ayyubid successors (1171–1250). Around Egypt clustered a rather loose federation of Syrian and Mesopotamian emirates, each governed by a prince of the Ayyubid dynasty, who usually acknowledged the ruler of Egypt as their sultan because of the country's obvious geopolitical and economic resources.

The Ayyubid empire was harassed by the crusaders, who, although much weakened by their crushing defeat by Saladin's forces at Hittin in Palestine (1187), still held on stubbornly to the Syrian-Palestinian littoral and occasionally received reinforcements from overseas. Realizing that it was to Egypt, rather than to Syria, that efforts should be directed, Christian Europe launched two major attacks against Egypt (1219, 1249). These failed, but the crusaders were repulsed only with great difficulty.

The latter crusade, led by Louis IX, plunged the Ayyubid empire into a crisis when al-Malik al-Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub, the last effective sultan, died in camp while fierce battles raged between his troops and the crusaders. After the Franks took the port of Damietta (Dimyat) in 1249, they advanced to al-Mansura, 50 miles to the south, where they were defeated by the Muslims, primarily by al-Salih's regiment of the Bahriyya Mamluks (February 1250). This victory paved the way for the Mamluks’ usurpation of power and the establishment of their sultanate, which was to last for over two and a half centuries.

The Mamluk state was a unique political creation.¹ Generally, it was not ruled by a dynasty, but by an oligarchy of soldiers, Mamluks, or enfranchised military slaves. The Mamluks were white slaves who were bought, raised, and then trained as elite troops. They were born outside the Islamic domain, usually in the Euro-Asian steppe, north of the lands of Islam or in the Caucasus, to non-Muslim parents preferably of Turkish stock, and were imported when still boys or adolescents by the slave traders. The system of Mamluk military slavery had been practised from early times in Islam; it entrenched itself during the reign of the .Abbasid Caliph al-Mu‘tasim (833–42) and then spread throughout the Islamic lands.

Al-Malik al-Salih purchased Mamluks in large numbers, a policy which prepared the ground for the eventual Mamluk takeover of the state. The phenomenon of former slaves replacing their masters was unprecedented and left the Mamluks vulnerable. They needed to legitimize their rule and eliminate the remaining Ayyubids. Their chance came after they trounced the seemingly invincible Mongols at .Ayn Jalut in Palestine (1260). Al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars (1260–77) then brought to Cairo a scion of the .Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad, after that dynasty had almost been wiped out during the devastating Mongol occupation of the city in 1258, thus giving to his rule an aura of legitimacy.

Baybars, the founder of the Mamluk Sultanate, was an exceptionally able ruler and general. He transformed Egypt, Syria and the Hijaz into a stronger and more cohesive unit. This vigorous regime later put an end to the presence of the Franks in the east (the reconquest of Acre, 1291) and pushed the Mongols back beyond the Euphrates. Defended by the superb Mamluk horsemen, the new Sultanate constructed social and religious life on the principles of Sunni orthodoxy, continuing the religious policy of the Ayyubid dynasty. It patronized learning and piety, organized and protected the annual caravan of pilgrims to Mecca and Medina, and erected magnificent monuments in the major Egyptian and Syrian cities. These and other achievements were financed by the revenue from agriculture and international commerce, primarily the lucrative Eastern spice trade that passed through the Sultanate en route to Europe.

