[Illustration: MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY.
_Frontispiece._]
THE
ART OF THE SARACENS
IN EGYPT
BY
STANLEY LANE-POOLE, B.A., M.R.A.S.
_Hon. Member of the Egyptian Commission for the Preservation of the
Monuments of Arab Art_
With 108 Woodcuts
[Decoration]
_Published for the Committee of Council on Education_
BY
CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED
11, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1888
PREFACE.
* * * * *
The subject of the following chapters is what has been commonly known as
‘Arab’ or ‘Mohammadan’ Art. Both these terms are misleading—for the
artists in this style were seldom Arabs, and many of them were
Christians—and the general term ‘Saracenic’ has therefore been
substituted. ‘Saracen,’ which means simply Eastern, was the universal
designation of Muslims in the Middle Ages, whether the paynims referred
to were Syrian or Egyptian princes, like Saladin, or Barbary chiefs, or
Moorish Alcaydes in Spain; and the mediaeval ring of the term
Saracenic—which recalls the “proud Sarrasin” of the ballads, the
_Sarrasina_ artist of Italy, the Bysant _Saracenatus_ of the Crusaders,
and the stuff _Saracenatum_, or, as we spell it, “sarcenet”—is specially
appropriate to the art about to be described. Saracenic art possesses an
unmistakable style, which is instantly recognised wherever it occurs,
from the pillars of Hercules and the Alcazar of Seville to the mosques
of Samarkand and the ruins of Gaur in Bengal; and this style was
developed and brought to perfection in the Middle Ages. The word
Saracenic, implying the two ideas of Oriental and mediaeval, exactly
fulfils the conditions of a general term for the art with which we are
concerned.
There is a Saracenic art of Syria, with Damascus for its centre; there
is a Saracenic art of Egypt; another variety is seen in the buildings of
the Barbary States and Morocco; Andalusia, in the extreme west of the
Mohammadan dominions; Persia, India, and Central Asia in the east; and
Anatolia, Armenia, and even Turkey in Europe, between, have each their
special development of the Saracenic style. Some of these varieties are
perhaps better designated by their geographical positions; we speak of
Persian art, Indian art; or again, the Moresque decoration, and so
forth; but we must not forget that all these are but modifications of
the Saracenic style, produced by the differentiating elements which were
found in each country conquered by the Arabs, or introduced by the
genius of some special school of artists. The mere classification of the
various branches of Saracenic art, with a list of the monuments and
objects illustrating each branch, would occupy a volume: so large a
subject requires subdivision, and the present work therefore treats of
the Egyptian branch alone, with but occasional passing glances at
contemporary or derived developments. In some respects the Egyptian is
the most important example of the style; for the mosques of Cairo
furnish a fuller, longer, and more continuous record of the arts
employed in their construction and decoration than any other series of
monuments in a single Mohammadan city, and the simple lines and
restrained decoration of the Egyptian artists exhibit to perfection the
essential character of the Saracenic style. The mosques of Cairo give us
the normal character of the art; we may go eastwards to Delhi, or west
to the Alhambra, to see what a fanciful taste could add to the normal
elements; but we shall come back with the conviction that the purest
form of Saracenic art, and that which most rests and satisfies the eye,
is to be seen in Egypt.
In this account of the Egyptian development of Saracenic art, I have
worked an almost unexplored vein. The only previous attempt to describe
the art of Cairo, as a whole, is M. Prisse d’Avennes’ _L’Art Arabe_, a
magnificent work, unapproached in its coloured illustrations; but its
volume of text is of slight value. M. Prisse, who was not in a position
to consult the Arabic historians, or to decipher the inscriptions which
so often determine the date of an object of Saracenic art, is naturally
an uncertain guide when it is a question of anything beyond
draughtsmanship. We must not trust his facts; but for his plates we
cannot be too grateful. Coste’s work, the _Monuments du Caire_, deserves
all credit as the first of its kind, but here again the letterpress is
of no scientific value, and even the drawings exhibit an imaginative
power, which, however admirable it may be in the creation of works of
art, is not desirable in their reproduction. M. Bourgoin’s _Les Arts
Arabes_, and the smaller _Éléments_, are finely illustrated, but their
text is occupied almost entirely with a minute examination of the
principle of geometrical ornament in Saracenic decoration, for which
there is no better authority.
The first attempt at a scientific examination of the origin and
development of Saracenic art was made by my father, the late Edward
Stanley Poole, of the Science and Art Department, in an Appendix to the
fifth edition of Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_, 1860, and very little of
importance has been added to the results set forth in that essay twenty-
six years ago. It is still the best authority on the subject of the
sources of Arabian architecture, and the relation of the earliest
buildings of the Arabs to Byzantine and Sassanian models; but of other
arts, besides architecture, this essay does not treat. My own work,
while it necessarily includes an outline of the principal forms and
characteristics of Cairo buildings, does not presume to offer a history
of Cairene architecture, for which both space and materials are at
present wanting. The decorative arts, which were employed to embellish
the mosques and palaces of mediaeval Egypt, form the subject of the
following chapters; the history of mural sculpture, of mosaic work, wood
and ivory carving, glass, pottery, and the like, is traced by means of
dated examples down to the decadence which followed the Turkish conquest
of Egypt; and the general characteristics of each period having thus
been established at fixed points by dated specimens, the classification
of undated examples becomes comparatively easy. I may perhaps be thought
to have wasted time over the exact determination of the chronological
sequence in each separate art, but there is so much vague generalisation
abroad, and such extremely hazardous opinions are constantly ventilated,
on the subject of Oriental art, that I have considered it a matter of
the first consequence to cast aside all merely aesthetic canons and
prejudices, and base the history of the arts I describe strictly upon
sound historical evidence. An art critic is none the worse off when the
date of an object is fixed by historical proofs; and those who are not
versed in the principles of art criticism will be glad to have definite
facts to go upon.
The authorities of which I have made use will be found referred to in
the footnotes. Beyond the materials supplied by accurate drawings, like
those of Prisse and Girault de Prangey, European books on this subject
are few, and consist chiefly in short papers in periodical publications,
such as M. Adrien de Longpérier’s in the _Revue Archéologique_, or M.
Lavoix’ in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_; or else notes, scattered
through the pages of books like Colonel Yule’s invaluable _Marco Polo_,
or M. Schefer’s _Nāsir-i-Khusrau_. Reinaud’s description of the Duke de
Blacas’ collection (_Monuments Musulmans_) deserves special notice, as
the first scientific account of any large series of Saracenic works of
art, and also because it abounds in valuable information, especially in
reference to metal-work. In my great-uncle’s _Modern Egyptians_ the
buildings and furniture of Cairo are carefully and clearly described,
but the subject of Mr. Lane’s book was the manners and customs of the
modern people, and not the art of their forefathers. In special
departments, Mr. Nesbitt’s _Catalogue of the Glass Vessels in the South
Kensington Museum_, Mr. Fortnum’s corresponding _Catalogue of the
Maiolica, &c._, and Fischbach’s _Geschichte der Textil-Kunst_ have been
consulted. Eastern historians are as a rule singularly destitute of the
sort of information we require about the art of the various dynasties
and capitals: they tell us how many pieces of gold a certain mosque or
pulpit cost, but they seldom record where or how it was made, or who
were its designers. Nevertheless there are a certain number of valuable
indications scattered among the Arabic writers, and these have been
collected, from the works of such historians and travellers as El-
Mes’ūdy, Es-Suyūty, Ibn-Khaldūn, El-Makkary, Ibn-Batūta, Nāsir-i-
Khusrau, ‘Abd-el-Latīf, &c., &c., and, above all, from the treasure-
house of the mediaeval topography and history of Egypt, El-Makrīzy’s
_Khitat_ and _History of the Mamlūks_.
I have to acknowledge much private assistance from friends who have made
Saracenic art their study. Mr. J. W. Wild, the curator of Sir John
Soane’s Museum, than whom there lives no better authority on the
architecture of Cairo, has kindly read and approved the second, third,
and fourth chapters, on architecture, stone and plaster, and mosaic, and
generously placed his interesting Egyptian notes and sketch-books at my
disposal. Mr. H. C. Kay, whose long residence in Egypt and special study
of Arabic mural inscriptions give his criticisms a high value, has read
the proof sheets of most of the work, and some important additions have
been made at his suggestion. Mr. A. W. Franks, the keeper of mediaeval
antiquities in the British Museum, and his assistant, Mr. C. H. Read,
have given me every aid in studying the fine collection of Saracenic
metal-work under their care, and have also seen the chapters on metal-
work, glass, and pottery in the proofs. M. Charles Schefer has sent me
some useful references from his valuable notes and materials. To Franz
Pasha, the architect to the Ministry of Wakfs in Cairo, I am indebted,
not only for giving me every facility when in Cairo in 1883 for
studying, photographing, and taking casts from, the monuments, but also
for having ever since kept me supplied with photographs and reports of
great value for the present work.
With regard to the orthography of Eastern names, I have tried to be
accurate without pedantry. I have neglected diacritical points, which
were not required in a book destined for the general student, and I have
not spelt Koran with a Q. The vowels _a_, _e_, _i_, _u_, with the
prolonged sounds _ā_, _ī_, _ū_, are to be sounded as in Italian; _ey_ is
to be sounded as in they; _aw_ as “ow” in now; (‘) represents the
guttural ‘eyn, and _g_ (or more strictly ǵ), may be pronounced either as
English j or hard g. The latter is the usual Cairo pronunciation.
I must not conclude without expressing my obligations to Mr. J. D.
Cooper, who has expended even more than his usual care and skill upon
the execution of the woodcuts illustrating this work.
S. L.-P.
RICHMOND,
_February_, 1886.
CONTENTS.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE SARACENS OF EGYPT 1
CHAPTER II.
ARCHITECTURE 47
CHAPTER III.
STONE AND PLASTER 95
CHAPTER IV.
MOSAIC 115
CHAPTER V.
WOOD-WORK 124
CHAPTER VI.
IVORY 171
CHAPTER VII.
METAL-WORK 180
CHAPTER VIII.
GLASS 247
CHAPTER IX.
HERALDRY ON GLASS AND METAL 268
CHAPTER X.
POTTERY 274
CHAPTER XI.
TEXTILE FABRICS 281
CHAPTER XII.
ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS 298
INDEX OF NAMES, &C. 309
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
* * * * *
FIG. PAGE
1. MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY _Frontispiece_
2. EAST COLONNADE OF THE MOSQUE OF ‘AMR 50
3. PLAN OF THE MOSQUE OF ‘AMR 51
4. MOSQUE OF IBN-TULUN 55
5. ARCADES IN MOSQUE OF IBN-TULUN (Ninth Century) 59
6. DIAGRAM SHOWING PROPORTIONS OF A DOME 62
7. PLAN OF THE MOSQUE OF SULTAN HASAN 63
8. ORNAMENT FROM THE PORTAL OF SULTAN HASAN 69
9. KUFIC FRIEZE IN MOSQUE OF SULTAN HASAN 71
(Fourteenth Century)
10. DOORWAY OF SMALLER MOSQUE OF KAIT BEY 75
(Fifteenth Century)
11. DOORWAY OF A PRIVATE HOUSE 79
12. A STREET IN CAIRO 81
13. PLAN OF A CAIRO HOUSE.—GROUND FLOOR 83
13A. „ „ FIRST FLOOR 84
13B. „ „ SECOND FLOOR 85
14. ROSETTE IN MOSQUE OF SUYURGHATMISH (Fourteenth 93
Century)
15. ROSETTE IN MOSQUE OF SULTAN HASAN (Fourteenth 97
Century)
16. STONE PULPIT IN MOSQUE OF BARKUK (Early 99
Fifteenth Century)
17, 18. GEOMETRICAL ORNAMENTS FROM THE WEKALA OF KAIT 101
BEY
19. ARCHED ORNAMENT OF THE WEKALA OF KAIT BEY 103
(Fifteenth Century)
20. GEOMETRICAL ORNAMENT OF THE WEKALA OF KAIT BEY 107
(Fifteenth Century)
21. ELEVATION OF PART OF THE SHOP-FRONTS OF THE 108
WEKALA OF KAIT BEY
22. ARABESQUE ORNAMENT OF WEKALA OF KAIT BEY 109
(Fifteenth Century)
23, 24. GEOMETRICAL ORNAMENTS OF THE WEKALA OF KAIT BEY 110
25. ROSETTE OF THE WEKALA OF KAIT BEY (Fifteenth 111
Century)
26. ARABESQUE OF THE WEKALA OF KAIT BEY 113
27. GEOMETRICAL ORNAMENT OF THE WEKALA OF KAIT BEY 114
28. MOSAIC DADO 117
29. MOSAIC PAVEMENT 118
30. MODE OF BEVELLING MOSAICS 119
31. MOSAIC PAVEMENT 122
32. CARVED PANEL OF PULPIT 125
33. CARVED PANEL OF PULPIT 126
34. PULPIT OF SULTAN KAIT BEY (Fifteenth Century) 127
35, 36, CARVED PANELS OF LAGIN’S PULPIT, ONCE IN THE 130
37, 38. MOSQUE OF IBN-TULUN. A.D. 1296
39. ARABESQUE PANEL OF LAGIN’S PULPIT, ONCE IN THE 131
MOSQUE OF IBN-TULUN
40. PANEL OF LAGIN’S PULPIT, BEARING HIS NAME AND 131
TITLES
41. CARVED PANELS FROM PULPIT (OF KUSUN?) 133
(Fourteenth Century)
42. CARVED PANELS FROM PULPIT (OF KUSUN?) 135
(Fourteenth Century)
43. CARVED PANELS OF THE TOMB OF ES-SALIH AYYUB 137
(Thirteenth Century)
44. CARVED PANEL OF A SHEYKH’S TOMB. A.D. 1216 141
45. PANEL OF A DOOR FROM DAMIETTA 142
46, 47. CARVED PANELS FROM THE MARISTAN OF KALAUN 143
(Thirteenth Century)
48. CARVED PANEL FROM THE MARISTAN OF KALAUN 145
49. LATTICE-WORK 146
50. LATTICE-WORK 148
51. LATTICE-WORK 150
52. LATTICE-WORK 151
53. LATTICE-WORK 152
54. LATTICE-WORK 153
55. LATTICE-WORK 154
56. LATTICE-WORK 155
56A. LATTICE-WORK 157
57. LATTICE-WORK 159
58. LATTICE-WORK 160
59, 60. CARVED AND INLAID LATTICE-WORK 161
61. PANELLED DOOR FROM A COPT’S HOUSE 163
62, PANELLED DOORS 165
63, 64.
65. CEILING OF APPLIQUÉ WORK 166
66. TABLE (KURSY) 167
67. CEILING OF A MESHREBIYA 169
68. CARVED IVORY PANEL 172
69. CARVED IVORY PANELS OF A PULPIT DOOR 173
70. INLAID IVORY AND EBONY DOOR 175
71. INLAID IVORY AND EBONY PANEL FROM A TABLE 177
72. IVORY INK HORN 179
73. INSCRIPTION INTERWOVEN WITH FIGURES ON THE 183
“BAPTISTERY OF ST. LOUIS”
74. TABLE FROM MARISTAN OF KALAUN (Thirteenth 187
Century)
75. PANEL OF TABLE OF EN-NASIR, SON OF KALAUN 190
76. LAMP OF SULTAN BEYBARS II. (A.D. 1309-10) 191
77. BASE OF CHANDELIER OF SULTAN EL-GHORY 195
(Sixteenth Century)
78. LANTERN OF SHEYKH ‘ABD-EL-BASIT 197
79. COVER OF SHERBET BOWL (Sixteenth Century) 201
80. CASKET OF EL-‘ADIL, GRAND NEPHEW OF SALADIN 205
(Thirteenth Century)
81. PERFUME-BURNER OF BEYSARY (Thirteenth Century) 211
82. INLAID SILVER PANELS OF THE “BAPTISTERY OF ST. 219
LOUIS”
83, 84, BRONZE PLAQUES FROM DOOR OF BEYBARS I. 224
85, 86.
87. BRASS BOWL INLAID WITH SILVER (Fourteenth 231
Century)
88. BRASS CANDLESTICK INLAID WITH SILVER 235
(Fourteenth Century)
89. BRASS BOWL OF KAIT BEY (Fifteenth Century) 237
90. LAMP FROM JERUSALEM 241
91. ARMS FOR LION-HUNTING 245
92. DIAGRAM OF GLASS LAMP 252
93. GLASS LAMP OF AKBUGHA (Fourteenth Century) 257
94. VASE OF SULTAN BEYBARS II. 262
95, 96. STAINED GLASS WINDOWS 264
97, 98. STAINED GLASS WINDOWS 265
99. ASYUT COFFEE-POT 275
100. SILK FABRIC OF ICONIUM (Thirteenth Century) 283
101. DAMASK, WORN BY HENRY THE SAINT (Eleventh 291
Century)
102. SILK FABRIC OF EGYPT OR SICILY 295
103. ILLUMINATED KORAN OF SULTAN SHA‘BAN 299
(Fourteenth Century)
104. ILLUMINATED KORAN OF SULTAN SHA‘BAN 303
(Fourteenth Century)
105. ILLUMINATED KORAN OF SULTAN EL-MUAYYAD 305
(Fifteenth Century)
* * * * *
*** The Department is indebted to Mr. John Murray for the use of Figs. 3
and 7; to Messrs. Virtue & Co. for Figs. 2, 4, 25, 66, 71, 74-8, 99; to
Messrs. Cassell for Figs. 8, 9, 13, 91, 94, 101-5; to M. Leroux for
Figs. 73, 82, 90; and to M. Giraud for Fig. 100.
_THE ART OF THE SARACENS
IN EGYPT._
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
THE SARACENS OF EGYPT.
The study of any branch of art supposes some acquaintance with the
history of the people among whom the art was practised. Without such
knowledge not only is much of the interest lost by the inability to
enjoy the associations which the imagination winds about the possessions
and works of historical personages,—always a strong attraction in
antiquarian studies,—but we even lack the data upon which to construct a
true and natural sequence of the art itself. Especially important is the
aid lent by history to Mohammadan art. It frequently happens that the
analogies that go to make up the style of a given period are obscure and
difficult to seize in the scattered relics of Saracenic handiwork, and
our only safe guides are the names of princes and nobles which the
artist, allured by the fluent grace of the Arabic writing as much as by
the desire to record the name of the nobleman who expended his treasure
upon skilful work, was accustomed to engrave upon most of his
productions. These inscriptions, which seldom record the name of the
artist himself, but frequently that of the great man for whom the work
was executed, are a prominent feature in Saracenic art, and form an
invaluable aid to the student in establishing a definite and
indisputable sequence of styles. The mosques were naturally inscribed
with the name of the pious founder; and when a later grandee devoted his
wealth to restoring the sacred building, he too would place his deed on
record, over the entrance, or above the niche, and his new pulpit or
carved door would be duly inscribed with his name: thus we are furnished
with the dates both of foundation and restoration,—a circumstance of the
utmost value in Egyptian architecture. Most of the smaller objects of
art, such as metal bowls, glass lamps, and trays, have inscriptions, and
a large proportion of these contain the name of some Sultan or noble who
is well known to history. From such information we are able in most
branches of Saracenic art to weld a chain of artistic development which
enables us with little difficulty to class most of the undated
specimens.
In the following pages such a chain of examples of known date will be
found illustrated and described; but it is not the less necessary to
provide the reader with the means of ascertaining for himself the date
of an example which he may possess, and which may not be susceptible of
positive identification by the help of the engravings in this work. For
this purpose a slight knowledge, at least, of the history of Egypt under
the Saracens is necessary, and the details, which cannot be given in so
brief an outline as is possible in the present limits of space, may be
to some extent supplied by the chronological tables which are appended
to this chapter.
The writer on the art and history of the Mohammadan East labours under
the disadvantage of being obliged to begin at the very beginning; to
assume in his reader an ignorance not merely of the chief names of
Saracenic history, but even of whole dynasties, and their places in
general history. A person of ordinary education may possess some
acquaintance with the early events of the Muslim empire, the life of the
Prophet Mohammad, the first sweep of conquest, and perhaps even the
Khalifates of Damascus, Baghdad, and Cordova. In the later history of
the Arab empire, a name here and there, a Saladin or Nūreddīn, a Hākim
or a Boabdil, may be known; but the rest is naturally a blank. People
have enough to learn in the present day without attempting Oriental
history. In describing the art of Greece or of Italy we are generally on
familiar ground; the names of Pericles and Hiero, of the Medici and the
Sforze, ought to be as well known as that of Wolsey or William of
Wykeham. In Eastern history we must perforce take nothing as known until
it has been explained; and in doing so now, no discourtesy is designed
towards those few who are acquainted with the history, and who will, I
am sure, forgive repetition for the sake of the larger number whose
studies have not been directed to Oriental subjects.
The history of Egypt under Mohammadan rulers extends from the middle of
the seventh century to the present day; but we are only concerned with
that portion of those twelve centuries which bears an intimate relation
to the development of Saracenic art. The earliest monument which
undoubtedly preserves its original design and ornament is the mosque of
Ibn-Tūlūn, built in the latter part of the ninth century (878); after
this we have but five or six monuments of the tenth, eleventh, and
twelfth centuries, and then the most brilliant period of mediaeval
Egyptian art opens with the accession of the Mamlūks. Again, after the
destruction of the Mamlūk power by the Ottoman conqueror Selīm in the
beginning of the sixteenth century, though a few rare survivals of the
ancient artistic genius of the Saracens are found, and in the smaller
branches of skilled industry, in wood-work, glass, and mosaic, the
workmen of Egypt continued to produce some excellent results, the energy
and enthusiasm of the artists languished for lack of encouragement, and
as a rule the period of Turkish domination furnishes but the record of a
long and dreary process of degradation in every branch of art, until the
nadir of Eastern art was reached in the palaces of the Khedives. The
period of the finest and most abundant works of art is that of the
Mamlūks, from the thirteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century,
and to these three centuries we must devote our chief attention. Of the
earlier periods a very slight outline is all that can be attempted. The
rule of the Fātimy Khalifs indeed is recorded to have been signalized by
extraordinary artistic productiveness: but too few examples of this
period have come down to us to justify us in giving it a rank equal to
that of the Mamlūks.
The history of Mohammadan Egypt falls into eight divisions: (1) the
period of governors appointed by the Khalifs of Damascus and of Baghdād
(A.H. 21-254/A.D. 641-868); (2) the dynasty of Tūlūn (254-292/868-904);
(3) an interval of governors appointed by the Khalifs of Baghdād
(292-323/904-935); (4) the dynasty of Ikhshīd (323-358/935-969); (5) the
Fātimy
Khalifs (358-567/969-1171); (6) the Ayyūby house of Saladin
(567-648/1171-1250); (7) the Mamlūks, Turkish (Bahry) and Circassian
(Burgy), (648-922/1250-1516); and (8) the period of Turkish Pashas,
ending in the dynasty of Mohammad ‘Aly (Mehemet Ali).