The Mamluks made a sharp distinction between the rulers and the ruled. Political power rested exclusively with the Mamluks. During the first half of the Sultanate (1250–1382) most of them were of Turkish Qipchak stock. After this and until 1517, they came from the Caucasus and were Circassians. The indigenous Arabic-speaking population and the Arabic sources called all Mamluks ‘Turks,’ whether they were Turks, Circassians or of other origins, because they all had Turkish names and spoke Turkish. This ‘Turkishness’ set the Mamluk rulers apart from their subjects, who spoke Arabic and had Arabic names. Despite all these differences between the Mamluks and their subjects, by then Mamluk rule was considered completely legitimate since the Mamluks were orthodox Muslims who proved their ability to defend Islam and maintain internal security. The young Mamluks were converted to Islam, trained as soldiers and given their freedom. The most talented and ambitious made their way up through the military hierarchy to become officers, emirs of 10, 40, or 100 men. The sultan was chosen from among the highest ranking emirs, often after fierce factional struggles. In the period when the Mamluks were of Turkish stock (the ‘Turkish’ or ‘Bahri’ period) the Qala’un family established itself as a line of rulers, but during the Circassian supremacy (the ‘Burji’ period), the dynastic principle was dropped, with the strongest and most ambitious ‘emirs of 100’ contending for the sultanate.

Membership in the ruling class was not hereditary. A Mamluk's sons could neither enter the military elite nor assume political office. Those who joined the army were called ‘the sons of the (distinguished) people’ (awlad al-nas), but they were limited to serving as low-ranking, modestly paid soldiers with no chance of promotion. The only other career open to them was as ulama, learned men of religion, with their fathers providing for their future by appointing them directors or trustees of religious foundations (waqfs) which the fathers had established. The principle that Mamluk status was not heritable was based on the conviction, which proved itself for centuries, that in order to preserve the vitality and high standards of the Mamluk military society it was essential to import continuously new Mamluks from outside Islamic domain. The sons of Mamluks, already born in Egypt or Syria, were believed to be too ‘soft’ to make good mounted soldiers like the young newcomers from the steppe. Besides, it was feared that inevitable family preferences and connections would weaken the military structure and discipline of Mamluk society.

The Mamluks went outside their class when appointing agents necessary for rule. For this purpose, they chose Egyptian-born Arabic-speaking bureaucrats, financiers, wealthy merchants and clerics. Although prosperous and influential, these intermediaries lacked political power. A strong-willed sultan could throw a high-ranking bureaucrat into prison without a proper trial and confiscate his property. One sultan, it is reported, was so angered by the refusal of the four chief qadis to pass a death sentence on an official found guilty of adultery that he dismissed all of them and appointed others in their stead.

Most of the bureaucrats were Muslims, but Christians and Jews played vital roles in the fiscal administration as tax collectors, accountants, money-changers and masters of the mint. In return for paying the poll-tax (jizya or jawali), these non-Muslim minorities (dhimmis) were allowed to live securely and practise their religion, but at times they were subject to discrimination, persecution and extortion.

Most of the population lived in villages and small towns and were peasants (fellahin) who tilled the fertile soil in the Nile Valley. Ruthlessly taxed and oppressed, their harsh living conditions and exploitation were appalling even by the standards of contemporary Muslim or European countries. A significant element in the village and desert population were the Arab tribes, some nomads, but others semi-nomads who lived part of the year in villages. The ‘Arabs,’ a term which in pre-modern times designated the bedouins, were the only other group besides the army that rode horses and carried weapons. They were numerous, had a reputation for bravery and often rose in revolt against the Mamluks. But lacking unity, discipline and training, they never became a serious threat to Mamluk dominance.

Most city dwellers—the reference is primarily to Damascus and Aleppo in Syria, and Cairo, which dwarfed all other Egyptian towns — were artisans and shopkeepers organized by their professions and trades for the purpose of government supervision and taxation.² The artisans and shopkeepers did not have guilds to protect their members’ rights and interests; the emirs’ greed and exploitation of the urban classes were restrained only by ad hoc arrangements or intercessions, not by law.

At the bottom of the urban social pyramid was the lumpen proletariat, the poorest people who performed the most disagreeable menial jobs. They were prone to violence against religious minorities and looted the homes of fallen emirs when given the opportunity; among the dregs of society were organized groups of toughs (zu‘ar) and beggars (harafish).