1. In A.D. 639, the eighteenth year after the Higra or Flight of
Mohammad from Mekka to Medīna, ‘Amr, the general of the Khalif ‘Omar,
invaded the Egyptian province of the Byzantine empire. Aided by the
factious divisions which sundered the Greek and Coptic Christians, and
made the latter eager to welcome any invader who would bring down the
arrogance of the Melekites, ‘Amr was soon able to march on Alexandria,
the first city of the East, and after a siege of fourteen months, on the
first day of the Mohammadan year 21 (10th December 641), captured it.
The victorious general was named the first Muslim governor of Egypt, and
the spot where he pitched his tent (in Arabic, Fustāt) became the site
of the new capital of Egypt, El-Fustāt, which speedily grew to handsome
proportions. From the time of ‘Amr, A.H. 21, to the appointment of Ibn-
Tūlūn in A.H. 254, a period of 233 years, 98 governors, nominated by the
Khalifs of Damascus and Baghdād, ruled the province of Misr or Egypt
(the name Misr is given both to the country and to its capital); and as
some of these enjoyed more than one term of office, there were 105
changes of government in 233 years, giving an average of about two years
and a quarter for each governor. A ruler liable to be removed at any
moment, and enjoying so brief a term of office, was not likely to occupy
himself with the embellishment of a capital which after a few months’ or
years’ reign he might never see again, and he probably directed his
energies, like a Turkish Pasha, to accumulating all the wealth he could
with his brief opportunities. We have no monuments of the period of the
governors, with the exception of the mosque of ‘Amr, at Fustāt, which
has been too often restored to furnish trustworthy evidence as to the
style of architecture or decoration. The governors indeed built other
edifices; the representatives of the ‘Abbāsy Khalifs founded in 133 a
new quarter of the capital, adjoining Fustāt, which was called
El-‘Askar, or “the Camp,” because the soldiers first had their quarters
there; and here they erected a government house and a mosque, of which,
however, no trace now remains. El-‘Askar was never more than an official
quarter: the capital was still Fustāt.
2. _Ahmad Ibn-Tūlūn_ was a Turkish governor appointed by the ‘Abbāsy
Khalif, in 868, but after a year he asserted his independence, while
still rendering homage to the Khalif as his spiritual lord by retaining
his name on the coinage and in the public prayers. Ibn-Tūlūn was the
first Mohammadan ruler who founded a dynasty in Egypt; he was also the
first to unite Syria with Egypt, as did all independent sovereigns of
Egypt afterwards; and he was the first great encourager of Saracenic
Art; for he abandoned the old government house at El-‘Askar, and built a
new suburb, connecting that quarter with the citadel hill, which he
called El-Katāi‘, or “the Wards,” either because a large part of it was
given in feof to the numerous colonels of his 30,000 troops, or because
the new suburb was partitioned into various quarters allotted to
different nations and separate trades. Both El-‘Askar and El-Katāi‘ were
fashionable suburbs, where the nobility and men of position resided; and
the streets were full of splendid houses. But the glory of the latest
suburb was the mosque of Ibn-Tūlūn, of which we shall have more to say
hereafter. It is the first undoubted example of true Saracenic art in
Egypt, and one of the noblest monuments in the East. Ibn-Tūlūn also
built himself a stately palace, with a _meydān_ or race-course attached,
where the Sultan and his courtiers played at polo. One of the many
splendid gates of this meydān was called the “Gate of Lions,” because it
was surmounted by two lions in plaster; another was called the Sāg gate,
since it was made of that wood. Around rose the handsome palaces of the
generals; the mosques and the baths; the windmills and brick-kilns; the
great hospital; the markets for the assayers, perfumers, cloth
merchants, fruiterers, cooks, and other trades, all well built and
densely populated. The palace, mosque, race course, and hospital,
together cost a sum of nearly 300,000 dīnārs of gold; and the annual
revenue from taxes, to meet this vast outlay, and the expenses of
government, was placed at 4,300,000 dīnārs. To which fact may be added
the instructive comment that at the time of Ahmad’s death no less than
18,000 persons were found in the prisons. His son Khumāraweyh, who
succeeded in 883, carried this passion of splendid luxury to its height.
He turned the meydān into a garden, filled with lilies, gilliflowers,
saffron, and palms and trees of all sorts, the trunks of which he coated
with copper gilt, behind which leaden pipes supplied fountains which
gushed forth to water the garden. In the midst rose an aviary tower of
sāg wood; the walls were carved with figures and painted with various
colours. Peacocks, guinea-fowls, doves and pigeons, with rare birds from
Nubia, had their home in the garden and aviary. There was also a
menagerie, and especially a blue-eyed lion who crouched beside his
master when he sat at table, and guarded him when he slept. In the
palace, Khumāraweyh built the “Golden Hall,” the walls whereof were
covered with gold and azure, in admirable designs, and varied by bas-
reliefs of himself and his wives (if we are to credit the historians),
and even of the _prime donne_ of the court. They were carved in wood,
life-size, and painted with exquisite art, so that the folds of the
drapery seemed natural; they wore crowns of pure gold and turbans set
with precious stones, and jewelled earrings. Such figures are
unparalleled in Saracenic art; yet the account is too detailed to be
altogether a fiction. But the chief wonder of Khumāraweyh’s palace
remains to be described: it was a lake of quicksilver. On the surface of
the lake, lay a leather bed inflated with air, fastened by silk bands to
four silver supports at the corners; here alone the insomnolent
sovereign could take his rest. Of all these marvels, and the splendid
harīm rooms, the spacious stables, the furniture, wine-cups, rich silk
robes, inlaid swords, and shields of steel, nothing has come down to us.
We are obliged to take the mosque of Ibn-Tūlūn as witness to the
consummate luxury and artistic eminence of the period.
3. After the fall of the dynasty of Tūlūn, owing to the weakness of the
later members of the family, who paid the common penalty of their Capua,
_governors_ appointed by the Khalifs once more exercised their
monotonous sway over Egypt, and again there is nothing to record in
works of art.
4. Nor did the accession of Mohammad _El-Ikhshīd_, in 935, bring any
change for the better in this respect. El-Ikhshīd followed the example
of Ibn-Tūlūn, and made himself independent ruler of both Egypt and
Syria, but he left no great works behind him, nor did his dynasty
contribute to the monuments of the Saracens. His two sons were under the
tutorship of the eunuch Abu-l-Misk Kāfūr, “Father of Musk, Camphor,” who
ruled the kingdom well, kept a generous open table, where 1700 pounds of
meat were consumed daily, but was unable to resist the invasion of the
Fātimy Khalif, El-Mu‘izz, who conquered Egypt in 969, and Syria in the
following year, and also annexed the Arabian provinces of the Higāz and
the Yemen.
5. Hitherto the rulers of Egypt had been at least appointed by the
lawful heads of the Mohammadan Empire, the Khalifs, first of Damascus,
and then of Baghdād; many of them were Turks or Tartars, notably Ibn
Tūlūn and El-Ikhshīd, who both came from beyond the Oxus; but they were
not the less the servants of the Khalifs. In the Fātimy Khalifs we see
for the first time an heretical line of rulers invading the empire of
the Khalifs, and owning no sort of allegiance to them. The Fātimy
Khalifs had created a kingdom in Tunis upon the ruins of the Aghlaby
power, and now they proceeded to add the dominions of the Ikhshīdīs to
their realm. They transferred their seat of government from Tunis to
Egypt (and thereby soon lost their western provinces), and founded a new
suburb, or rather a vast palace, which was called _El-Kāhira_, or Cairo.
The design of the Fātimy general Gauhar was simply to build a palace for
his master, the Khalif, where that sacred personage might be able to
enjoy perfect seclusion; and it was only in much later times, after the
burning of Fustāt, that El-Kāhira became really a city. El-Kāhira was,
in fact, originally but a walled enclosure with double earthworks, about
three quarters of a mile long and half a mile broad, containing the two
royal palaces, one called the Great Palace (which was so extensive that
on the fall of the Fātimy dynasty, in 1171, it was found to contain
12,000 women and eunuchs), the other, the Small Palace, overlooking the
pleasure-grounds; and the two were connected under the open space which
divided them (and which is still known as the street _Beyn-el-Kasreyn_,
“Betwixt the Palaces”), by a subterranean passage. Close to the Eastern
or Great Palace was the Imperial Mausoleum, in which El-Mu‘izz deposited
the bones of his ancestors, which he brought with him from their places
of sepulture in the west. Further south was the mosque, also built by
Gauhar, in which the Khalif, as Imām of his subjects, conducted the
Friday prayers. The palaces received the name of _El-Kusūr ez-Zāhira_,
“the Splendid Palaces,” and the mosque that of El-Azhar, “the Most
Splendid,” which it still retains, and under which it has long been
widely known as the great seat of Mohammadan learning, frequented by
students from the most distant countries of Islam. In addition to the
garrison’s quarters, many other buildings are enumerated, sufficient to
account for the remaining space; such were the treasury, mint, library,
audience-halls, arsenals, provision-stores, and imperial stables. No
person was allowed to enter within the walls of El-Kāhira but the
soldiers of the garrison and the highest officials of the state, whose
greatest privilege was that of approaching the sacred person of the
Khalif. Ambassadors from foreign lands were obliged to dismount at the
gates of the fortress, and were conducted thence to the audience-hall on
foot, an official on either side grasping their hands.[1] The old gates
of Cairo are the gates of this palace or fort, built by order of Bedr
el-Gemāly, in 1087, by three Greeks.
Thus the capital of Egypt underwent a third move to the north-east:
first was El-Fustāt, founded by ‘Amr, close to the Roman fortress of
Babylon; then El-‘Askar, a move north-east, built by the ‘Abbāsy
governors; thirdly, El-Katāi‘, the creation of Ibn-Tūlūn (which remained
an important suburb until desolated by the great famine of El-
Mustansir’s reign); and now, fourthly, Cairo, the site of the Fātimy
palace. Of these, the scanty remains of El-Fustāt are seen in what is
called Masr-el-Atīka, or “Old Cairo;” El-‘Askar and El-Katāi‘ have
disappeared, save the mosque of Ibn-Tūlūn, and part of their site has
been covered by later houses; El-Kāhira is Cairo, but has greatly
expanded since the time when it comprised little more than the huge
palace of the Fātimy Khalifs: new suburbs have joined it to the Citadel
on one side, and prolonged it beyond the northern gates on the other.
Yet Cairo is practically the Fātimy capital, though, unfortunately,
beyond the mosques of the Azhar and El-Hākim, built in 971 and 990, and
a fragment here and there, nothing remains of all the splendour which
the historians attribute to these celebrated Khalifs.[2] Reference will
frequently be found in the following pages to the costly possessions of
these rulers, especially those included in the well-known Inventory of
El-Mustansir, and it will suffice here to remark that the Fātimis even
surpassed Ibn-Tūlūn in magnificence and the encouragement of every
branch of art, and that to them, more perhaps than to any other Eastern
dynasty, we owe the introduction of Saracenic design into southern
Europe. The Mohammadan Amīrs of Sicily, who left so rich a legacy of art
to the Norman kings, were vassals of the Fātimy Khalifs.
6. How Saladin—or, to be accurate, Salāh-ed-dīn Yūsuf, son of Ayyūb—was
despatched to Egypt with the troops of Nūr-ed-dīn, Sultan of Damascus,
to support the cause of one of those powerful vizirs who by their
arrogance and rivalry had prepared the downfall of the Egyptian
Government, and how the brilliant young soldier and statesman soon found
his way to depose the last of the Fātimy Khalifs and assume the supreme
authority himself, are almost matters of European history. The period of
Ayyūby rule from 1171, when the prayers were ordered to be said no
longer in the name of the heretical Khalif, but in that of the Khalif of
Baghdād, the orthodox head of Islām, to the year 1250, when the
sovereignty descended to the Mamlūks, falls within a century, but it was
filled with wars and deeds that have made this period known even to
European readers. El-Mu‘izz the Fātimy had changed Egypt from a province
into a kingdom with a definite political significance; Saladin
transformed the kingdom into a powerful empire. The long struggle with
the Crusaders, the victory of Tiberias, the conquest of Jerusalem, the
well-known treaty with Richard Cœur de Lion, though most familiar to us,
form but a part of Saladin’s exploits. He made his power felt far beyond
the borders of Palestine; his arms triumphed over hosts of valiant
princes to the banks of the Tigris, and when he died, in 1193, at the
early age of 57, he left to his sons and kinsmen, not only the example
of the most chivalrous, honourable, and magnanimous of kings, but
substantial legacies of rich provinces, extending from Aleppo and
Mesopotamia to Arabia and the Country of the Blacks.