Islam gave cohesion to a society consisting of clans, tribes and urban quarters. An important element in society were the ulama, or religious scholars and legists, who influenced all layers of society, acting as the exponents, interpreters, and teachers of religion. The wealthiest and most distinguished among them often maintained contacts with the rulers and received appointments as qadis, state officials and teachers. The Sufis, or mystics, represented another important element in religious life who had a particularly strong appeal to the lower classes, although not exclusively to them. In the later Middle Ages, the influence of normative Islam, as represented by the ulama, on the Egyptian countryside was practically nil. While, in the cities, the Sufis vied with the ulama in influencing the Muslim community, in the countryside they replaced them.

The period of Circassian, or Burji, rule is considered one of decline in comparison with that of the Bahri Turks. The Sultanate no longer had dangerous enemies; the Franks had been expelled in 1291, and by the beginning of the fifteenth century, after Timur Leng's withdrawal from Syria, the Mongols were no threat either. The army did not develop new tactics or adopt new military technologies. The Mamluks refused to use firearms, the modern weaponry of the time, considering them unchivalrous, unmanly and unIslamic. The guns could not be used from horseback and so were out of the question for the Mamluks, whose military skill and ethos were based on horsemanship (furusiyya).³ As a result, the Mamluk army went through a long period of stagnation and hardly brought new territories under Mamluk control, leaving the geographical extent of the Sultanate scarcely different from what it had been under Baybars in the thirteenth century.

While the Mamluk Sultanate declined, its northern neighbor, the Ottoman state, made quick progress.⁴ The Ottoman Empire developed from a small principality established at the beginning of the fourteenth century in the northwestern corner of Anatolia as one of the numerous Turkish emirates engaged in the holy war against the Byzantines. Expanding steadily at the expense of Christian rulers in the fragmented Balkans and of other Turkish principalities in Anatolia, the Ottomans became a formidable force under Sultan Mehmet II (1451–81), who realized the age-old Muslim dream of conquering Constantinople, which was soon renamed Istanbul (1453). Until then, there had been little contact between the Ottomans and the Mamluks, apart from occasional minor diplomatic disputes mainly related to the pilgrimage to Mecca. After the Ottoman capture of Constantinople, however, the Mamluks became increasingly apprehensive about Ottoman expansion. Toward the end of the fifteenth century (1485–91), the situation became more tense and exploded into a military struggle for control of Turcoman principalities in Anatolia, which were in the border region between the two empires. Another cause of friction was the asylum that Mamluk sultans gave to Ottoman princes who had fled from Istanbul.

At the turn of the century international relations in the Middle East suddenly became more complex. The Portuguese discovery of the Cape route to India deprived Egypt of the revenues of the spice trade, and contributed to the state's already severe economic difficulties. Portugal's combined mercantile and military activity in the Indian Ocean threatened the Red Sea and the holy places of Islam in the Hijaz. Unable to take a stand against Portugal because they had no navy, the Mamluks turned to the Ottomans for naval assistance and received it.

Another complicating factor was the rise to power of the Shi.i Safavid dynasty in Persia. After centuries of endemic instability and fragmentation, the country was united by Isma‘il Shah who made the Twelver version of the Shi.a the state religion. Their territories in eastern Anatolia being inhabited by Turcoman tribes susceptible to the Shi.i-.Alawi propaganda of the Safavid ruler, himself of Turcoman stock, the Ottomans felt threatened. The Ottoman Sultan Selim, nicknamed ‘Yavuz’ (‘the Grim’), massacred the Safavid sympathizers in Anatolia. Then, in 1514, Selim defeated Isma‘il in the battle of Chaldiran in Azerbaijan, but the Safavids, although weakened, were not finished. The Ottomans feared the possibility of a Mamluk-Safavid treaty, but considered the Safavids as the more serious threat. When Selim led a strong army toward northern Syria, it was not clear whether he aimed at the Mamluks or the Persians. The advance of the Mamluk army under Sultan Qansawh al-Ghawri toward the Syrian-Ottoman border was an unusual step, even if only defensive, and Selim justifiably regarded it as an act of war.⁵

In a short battle fought in August 1516 on the plain of Marj Dabiq, north of Aleppo, the Mamluks were defeated, and the aged sultan died in the field, probably of a stroke. The Ottoman firearms gave them complete superiority over the demoralized and disunited Mamluks who were outnumbered probably by three to one (about 60,000 to 20,000). The Ottoman victory was aided by the treachery of Kha’ir Bey, governor of the strategically located province of Aleppo, who, commmanding an entire flank of the Mamluk army, went over to the Ottomans at a crucial moment during the battle, as previously agreed.