And, like so many of his successors the Mamlūks, Saladin combined in a
marked degree the passion for war with the love of the beautiful. The
third wall, and the Citadel of Cairo, with its magnificent buildings,
now alas destroyed, bore witness to his encouragement of architecture.
The citadel was begun in 1176, with materials obtained from some of the
smaller pyramids of Gīza, and so strongly and carefully was it
constructed that when Saladin died the fortress was not yet completed,
but remained unfinished until the year 604 = 1207. The eunuch Karākūsh,
“Black Eagle,” was entrusted with the superintendence of the work, and
this may account for the sculpture of an eagle on the Citadel wall. The
present massive gate, within which is the passage where the massacre of
the last descendants of the Mamlūks by Mohammad ‘Aly took place in 1811,
is an eighteenth century work, but the walls and part of the internal
masonry belong to Saladin’s fortress. Of the mosque and palace, however,
no trace remains. The so-called “Hall of Joseph,” or _Kasr Yūsuf_ (which
was Saladin’s name as well as the patriarch’s), pulled down about 1830,
was really the _Dār-el-‘Adl_, or “Hall of Justice,” of the Mamlūk Sultan
En-Nāsir, more than a century later. The deep well with its massive
masonry is, however, attributed to Saladin, and there used to be ruins
of a solid and beautifully decorated mansion which was known, rightly or
not, as the “House of Salāh-ed-dīn Yūsuf.”
Saladin’s empire needed a strong hand to keep it united, and the number
of relations, sons and nephews, who demanded their share of the wide
provinces, rendered the survival of the Ayyūby dominion precarious.
Saladin’s brother, El-‘Adil, the “Saphadin” of the Crusades, indeed
controlled the centrifugal tendencies of his kindred for a while, and
his son El-Kāmil gloriously defeated Jean de Brienne on the spot where
the commemorative city of El-Mansūra, “the Victorious,” was afterwards
erected by the conqueror. After his death, in 1237, however, the forces
which made for disintegration became too strong to be resisted; various
petty dynasties of the Ayyūby family were temporarily established in the
chief provinces, only to make way shortly for the Tartars, and in Egypt
and Syria notably for the Mamlūks, who in 1250 succeeded to the glories
of Saladin.
The monuments of the Ayyūbīs that are still standing, besides the
Citadel and third wall, are very few. The fine ornament of the interior
in the tomb-mosque of Esh-Shāfi‘y belongs at least in part to El-Kāmil;
the tomb and college of Es-Sālih Ayyūb, son of El-Kāmil, are still
partly preserved opposite Kalaūn’s Māristān; and there are, or were,
fragments of his once splendid castle on the Island of Rōda, on the
Nile—the island which gave his Mamlūks the epithet of _Bahry_, or
“River-y”—the materials of which were used in the construction of En-
Nāsir’s Mosque in the Citadel. The Kāmilīya Mosque has unhappily
disappeared, though not before some valuable sketches had been made by
Mr. James Wild.
7. The word _Mamlūk_ means “owned,” and is applied to white slaves,
acquired by capture in war or purchase in the market. The two dynasties
of Mamlūks were lines of white slaves, imported for the protection of
the Ayyūby Es-Sālih against his kinsmen and the Franks, and who
presently acquired the power and the government of Egypt. They were
reinforced from time to time by fresh purchases, for the climate of
Egypt was unfavourable to the fertility of foreign immigrants, and the
stock had to be refreshed from outside. Es-Sālih’s Mamlūks were loyal
servants; they defended his kingdom while he lived, and it was their
brilliant charge under Beybars that routed the French army and brought
about the capture of St. Louis himself. Es-Sālih’s son was a drunken
debauchee, and helpless to meet the difficulties in which his kingdom
was involved. In circumstances that hardly left an alternative, he was
put out of the way, and a lady, Sheger-ed-durr, “Tree of Pearls,”
ascended the throne of her late husband and master Es-Sālih, as the
first Slave Monarch of Mohammadan Egypt. Her rule was but brief;
jealousy led her to murder the Mamlūk chief Aybek, whom she had married
for political reasons, and she paid the penalty of her crime by being
herself beaten to death with the bath-clogs of some female slaves who
sympathized with her rival. After her death began that singular
succession of Mamlūk Sultans, which lasted, in spite of special
tendencies to dissolution, for two hundred and seventy-five years.
The external history of these years is monotonous. Wars to repel the
invasions of the Tartars or to drive the Christians from the Holy Land,
struggles between rival claimants to the throne, embassies to and from
foreign powers, including France and Venice, the Khan of Persia, and the
King of Abyssinia, constitute the staple of foreign affairs. To
enumerate the events of each reign, or even the names of the fifty
Mamlūks who sat on the throne at Cairo, would be wearisome and
unprofitable to the reader: the chronological tables at the end of this
chapter will tell all that need be told. But it is different with the
internal affairs of the Mamlūk period. In this flowering time of
Saracenic art, a real interest belongs to the life and social condition
of the people who made and encouraged the finest productions of the
Mohammadan artist, and it will not be superfluous to explain briefly
what the condition of Egypt was under her Mamlūk rulers. Some
consideration of this subject is almost demanded by the startling
contrasts offered by the spectacle of a band of disorderly soldiers, to
all appearance barbarians, prone to shed blood, merciless to their
enemies, tyrannous to their subjects, yet delighting in the delicate
refinements which art could afford them in their home life, lavish in
the endowment of pious foundations, magnificent in their mosques and
palaces, and fastidious in the smallest details of dress and furniture.
Allowing all that must be allowed for the passion of the barbarian for
display, we are still far from an explanation how the Tartars chanced to
be the noblest promoters of art, of literature, and of public works,
that Egypt had known since the days of Alexander the Great.
During this brilliant period the population of Egypt was sharply divided
into two classes, who had little in common with each other. One was that
of the Mamlūks, or military oligarchy, the other the mass of the
Egyptians. The latter were useful for cultivating the land, paying the
taxes which supported the Mamlūks, and manufacturing their robes, but
beyond these functions, and that of supplying the judicial and religious
posts of the empire, they had small part in the business of the state,
and appear to have been very seldom incorporated into the ranks of their
foreign masters. The names of the Mamlūks that have descended to us in
the accurate and detailed pages of El-Makrīzy are generally Tartar or
Turkish,[3] and even when they are ordinary Arabic names, they were
borne by Tartars who had put on an Arabic name along with the speech,
dress, and country of their adoption. In the glories, military and
ceremonial, of the Mamlūks the people had no part. They were indeed
thankful when a mild sovereign, like Lāgīn, ascended the throne, and
when taxes were reduced and bakhshish distributed, and they would join,
like all populaces, in the decoration of the streets and public
rejoicings, when the Sultan came back from a career of conquest, or
recovered from an illness; but they had no voice in the government of
the country, and must make the best they might of the uncertain
characters of their ever-changing rulers. The men who governed the
country were the body of white military slaves, who had been imported by
Es-Sālih, and were renewed by purchase as death or assassination reduced
their numbers.
Before Es-Sālih’s death a certain number of his Mamlūks had risen from
the ranks of common slaves to posts of honour at their master’s court;
they had become cup-bearers, or tasters, or masters of the horse to his
Majesty, and had been rewarded by enfranchisement; and these freed
Mamlūks became in turn masters and owners of other Mamlūks. Thus, at the
very beginning of Mamlūk history, we find a number of powerful _Amīrs_
(or “commanders,” lords), who had risen from the ranks of the slaves and
in turn become the owners of a large body of retainers, whom they led to
battle, or by whose aid they aspired to ascend the throne. The only
title to kingship among these nobles was personal prowess and the
command of the largest number of adherents. In the absence of other
influences the hereditary principle was no doubt adopted, and we find
one family, that of Kalaūn, maintaining its succession to the throne for
several generations, though not without brief interruptions. But as a
rule the successor to the kingly power was the most powerful lord of the
day, and his hold on the throne depended chiefly on his strength of
following, and his conciliation of the other nobles. The annals of
Mamlūk dominion are full of instances of a great lord reducing the
authority of the reigning Sultan to a shadow, and then stepping over his
murdered body to the throne. Most of the Mamlūks died violent deaths at
the hands of rival Amīrs, and the safety of the ruler of the time
depended mainly upon the numbers and courage of his guard. This body-
guard, or _halka_, enjoyed remarkable privileges, and was the object of
continual solicitude on the part of the Sultan. As his own safety and
power depended upon their fidelity, he was accustomed to bestow upon
them grants of lands, rich dresses of honour, and unstinted largesse. A
great part of the land of Egypt was held by the soldiers of the guard in
feofs granted by the crown;[4] and the Amīrs who commanded them, nobles
specially attached to the Sultan, and generally promoted from among his
own Mamlūks, received handsome appanages. These soldiers of the guard
numbered several thousand, and must have passed from Sultan to Sultan at
every change of ruler; their colonels, or “Amīrs over a Thousand,” as
they were called, became important factors in the choice of rulers, and
often deposed or set up a Sultan as seemed good to them. The Sultan, or
chief Mamlūk, was in fact more or less, according to his character, at
the mercy of the officers of his guard; and the principal check he
possessed upon their ambition or discontent was found in their own
mutual jealousies, which might be played upon so as to neutralize their
opposition.
Each of the great lords, or Amīrs, were he an officer of the guard, or a
court official, or merely a private nobleman, was a Mamlūk Sultan in
miniature. He too had his guard of Mamlūk slaves, who waited at his door
to escort him in his rides abroad, were ready at his behest to attack
the public baths and carry off the women, defended him when a rival lord
besieged his palace, and followed him valiantly as he led the charge of
his division on the field of battle. These great lords, with their
retainers, were a constant menace to the reigning Sultan. A coalition
would be formed among a certain number of disaffected nobles, with the
support of some of the officers of the household and of the guard, and
their retainers would mass in the approaches to the royal presence,
while a trusted cup-bearer or other officer, whose duties permitted him
access to the king’s person, would strike the fatal blow, and the
conspirators would forthwith elect one of their number to succeed to the
vacant throne. This was not effected without a struggle; the royal guard
was not always to be bribed or overcome, and there were generally other
nobles whose interests attached them to the reigning sovereign rather
than to any possible successor, except themselves, and who would be sure
to oppose the plot. Then there would be a street fight; the terrified
people would close their shops, run to their houses, and shut the great
gates which isolated the various quarters and markets of the city; and
the rival factions of Mamlūks would ride through the streets that
remained open, pillaging the houses of their adversaries, carrying off
women and children, holding pitched battles in the roads, and
discharging arrows and spears from the windows upon the enemy in the
street below. These things were of constant occurrence, and the life of
the merchant classes of Cairo must have been sufficiently exciting. We
read how the great bazaar, called the Khān El-Khalīly, was sometimes
shut up for a week while these contests were going on in the streets
without, and the rich merchants of Cairo huddled trembling inside the
stout gates.
The contest over, and a new Sultan set on the throne, there remained the
further difficulty of staying there. “J’y suis” was a much easier thing
to say in Egypt than “j’y reste.” The same method that raised him to
power might set him down again. An example, drawn from the annals of the
thirteenth century, will show better than any generalizations, the
uncertain tenure of power among the fickle military oligarchy of the
Mamlūks. In 693 A.H., or A.D. 1293, En-Nāsir Mohammad was raised to the
throne, which had been occupied by his father Kalaūn and his brother
Khalīl. En-Nāsir was a mere child, nine years old, and the real
authority devolved on his Vizīr (or “Viceroy,” _Nāib-es-Saltana_, as
this minister was generally styled under the Mamlūks), by name Ketbugha.
Naturally there were several other nobles who envied Ketbugha his
position of influence and authority; and one of these, Shugay, taking
the lead, offered armed resistance to the authority of the Viceroy.
Ketbugha’s Mamlūks used to assemble at the gate of the Citadel to defend
him in his progress through the city, and Shugay, with his retainers,
would waylay the vice-regal _cortège_ as it rode through the narrow
streets, and bloody conflicts ensued. The gates of the city were kept
closed, and the markets were deserted, until at length Shugay was
captured, and his head was paraded on a pike through the streets of
Cairo. But disaffection was not quelled by the slaughter of Shugay and
his followers. There dwelt a body of 300 Mamlūks called Ashrafy[5]
(after their master El-Ashraf Khalīl) in the quarter of Cairo called El-
Kebsh, and these warriors, finding their occupation gone by the murder
of their master, made an attempt to seize the sovereign power. They
assembled and went to the royal stables at the foot of the Citadel, and
thence to the armourers’ market, plundering and destroying on their way,
and eventually they encamped at the gate of the Citadel, and laid siege
to the fortress. Whereupon Ketbugha’s immediate supporters mounted their
horses and rode down to meet them. The Ashrafīs were dispersed, and
given over to various horrible tortures—blinded, maimed, drowned,
beheaded, and hanged, or nailed to the city gate Zuweyla—and only a few
were so far spared that they were allotted as slaves to their
conquerors. Thus the rebellion was put down; but the next day, the
Viceroy Ketbugha, calling a council of the great nobles of the Court,
protested that such exhibitions were dishonourable to the kingly state,
and that the dignity of Sultan would be irreparably compromised if a
child like En-Nāsir were any longer suffered to occupy the throne. The
child was therefore sent away to grow up, and Ketbugha, as a matter of
course, assumed the sceptre of his ward. This was in 1295, and in the
end of 1296, on his return from a journey to Syria, the new Sultan had
the misfortune to excite the latent jealousy of some of the powerful
nobles who accompanied him: his tent was attacked; his guards and
Mamlūks, by a devoted resistance, succeeded in enabling their master to
fly, and the leader of the rebellion, Lāgīn, was forthwith chosen Sultan
in his stead.
Husām-ed-dīn Lāgīn, who now ascended the throne under the title of El-
Mansūr, had originally been a slave of El-Mansūr ‘Aly son of Aybek
(whence he was called El-Mansūry), and had then been bought for the
trifling sum of about £30 by Kalaūn, under whom he rose from the grade
of page to that of _silāhdār_, or armour-bearer; and Kalaūn, coming to
the throne, gave him the rank of Amīr and made him governor of Damascus.
Kalaūn’s son Khalīl, on succeeding to the sovereignty, cast Lāgīn into
prison, and in return for this treatment Lāgīn assisted in his murder.
During the brief reign of Ketbugha, he held the highest office in the
land, that of Viceroy (_Nāib-es-Saltana_) and now he had turned against
his latest lord, and had seized the crown for himself. The terms of his
election throw an interesting light upon the precarious authority of the
Mamlūk Sultans. His fellow-conspirators, after the flight of Ketbugha,
marched at Lāgīn’s stirrup, hailed him Sultan, and payed him homage; but
they exacted as a condition of their fealty that the new monarch should
continue as one of themselves, do nothing without their advice, and
never show undue favour towards his own Mamlūks. This he swore; but so
suspicious were they of his good faith, that they made him swear it
again, openly hinting that when he was once instated he would break his
vow and favour his own followers, to the injury of the nobles who had
raised him to the throne. When this had been satisfactorily arranged,
Es-Sultān El-Melik El-Mansūr Husām-ed-dīn Lāgīn, “The Sultan, Victorious
King, Sword-blade of the Faith, Lāgīn,” rode on to Cairo, attended by
the insignia of sovereignty, with the royal parasol borne over his head
by the great Lord Beysary; the prayers were said in his name in the
mosques, drums were beaten in the towns he passed through; the nobles of
Cairo came out to do him fealty; and, escorted by a crowd of lords and
officers, he rode to the Citadel, displayed himself as Sultan to the
people in the Hippodrome, and made his royal progress through the
streets of the capital, from the Citadel to the Gate of Victory. The
‘Abbāsy Khalif of Egypt, a poor relic of the ancient house of Baghdād,
rode at his side; and before them was carried the Khalif’s diploma of
investiture, without which very nominal authority no Sultan in those
days would have considered his coronation complete. The streets were
decorated with precious silks and arms, and great was the popular
rejoicing; for the benevolence and generosity of Lāgīn made him a
favourite with the people, and he had already promised to remit the
balance of the year’s taxes, and had even vowed that if he lived there
should not be a single tax left. The price of food, which had risen to
famine height during the late disturbances, now fell fifty per cent.;
bread was cheap, and the Sultan was naturally adored.
In spite of his share in a royal murder and a treacherous usurpation,
this Mamlūk Sultan seems to have deserved the affection of his subjects.
Not only did he relieve the people from much of the pressure of unjust
and arbitrary taxation under which they had groaned, but he abstained,
at least until he fell under the influence of another mind, from the
tyrannical imprisonments and tortures by which the rule of the Mamlūks
was too commonly secured. His conduct to his rivals was clement to a
degree hardly paralleled among the princes of his time. He did not
attempt to destroy the ex-Sultan Ketbugha, but gave him a small
government in Syria by way of compensation. The child En-Nāsir had
nothing to fear from Lāgīn, who invited him to return to Egypt, and told
him that, as the Mamlūk of the boy’s father, Kalaūn, he only regarded
himself as his representative, holding the throne until En-Nāsir should
be old enough to assume the government himself. Lāgīn was zealous in
good works, gave alms largely in secret, and founded many charitable
endowments. Among his services to art must be mentioned his restoration
of the Mosque of Ibn-Tūlūn, at a cost of £10,000, to which he was
impelled by the circumstance that he had found refuge in the then
deserted building during the pursuit which followed the murder of
Khalīl. Hidden in the neglected chambers and arcades of the old mosque,
where so few worshippers repaired that but a single lamp was lighted
before the niche at night, and the muëzzin cared to come no further than
the threshold to chant the call to prayer, Lāgīn vowed that he would
repay his preservation by repairing the mosque that had sheltered him;
and it is interesting to know that the panels of the pulpit, which, with
a cupola over the niche, formed the chief additions (beyond mere
repairs) that Lāgīn made to the mosque, are now in the South Kensington
Museum (figs. 35-8.) Such good deeds, and the magnanimous release of
many prisoners, and not least, a bold foreign policy, as when he sent an
army to capture towns on the distant borders of Armenia, could not fail
to endear him to the populace; and when he was confined to the Citadel
for two months with injuries resulting from a fall at polo, the
rejoicings on his return to public life were genuine and universal. All
the streets were decorated with silks and satins, the shops and windows
were hired by sightseers, eager to catch a glimpse of the Sultan, and
drums were beaten during his state progress through the capital. He
celebrated the occasion by giving a number of robes of honour to the
chief lords, freeing captives, and distributing alms to the poor. His
private life commended him to the good Muhammadans of Cairo; for
although in his youth he had been a wine-bibber, gambler, and given over
to the chase, when he ascended the throne he became austere in his
practice, fasted two months in the year besides Ramadān, affected the
society of good pious kādis and the like, was plain in his dress, as the
Prophet ordains that a Muslim should be, and strict in enforcing
simplicity among his followers. His ruddy complexion and blue eyes,
together with a tall and imposing figure, indeed marked the foreigner,
but his habits were orthodoxy itself; he bastinadoed drunkards, even if
they were nobles; and his immoderate eating was not necessarily wicked.
But Lāgīn, with all his virtues, had a weakness, too common among Mamlūk
sovereigns; he was passionately attached to one of his retainers, named
Mangūtīmūr, and by degrees suffered himself to be led by this favourite
where his better judgment would never have allowed him to stray.
Mangūtīmūr was neither a bad nor a contemptible man; but he was devoured
by ambition and pride, and had no scruples when it was a question of
removing an obstacle in his path to power. One of these was the great
Lord Beysary, who had himself declined the crown, and who, when
consulted by Lāgīn on the wisdom of making Mangūtīmūr his viceroy,
reminded the Sultan of his vow when he was elected to the supreme power,
and told him in blunt language that Mangūtīmūr was not worthy of the
honour to which the Sultan destined him. The favourite, when he was made
Viceroy after all, did not forget Beysary or his other detractors; some
he banished, others were imprisoned and bastinadoed, and Beysary himself
was placed in a sort of regal confinement, and there kept till his
death. We shall hear more of Lord Beysary when we come to describe his
perfume-burner in the chapter on metal-work, and it is enough to say
here that he was too much devoted to the comforts and enjoyments of good
living to care to trouble himself with the uneasiness which proverbially
attends crowned heads. He was moreover an old man, and had been a
notable and respected figure in Mamlūk court life for the past fifty
years; his arrest was therefore the more wanton. Mangūtīmūr’s
oppressions were not tamely endured by the Amīrs; but it was no light
thing to risk the horrors of incarceration in the Citadel dungeon, a
noisome pit, where foul and deadly exhalations, unclean vermin, and
bats, rendered the pitchy darkness more horrible, and where for nearly
half a century it was the practice to incarcerate refractory nobles,
until, in 1329, En-Nāsir had the dreaded hole filled up. At length a
combination was formed; Lāgīn was treacherously murdered as he was in
the act of rising to say the evening prayers, and immediately afterwards
Mangutīmur was entrapped. He was for the moment consigned to the pit
under the Citadel, when the Amīr who had dealt the fatal stroke to Lāgīn
arrived on the scene, and crying with a strident voice, “What had the
Sultan done that I should kill him? By God, I never had aught but
benefits from him; he brought me up, and gave me my steps of promotion.
Had I known that when the Sultan was dead this Mangūtīmūr would still be
living, I would never have done this murder, for it was Mangūtīmūr’s
acts that led me to the deed.” So saying, he plunged into the dungeon,
slew the hated favourite with his own hands, and delivered his house
over to the soldiers to pillage.
This sketch of a few years of Mamlūk history will serve to show the
perils that surrounded the kingly state. It is a fair sample of the
whole history, although now and again a sovereign would ascend the
throne whose personal qualities or diplomatic talents succeeded in
keeping the reins of government in his hands for a considerable period.
The uncertainty of the tenure of power, and the general brevity of their
reigns, (they average about five years and a half,) make it the more
astonishing that they should have found time or leisure to promote the
many noble works of architecture and engineering, which distinguish
their rule above any other period of Egyptian history since the
Christian Era. The Sultan’s office was indeed no sinecure, apart from
the constant watchfulness needed to manage the refractory Mamlūks. Two
days a week did Lāgīn devote to sitting in the Hall of Justice and
hearing any complaints that his subjects might bring before him, in
addition to those petitions which were constantly presented to him as he
rode through the city. The correspondence of the empire, again, was no
light matter, and most of the Sultans took a personal share in drawing
up the despatches. Beybars had established a well organized system of
posts, connecting every part of his wide dominions with the capital.
Relays of horses were in readiness at each posting-house, and twice a
week the Sultan received and answered reports from all parts of the
realm. Besides the ordinary mail, there was also a pigeon post, which
was no less carefully arranged. The pigeons were kept in cots in the
Citadel and at the various stages, which were further apart than those
of the horses; the bird knew that it must stop at the first post-cot,
where its letter would be attached to the wing of another pigeon for the
next stage. The royal pigeons had a distinguishing mark, and when one of
these arrived at the Citadel with a despatch, none was permitted to
detach the parchment save the Sultan himself; and so stringent were the
rules, that were he dining or sleeping or absorbed in polo, he would
nevertheless at once be informed of the arrival, and would immediately
proceed to disencumber the bird of its message. The correspondence
conducted by these posts was often very considerable. Here is an example
of the business-hours of the famous Sultan Beybars. He arrived before
Tyre one night; a tent was immediately pitched by torchlight, the
secretaries, seven in number, were summoned, with the commander-in-
chief; and the adjutant-general (Amīr ‘Alam) with the military
secretaries were instructed to draw up orders for drums and standards,
&c. For hours they ceased not to write letters and diplomas, to which
the Sultan affixed his seal; this very night they indicted in his
presence fifty-six diplomas for high nobles, each with its proper
introduction of praise to God. One of Beybar’s letters has been
preserved; it is a very characteristic epistle, and displays a grim and
sarcastic appreciation of humour. Boemond, Prince of Antioch, was not
present at the assault of that city by Beybars, and the Sultan kindly
conveyed the information of the disaster in a personal despatch. He
begins by ironically complimenting Boemond on his change of title, from
Prince to Count, in consequence of the fall of his capital, and then
goes on to describe the siege and capture of Antioch. He spares his
listener no detail of the horrors that ensued: “Hadst thou but seen thy
knights trodden under the hoofs of the horses! thy palaces invaded by
plunderers and ransacked for booty! thy treasures weighed out by the
hundredweight! thy ladies bought and sold with thine own gear, at four
for a dīnār! hadst thou but seen thy churches demolished, thy crosses
sawn in sunder, thy garbled Gospels hawked about before the sun, the
tombs of thy nobles cast to the ground; thy foe the Muslim treading thy
Holy of Holies; the monk, the priest, the deacon, slaughtered on the
altar; the rich given up to misery; princes of royal blood reduced to
slavery! Couldst thou but have seen the flames devouring thy halls; thy
dead cast into the fires temporal, with the fires eternal hard at hand!
the churches of Paul and of Cosmas rocking and going down!—then wouldst
thou have said, ‘Would God that I were dust! Would God that I never had
this letter!’ . . . This letter holds happy tidings for thee: it tells
thee that God watches over thee, to prolong thy days, inasmuch as in
these latter days thou wert not in Antioch! Hadst thou been there, now
wouldst thou be slain or a prisoner, wounded or disabled. A live man
rejoiceth in his safety when he looketh on a field of slain. . . . As
not a man hath escaped to tell thee the tale, we tell it thee; as no
soul could apprise thee that thou art safe, while all the rest have
perished, we apprise thee!” Nevertheless, Boemond was mightily incensed
with the Sultan’s sarcastic attentions.[6]
Beybars was exceptionally active in the discharge of his royal
functions, and was indefatigable in making personal inspections of the
forts and defences of his empire. Once he left his camp secretly, and
made a minute inspection of his kingdom in disguise, returning before
his absence had been found out by his troops. He maintained 12,000
soldiers under arms, of whom a third were stationed in Egypt, a third at
Damascus, and the remaining third at Aleppo. On his expeditions he was
escorted by 4000 horsemen. His history is a good example of the
adventurous career of the Mamlūk. He was a native of Kipchak, between
the Caspian and the Ural Mountains,—a tall, ruddy fellow, with blue
eyes, one of which had a cataract on it, and this defect nearly lost him
a purchaser in the slave-market: indeed, he only fetched 800 francs, a
sum hardly equal to £20. He was afterwards bought by the Amīr ‘Alā-ed-
dīn Aydekīn, El-Bundukdār, “the Arblasteer,” from whom Beybars took his
title El-Bundukdāry, or “Bendocquedar,” as Marco Polo writes it.
Subsequently he passed into the possession of Es-Sālih Ayyūb, and his
strong, determined nature, his promptitude and resource in action, high
mettle, and resonant voice, soon gained him the admiration and fear of
his contemporaries. His charge at Mansūra won the day and annihilated
the crusade of St. Louis, and in due course he made his way to the
throne, through, we are sorry to add, the usual road of assassination.
His was not a scrupulous nature, and his own death was caused by poison
which he had prepared for another; but he was the first great Mamlūk
Sultan, and the right man to lay the foundations of the empire.
“Bondogar,” says William of Tripoli, “as a soldier was not inferior to
Julius Caesar, nor in malignity to Nero;” but he allows that the Sultan
was “sober, chaste, just to his own people, and even kind to his
Christian subjects.”[7] So well did he organize his wide-stretching
provinces that no incapacity or disunion among his successors could pull
down the fabric he had raised, until the wave of Ottoman conquest swept
at last upon Egypt and Syria. To him is due the constitution of the
Mamlūk army, the rebuilding of a navy of 40 war-galleys, the allotment
of feofs to the lords and soldiers, the building of causeways and
bridges, and digging of canals in various parts of Egypt. He
strengthened the fortresses of Syria and garrisoned them with Mamlūks;
he connected Damascus and Cairo by a postal service of four days, and
used to play polo in both cities within the same week. His mosque still
stands without the north gates, and his college till lately formed an
important feature among the splendid monuments in the street known as
“Betwixt the Palaces;” he founded an endowment for the burial of poor
Muslims; in short, he was the best ruler Egypt had seen since the death
of Saladin, whom he resembled in many respects, but not in chivalrous
clemency. Some idea of the luxury and refinement of his court may be
gathered from the list of his presents to the Persian Ilkhān Baraka,
which included a Korān, said to have been transcribed by the Khalif
‘Othmān, enclosed in a case of red silk embroidered with gold, over
which was a leather cover lined with striped silk; a throne encrusted
with carved ivory and ebony; a silver chest; prayer-carpets of all
colours and sorts; curtains, cushions, and tables; superb swords with
silver hilts; instruments of music of painted wood; silver lamps and
chandeliers; saddles from Khwārizm, bows from Damascus, with silk
strings; pikes of Kana wood, with points tempered by the Arabs;
exquisitely fashioned arrows in boxes plated with copper; large lamps of
enamel with silver-gilt chains; black eunuchs, ingenious cook-girls,
beautiful parrots; numbers of Arab horses, dromedaries, mules, wild
asses, giraffes, and apes, with all kinds of saddles and trappings. Only
remarkable qualities could have raised Beybars from the condition of a
one-eyed slave to the founder of an empire that endured for nearly three
centuries.
In addition to necessary business, state ceremonies occupied no
inconsiderable part of the Sultan’s time. The Mamlūk court was a
minutely organized system, and the choice of officers to fill the
numerous posts of the household, and the tact demanded in satisfying
their jealousies and disagreements, to say nothing of the constant
presentation of ceremonial dresses of honour, writing of diplomas, and
granting of titles and appanages, must have been a tax upon their
master. The posts about the royal person were no sinecures, and it
needed no doubt some diplomacy to arrange the cabinet and household
appointments to the satisfaction of everybody. The chief officers of the
court, which of course included the administration, were these:—
1. The _Nāib-es-Saltana_, or Viceroy, chief officer of the empire,
corresponding to the Vizīr of other periods, who controlled alike the
army, finances, posts, and appointments; rode at the head of the troops
in state progresses, and was escorted by nobles to and from the Sultan’s
presence. He was styled _Melik el-Umara_, or “King of Nobles,” and had a
special palace (_Dār-en-Niāba_) in the Citadel, where all the
functionaries of the state came to him for instructions.
2. The _Atābek_, or _Atābek-el-asākir_, Commander-in-Chief, also styled
(after the middle of the fourteenth century) _El-Amīr-el-Kebīr_, or “the
Great Lord.”
3. The _Ustaddar_, Majordomo, superintendent of the household, the
kitchen, pages (_ujākīs_), and servants and officers generally; he had
entire authority to obtain the supplies, money, and clothing for the
royal household. By the time of Barkūk, A.D. 1400, this official had so
waxed in importance, that he had become practically Grand Vizīr, and
enjoyed the management of the finances and the royal domains. His
military rank—for all Mamlūks, though their posts might be purely civil,
had military grades—was that of Bicenturion, or Major over 200. Under
him were servants supplied from among the Lords of the Drums and
Captains over Ten, and he had a legal assessor and _mubāshirs_, or
superintendents, to assist him.
4. The _Rās Nauba_, or Chief of the Guard, commanded the Sultan’s
Mamlūks, and settled their differences. Another and superior _Rās Nauba_
commanded the Lords and adjusted their quarrels, and the latter was not
only addressed as “His Excellency the Generous the Exalted,” الجناب
العالى الكريم, but the Sultan called him “Brother.”[8]
5, 6. The _Silāhdār_, Armour-bearer, carried the Sultan’s armour. There
were several, and their chief was called _Amīr Silāh_, “Lord of the
Arms,” who inspected the Armoury, was a centurion or Captain over 100,
and was addressed by the Sultan as “Brother,” with the same style as the
_Rās Naubat el-Umara_. The Lord of the Arms was one of the highest
officers in the realm after the _Atābek Amīr el-Kebīr_.
7. The _Amīr Akhōr_, Master of the Horse, presided over the royal
stables, assisted by the _Selākhōry_, who saw to the horses’ food, and
sometimes by a second _Amīr Akhōr_, who was a Captain over Ten; minor
equerries superintended the colts, oxen, water-wheels, &c., separately,
but all were under the supreme control of the great Master of the Horse.
8, 9. The _Sāky_, Cup-bearer, and the _Gāshenkīr_, Taster, whose duty it
was to taste the Sultan’s food before it was served, to ward against
poison, were officers of trust, and enjoyed frequent intercourse with
the sovereign, and thus often carried great influence in the management
of the empire. The _Gāshenkīr_ was a Bicenturion.
10. The _Hāgib_, Chamberlain, was the officer who guarded the access to
the royal presence.
11. _Amīr Gandār_, Equerry-in-waiting, introduced nobles to the
presence, and commanded the _gandārs_ or equerries, and _berd-dars_,
grooms of the bedchamber; superintended the executions and tortures by
order of the Sultan, and had charge of the _zardkhānāh_, or royal
prison. He was chosen from the ranks of the Colonels (_mukaddam_) or
Lords of the Drums.
12. The _Dawādār_, or Secretary, took charge of the imperial
correspondence, received and addressed despatches, was a Lord of the
Drums, or a Captain over Ten, and enjoyed great influence and
consideration.
13. The _Kātim es-Sirr_, or Private Secretary, was the depository of the
Sultan’s secret affairs, shared the correspondence with the _Dawādār_,
was the first to go in to the sovereign and the last to come out, and
was his chief adviser in all matters.
Besides these great officers, there were many smaller posts, which often
commanded great power and influence. The _Amīr Meglis_, Lord of the
Seat, so called because he enjoyed the privilege of sitting in the
Sultan’s presence, was the superintendent of the court physicians and
surgeons; the _Gamdār_, or Master of the Wardrobe, was a high official;
the _Amīr Shikār_, or Grand Huntsman, assisted the king in the chase;
the _Amīr Tabar_, or Drum-Major, held almost the rank of the Chief of
the Guard, and commanded the _Tabardārs_ or Halbardiers of the Sultan,
ten in number; the _Bashmakdār_ carried the sovereign’s slippers; the
_Gūkandār_ bore the Sultan’s polo-stick, a staff of painted wood about
four cubits long, with a curved head; the _Zimamdārs_ were eunuch
guards. The various household departments had also their officers, who
were often great nobles, and men of influence in the realm. The
_Ustaddār-es-Suhba_ presided over the cookery; the _Tabl-khānāh_, or
Drummery, was the department where the royal band was kept, and it was
presided over by an officer called the _Amīr ‘Alam_, or adjutant-
general. The Sultan’s band is stated at one time to have comprised four
drums, forty kettle-drums (كوسات), four hautbois (زمور), and twenty
trumpets (نعير). The permission to have a band was among the most
coveted distinctions of Mamlūk times, and those Lords who were allowed
to have a band playing before their gates were styled _Amīr Tabl-
khānāh_, or Lord of the Drums; they were about thirty in number, and
each had command of a body of forty horsemen, with a band of ten drums,
two hautbois, and four trumpets, and an appanage of about the value of
30,000 dīnārs. The practice of employing these ceremonial bands went out
with the Turkish conquest.
Then there was the _Tisht-khānāh_, or Vestiary, where the royal robes,
jewels, seals, swords, &c., were kept, and where his clothes were
washed. The servants of the _Tisht-khānāh_ were called _tishtdārs_, or
grooms of the wardrobe, and _rakhtwānīs_, or grooms of the chamber,
under the command of two _mihtārs_, or superintendents. The _Sharāb-
khānāh_, or Buttery, where were stored the liquors, sweetmeats, fruits,
cordials, perfumes, and water for the sovereign, was also managed by two
_mihtārs_, aided by a number of _sharāb-dārs_, or buttery-men; the
_Hawāig-khānāh_, or Larder, where the food and vegetables required for
the day were prepared, was under the superintendence of the _Hawāig-
kāsh_. At the time of Ketbugha the daily amount of food prepared here
was 20,000 pounds, and under En-Nāsīr the daily cost of the larder was
from 21,000 to 30,000 francs. The _Rikāb-khānāh_, or Harness-room, and
_Firāsh-khānāh_, or Lumber-room, had also their staff of officials. And
besides the household and military officers, there were the various
judicial officers, _Kādis_ and the like, and the police authorities, to
be appointed by the Sultan; such were the _Wāly_, or chief magistrate of
Cairo, who kept order in the city, commanded the patrols, inspected the
prisons, opened and shut the city gates, and was obliged always to sleep
in Cairo; the _shādds_ and _mushidds_, inspectors in their various
departments, and the _muhtesib_, the important officer who corrected the
weights and measures in the markets, and guarded public morals.
It will be seen that court life was complicated even in the fourteenth
century, and the state ceremonies of a Mamlūk Sultan must have involved
as much etiquette as any modern levée, and presented a much more
splendid spectacle. When the Sultan rode abroad in state, to hold a
review or to make a progress through his dominions, the composition of
his escort was elaborately ordered. The Sultan Beybars, for example,
rode in the centre, dressed in a black silk _gubba_, or vest with large
sleeves, but without embroidery or gold; on his head was a turban of
fine silk, with a pendant hanging between his shoulders; and a Bedawy
sword swung by his side, and a Dawūdy cuirass was concealed beneath his
vest. In front, a great lord carried the _Ghāshia_, or royal saddle-
cloth, emblem of sovereignty, covered with gold and precious stones; and
over his head, a Prince of the Blood, or the Commander-in-chief, bore
the state parasol, made of yellow silk, embroidered with gold, and
crowned with a golden bird perched upon a golden cupola. The housing of
his horse’s neck was yellow silk embroidered with gold, and a _zunnāry_
or cloth of red atlas satin covered the crupper. The royal standard of
silk and gold thread was borne aloft, and the troops had their
regimental colours of yellow Cairene silk, embroidered with the
escutcheons of their leaders. Just before the Sultan rode two pages on
white horses, with rich trappings; their robes were of yellow silk with
borders of gold brocade, and a kuffīya of the same: it was their duty to
see that the road was sound. A flute-player went before, and a singer
followed after, chanting the heroic deeds of former kings, to the
accompaniment of a hand-drum; poets sang verses antiphonally,
accompanying themselves with the kemenga and mōsil. Tabardārs carried
halberts before and behind the Sultan, and the state poniards were
supported by the polo-master (_gūkandār_) in a scabbard on the left,
while another dagger with a buckler was carried on the monarch’s right.
Close beside him rode the _Gamakdār_, or Mace-bearer, a tall, handsome
man, who carried the gold-headed mace aloft, and never withdrew his eyes
from the countenance of his master. The great officers of the court
followed with little less pomp. When a halt was called for the night, on
long journeys, torches were borne before the Sultan, and as he
approached the tent, which had gone on in front and been pitched before
his arrival, his servants came to meet him with wax candles in stands
inlaid with gold; pages and halbardiers surrounded him, the soldiers
sang a chorus, and all dismounted except the Sultan, who rode into the
vestibule of the tent, where he left his horse, and then entered the
great round pavilion behind it. Out of this opened a little wooden bed-
room, warmer than the tent, and a bath with heating materials was at
hand. The whole was surrounded by a wall, and the Mamlūks mounted guard
in regular watches, inspected periodically by visiting rounds, with
grand rounds twice in the night. The _Amīr Bābdār_, or Grand Door-
keeper, commanded the grand rounds. Servants and eunuchs slept at the
door.[9]
The historian of the Mamlūks is fond of telling how the Sultan made his
progresses, held reviews of his troops, led a charge in battle, or
joined in the games at home. The Mamlūks were ardent votaries of sport
and athletic exercises. En-Nāsir was devoted to the chase, and imported
numbers of sunkurs, sakrs, falcons, hawks, and other birds of prey, and
would present valuable feofs to his falconers, who rode beside him hawk
on wrist. Beybars was a keen archer, and a skilful hand at making
arrows. He erected an archery-ground outside the Gate of Victory at
Cairo, and here he would stay from noon till sunset, encouraging the
Amīrs in their practice. The pursuit of archery became the chief
occupation of the lords of his court. But Beybars, like most of the
Mamlūks, was catholic in his tastes; he was fond of racing horses; spent
two days in the week at polo; was famous for his management of the lance
in the tournaments which formed one of the amusements of the day; and
was so good a swimmer, that he once swam across the Nile in his cuirass,
dragging after him several great nobles seated on carpets. Such outward
details of the life of the Mamlūks may be gathered from the pages of El-
Makrīzy and other historians. But if we seek to know something of the
domestic life of the period, we must go elsewhere than to these sources.
We find indeed occasionally in El-Makrīzy an account of the revels of
the court on great festivals, and he tells us how during some
festivities in Beybars’ reign there was a concert every night in the
Citadel, where a torch was gently waved to and fro to keep the time. But
to understand the home-life of the Mamlūks, we must turn to the
_Thousand and One Nights_, where, whatever the origin and scene of the
stories, the manners and customs are drawn from the society which the
narrators saw about them in Cairo in the days of the Mamlūks. From the
doings of the characters in that immortal story-book, we may form a
nearly accurate idea of how the Mamlūks amused themselves; and the
various articles of luxury that have come down to us, the goblets,
incense-burners, bowls, and dishes of fine inlaid silver and gold, go to
confirm the fidelity of the picture. The wonderful thing about this old
Mohammadan society is that it was what it was in spite of Islām. With
all their prayers and fasts and irritating ritual, the Muslims of the
Middle Ages contrived to amuse themselves. Even in their religion they
found opportunities for enjoyment. They made the most of the festivals
of the Faith, and put on their best clothes; they made up parties—to
visit the tombs, indeed, but to visit them right merrily on the backs of
their asses;[10] they let their servants go out and amuse themselves too
in the gaily illuminated streets, hung with silk and satin, and filled
with dancers, jugglers, and revellers, fantastic figures, the Oriental
Punch, and the Chinese Shadows; or they went to witness the thrilling
and horrifying performances of the dervishes. There was excitement to be
derived from the very creed; for did they not believe in those wonderful
creatures the Ginn, who dwelt in the Mountains of Kāf, near the
mysterious Sea of Darkness, where Khidr drank of the Fountain of Life?
And who could tell when he might come across one of these awful beings,
incarnate in the form of a jackal or a serpent; or meet, in his own
hideous shape, the appalling Nesnās, who is a man split in two, with
half a head, half a body, one arm and one leg, and yet hops along with
astonishing agility, and is said, when caught, to have been found very
sweet eating by the people of Hadramaut? To live among such fancies must
have given a relish to life, even when one knew that one’s destiny was
inscribed in the sutures of the skull, and in spite of those ascetic
souls who found consolation in staring at a blank wall until they saw
the name of Allah blazing on it.
What society was like at the time of the first Mamlūks may be gathered
very clearly from the poems[11] of Behā-ed-dīn Zuheyr, the secretary of
Es-Sālih Ayyūb, who survived his master and died in 1258. The Egyptians
of his acquaintance, as reflected in his graceful verse, seem to have
resembled our own latter-day friends in their pleasures and passions.
Love is the great theme of Zuheyr as well as Swinburne; the poet waxes
eloquent over a long succession of mistresses, blonde and brown,
constant and fickle, kind and coy,—
“Like the line of beauty her waving curl,
Her stature like the lance.”
We read of stolen interviews, in despite of parents and guardians,
maidens “waiting at the tryst alone,” and various other breaches of
Mohammadan morals. If Zuheyr fairly represented his time, life at Cairo
in the thirteenth century was not without its savour:—
Well! the night of youth is over, and grey-headed morn is near;
Fare ye well, ye tender meetings with the friends I held so dear!
O’er my life these silvery locks are shedding an unwonted light,
And revealing many follies youth had hidden out of sight.
Yet though age is stealing o’er me, still I love the festive throng,
Still I love a pleasant fellow, and a pleasant merry song;
Still I love the ancient tryst, though the trysting time is o’er,
And the tender maid that ne’er may yield to my caresses more;
Still I love the sparkling wine-cup, which the saucy maidens fill, &c.
The wine-cup plays a prominent part in Zuheyr’s catalogue of the joys of
life, and he is full of contempt for the prudent mentor who reproved
him:—
Let us, friends, carouse and revel,
And send the mentor to the devil!
The great indoor amusement of the mediaeval Muslim was feasting. The
Arabs indeed never understood scientific gastronomy; they coarsely drank
to get drunk, and ate to get full. We read of a public banquet (under
the Fātimīs, but probably equalled many a time in the Mamlūk period),
where the table was covered with 21 enormous dishes, each containing 21
baked sheep, three years old and fat, and 350 pigeons and fowls, all
piled up together to the height of a man, and covered in with dried
sweetmeats. Between these dishes were 500 smaller ones, each holding
seven fowls and the usual complement of confectionery. The table was
strewn with flowers and cakes of bread, and two grand edifices of
sweetmeats each weighing 17 cwt., were brought in on shoulder-poles. On
such occasions a man might eat a sheep or two without being remarkable.
But if he ate somewhat heartily, he did not omit to wash it down
afterwards with plenty of wine, despite all the ordinances of the
Prophet. If the bowls that have descended to us were drinking-cups, the
Mamlūk thought very little of a pint stoup. Like our own Norse and Saxon
ancestors, he loved his wassail, and took it right jovially, until he
found himself under the table, or would have done so had there been any
tables of the right sort. Zuheyr sings:—
Here, take it, ’tis empty! and fill it again
With wine that’s grown old in the wood;
That in its proprietor’s cellars has lain
So long that at least it goes back to the reign
Of the famous Nushirwan the Good—
With wine which the jovial friars of old
Have carefully laid up in store,
In readiness there for their feast-days to hold—
With liquor, of which if a man were but _told_,
He’d roll away drunk from the door!
Many of the Mamlūk Sultans are described as being addicted to wine, and
the great Lord Beysary was at one time stated to be incapable of taking
part in affairs, because he was entirely given over to drink and hazard.
Yet there are redeeming points in this sottishness. The Muslims of the
days of good Harūn, and not less of the other “golden prime” of Beybars
and Barkūk, did not take their wine moodily or in solitude. They loved
to have a jovial company round them, and plenty of flowers and sweet
scents on the board; they scented their beards with civet, and sprinkled
their beautiful robes with rose-water, while ambergris and frankincense,
burned in the censers we still possess, diffused a delicious perfume
through the room. Nor was the feast complete without music and the
voices of singing women. A ravishing slave-girl, with a form like the
waving willow, and a face as resplendent as the moon, sang soft, sad
Arabian melodies to the accompaniment of the lute, till the guests
rolled over in ecstasy. Other and less refined performances, the
alluring gestures of the dancing-girls, the coarse feats of Punch or the
hired buffoon, also enlivened the evening; and the ladies of the Harīm
would share the pleasures of the men, separated by a lattice screen, or
hidden behind gorgeously embroidered curtains. We shall see presently
what palaces the Mamlūks built for themselves, how they hung them with
rich stuffs, and strewed them with costly carpets; what wealth of
carving and ivory-work embellished their doors and ceilings; how
gloriously inlaid were their drinking and washing vessels, how softly
rich the colouring of their stained windows. The Mamlūks offer the most
singular contrasts of any series of princes in the world. A band of
lawless adventurers, slaves in origin, butchers by choice, turbulent,
bloodthirsty, and too often treacherous, these slave kings had a keen
appreciation for the arts which would have done credit to the most
civilized ruler that ever sat on a constitutional throne. Their morals
were indifferent, their conduct was violent and unscrupulous, yet they
show in their buildings, their decoration, their dress, and their
furniture, a taste which it would be hard to parallel in Western
countries even in the present age of enlightenment. It is one of the
most singular facts in Eastern history, that wherever these rude Tartars
penetrated, there they inspired a fresh and vivid enthusiasm for art. It
was the Tartar Ibn-Tūlūn who built the first example of the true
Saracenic mosque at Cairo; it was the line of Mamlūk Sultans, all
Turkish or Circassian slaves, who filled Cairo with the most beautiful
and abundant monuments that any city can show. The arts were in Egypt
long before the Tartars became her rulers, but they stirred them into
new life, and made the Saracenic work of Egypt the centre and head-piece
of Mohammadan art.
The following tables will supply the necessary chronological details and
the chief events and monuments of each reign. It should be noticed that
a certain stability and duration of authority was necessary even among
the Mamlūks to allow opportunity for artistic effort. The great
monuments now standing of the Mamlūk Sultans are grouped about 9
Sultans: 4 of the Bahrīs, and 5 of the Burgīs. But the reigns of these 9
Sultans amounted together to two-thirds of the whole period occupied by
the 49 Mamlūk rulers. The reigns of Beybars I. (18 years), Kalaūn (11),
En-Nāsir (42), and Sultan Hasan (11); of Barkūk (16), El-Muayyad (9),
El-Ashraf Bars Bey (17), Kaït Bey (28), and El-Ghūry (16), make a total
of 168 years, out of 266, leaving but 98 years for the remaining 40
Sultans. The great Mamlūk builders had thus an average reign of nearly
19 years, while those who have left no signal monuments average only 2½
years. Beybars Jāshenkīr, however, is perhaps an exception; for he has
left a beautiful mosque and many restorations, yet he ruled as Sultan
for but a single year.
* * * * *
THE SARACEN RULERS OF EGYPT.
* * * * *
A.H. 21-926 = A.D. 641-1517.
* * * * *
I.—GOVERNORS APPOINTED BY THE KHALIFS.
A.H.|A.D.| Ruler. |Events and existing
| | | Monuments.
----+----+----------------------------------------+--------------------
21| 641|The list of 98 Governors, to whom |Conquest of Egypt
to| to|no distinctive work of art can be |completed, 21 A.H.
254| 868|ascribed, is omitted. (Cp. Wüstenfeld, |
| |_Die Statthalter d. Egyptens unter den |_Mosque of ‘Amr_,
| |Khalifen_.) |21 A.H., but
| | |frequently restored.
| | |
| | |City of El-Fusṭāṭ,
| | |A.H. 21, and suburb
| | |of El-‘Askar, A.H.
| | |133.
II.—HOUSE OF ṬŪLŪN.
254| 868|Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn |Suburb of
| | |El-Ḳaṭāi‘, 256.
| | |
| | |_Mosque of
| | |Ibn-Ṭūlūn_, 263-5.
| | |
| | |Annexation of Syria
| | |as far as Aleppo,
| | |264.
| | |
270| 883|Khumāraweyh (son of Aḥmad) |
| | |
282| 895|Geysh Abu-l-Asākir } (sons |
| | } of |
283| 896|Hārūn } Khumāraweyh) |
| | |
292| 904|Sheybān (son of Aḥmad) |
III.—SECOND LINE OF GOVERNORS.
| | { |Partial burning of
292| 905| { |El-Ḳaṭāi‘, 292.
to| to|Thirteen Governors. { |
323| 934| { |Invasion of Egypt
| | { |by El-Mahdy the
| | { |Fātimy, 307.
IV.—HOUSE OF IKHSHĪD.
323| 934|Moḥammad El-Ikhshīd ibn Ṭukǵ |Syria again
| | |annexed. The kings
334| 946|Abu-l-Ḳāsim Ūngūr (son of El-Ikhshīd) |of this dynasty
| | |were buried at
349| 960|Abu-l-Ḥasan ‘Aly (son of El-Ikhshīd) |Damascus, and have
| | |therefore left no
355| 966|Abu-l-Misk Kāfūr, a Eunuch |tomb-mosques in
| | |Egypt.
357| 968|Abu-l-Fawāris Aḥmad (son of ‘Aly) |
to| to| |
358| 969| |
V.—FĀṬIMY KHALIFS.
A.—IN TUNIS.
297| 909|El-Mahdy ‘Obeyd-Allah |Invades Egypt, 307.
| | |
322| 934|El-Ḳāïm Moḥammad |
| | |
334| 945|El-Manṣūr Ismā‘īl |
| | |
341| 952|El-Mu‘izz Ma‘add |
B.—IN EGYPT.
358| 969| „ „ |Conquest of Egypt,
| | |358. Syria and part
| | |of Arabia annexed.
| | |
| | |Foundation of
| | |El-Ḳāhira (Cairo).
| | |
| | |_Mosque El-Azhar_,
| | |359-61.
| | |
| | |Invasions of the
| | |Ḳarmatis.
| | |
365| 975|El-‘Azīz Nizār |Conversion of
| | |the Azhar into a
| | |University.
| | |
| | |_Mosque of
| | |El-Ḥākim_, 380.
| | |
386| 996|El-Ḥākim El-Manṣūr |Founder of the
| | |Druse sect.
| | |
| | |_Mosque of El-Ḥākim
| | |completed_, 403.
| | |
411|1020|Eḍh-Ḍhāhir ‘Aly |Loss of Aleppo.
| | |
427|1035|El-Mustanṣir Ma‘add |Great famine,
| | |7 years long,
| | |which caused the
| | |desertion and decay
| | |of El-Fusṭāṭ and
| | |other parts of the
| | |capital.
| | |
| | |_Restoration of
| | |Mosque of ‘Amr_,
| | |441-2.
| | |
| | |_The 3 great Gates
| | |and 2nd wall of
| | |Cairo built._
| | |
| | |Usurpation of
| | |Nāṣir-ed-dawleh,
| | |462-5.
| | |
487|1094|El-Musta‘ly Aḥmad |First Crusade; loss
| | |of Jerusalem.
| | |
495|1101|El-Āmir El-Manṣūr |Further losses in
| | |Syria.
| | |
524|1130|El-Ḥāfiḍh ‘Abd-el-Megīd |Nūr-ed dīn ibn
| | |Zenky makes himself
| | |master of Aleppo
| | |and Damascus.
| | |
544|1149|Eḍh-Ḍhāfir Ismā‘īl |
| | |
549|1154|El-Fāïz ‘Īsā |
| | |
555|1160|El-‘Āḍid ‘Abd-Allah |Nūr-ed-dīn’s
to| to| |expeditions to
567|1171| |Egypt, 559, 561.
| | |
| | |Saladin in Egypt,
| | |561.
| | |
| | |Burning of
| | |El-Fusṭāṭ, 564,
| | |for fifty days, to
| | |save its falling
| | |into the hands of
| | |Amaury, Christian
| | |King of Jerusalem.
VI.—HOUSE OF AYYŪB.
(EGYPTIAN BRANCH.)
567|1172|En-Nāṣir Salāh-ed-dīn [Saladin] Yūsuf |From 567-9 owns
| |ibn Ayyūb |homage to Nūr-ed-dīn
| | |
| | |Annexation of
| | |Syria, 570.
| | |Crusades.
| | |
| | |_Citadel and 3rd
| | |Wall of Cairo._
| | |
| | |_Restoration of
| | |Mosque of ‘Amr._
| | |
589|1193|El-‘Azīz ‘Imād-ed-dīn ‘Othmān |Resists 4th
| | |Crusade. Syria
| | |separated.
| | |
595|1198|El-Manṣūr Moḥammad |
| | |
596|1199|El-‘Ādil Seyf-ed-dīn Abu-Bekr ibn Ayyūb |Reannexes Syria.
| | |
615|1218|El-Kāmil Moḥammad |Defeat of Jean de
| | |Brienne.
| | |
| | |_Tomb of
| | |Esh-Shāfi‘y_, 608.
| | |
| | |Jerusalem ceded to
| | |Frederick II., 626.
| | |
635|1238|El-‘Ādil Seyf-ed-dīn Abu-Bekr II. |
| | |
637|1240|Eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Negm-ed-dīn Ayyūb |Jerusalem
| | |recaptured. Crusade
| | |of St. Louis.
| | |
| | |_College
| | |Eṣ-Ṣālihīya_, 641.
| | |
| | |Castle of Er-Rōda.
| | |
647|1249|El-Mu‘aḍhḍham Tūrān Shāh |Defeat and capture
| | |of St. Louis at
| | |Manṣūra, 647.
| | |
| | |_Tomb Mosque of
| | |Eṣ-Ṣāliḥ_, 647.
| | |
648|1250|El-Ashraf Mūsā (nominally joint king |
to| to|with the Mamlūk Sultān Aybek) |
650|1252| |
VII.—THE MAMLŪK SULTĀNS.
A. —BAḤRY OR TURKISH LINE.
648|1250|Queen Sheger-ed-durr |Syria separated.
| | |
648|1250|El-Mu‘izz ‘Izz-ed dīn Aybek |
| | |
655|1257|El-Manṣūr Nūr-ed-dīn ‘Aly |
| | |
657|1259|El-Muḍhaffar Seyf-ed-dīn Ḳuṭuz |War with Hūlāgū the
| | |Mongol.
| | |
| | |Syria annexed.
| | |Antioch taken.
| | |
658|1260|Eḍh Ḍhāhir Rukn-ed-dīn Beybars I. |Campaigns against
| | |the Mongols and
| | |Christians.
| | |
| | |_Mosque of
| | |Eḍh-Ḍhāhir_, 665-7.
| | |
| | |_Collegiate Mosque
| | |Eḍh-Ḍhāhirīya_, 660.
| | |
676|1277|Es-Sa‘īd Nāṣir-ed dīn Baraka Khān |
| | |
678|1279|El-‘Ādil Bedr-ed-dīn Selāmish |
| | |
678|1279|El-Manṣūr Seyf-ed-dīn Ḳalāūn |_Mosque of Ḳalāūn,
| | |Māristān or
| | |Hospital_, 683.
| | |
| | |Campaign in Syria;
| | |sack