The Ottomans easily seized all of Syria. The Mamluks had not endeared themselves there, having always considered Egypt as the center of their sultanate, in which Syria was only a buffer zone. The final decades of Mamluk rule in Syria were troubled by civil war and economic decline. No wonder that the local population looked on indifferently as the remnants of the Mamluk army retreated toward Egypt.

In Cairo, the chief emirs forced Tuman Bay, al-Ghawri's deputy, to assume the sultanate. Honest and brave, he tried to reorganize the surviving Mamluk and bedouin auxiliaries, although his treasury was empty. Meanwhile Selim started marching across the Sinai desert against Egypt. He made a few tentative overtures to negotiate a settlement rather than try to conquer Egypt. He proposed that Tuman Bay continued ruling Egypt after acknowledging Selim's sovereignty, an arrangement by no means contrary to general Ottoman policy. When the negotiations failed because of Kha’ir Bey's insistence that the Mamluks be crushed, or because Selim's diplomatic moves were insincere, or because Tuman Bay's advisers killed Selim's envoys, the overthrow of the Mamluk Sultanate became inevitable.⁶

In January 1517, the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks at Raydaniyya, just north of Cairo. Tuman Bay's efforts to continue the struggle were useless. He escaped to the Buhayra province where he took refuge in the house of Hasan ibn Mar.i, a bedouin shaykh who was indebted to him. The Arab shaykh swore seven times on the Koran that he would not hand Tuman Bay over to the Ottomans, but he immediately broke his oath and betrayed Tuman Bay to Selim. The Mamluk sultan was hanged like a common criminal at Cairo's Zuwayla Gate. Putting a sultan to death in this way was unprecedented and the scene, as described by Ibn Iyas, an eyewitness to the conquest, is touching. Selim, for his part, achieved his purpose: he scotched the rumors that Tuman Bay was still resisting the Ottomans; the people of Cairo now knew that the Mamluk Sultanate had come to an end.⁷

THE OTTOMAN OCCUPATION

Like any other military occupation, the Ottoman conquest of Cairo was traumatic for its inhabitants. Ibn Iyas, who reports the events in detail, compares it to the conquests of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar in antiquity, who supposedly laid the whole country waste, and to the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, which symbolized for every historically conscious Muslim a disaster of immense magnitude.⁸ While such comparisons are gross exaggerations, they reveal the chronicler's attitude toward the Ottomans. Ibn Iyas belonged to the awlad al-nas class, and the fall of the Mamluks affected him personally. Nevertheless, he was generally a fair-minded observer of his society and did not hesitate to direct his criticism at the Mamluk emirs and soldiers. The fifth part of his chronicle is a vehement, outspoken denunciation of the Ottomans, presenting the Mamluk regime in a nostalgic light. There can be little doubt that Ibn Iyas spoke for Cairene public opinion. Their shortcomings notwithstanding, the Mamluks were thoroughly known to the Egyptians after a reign of more than two and a half centuries. The

Ottoman conqu...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• PREFACE
• LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
• 2: THE VICISSITUDES OF THE RULING CLASS
• 3: THE BEDOUIN ARABS AND THE STATE
• 4: THE ULAMA
• 5: THE SUFIS
• 6: POPULAR RELIGION
• 7: THE ASHRAF AND NAQIB AL-ASHRAF: THE PROPHET'S DESCENDANTS AND THEIR CHIEF
• 8: THEN DHIMMIS: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS
• 9: LIFE IN OTTOMAN CAIRO
• CONCLUSION
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY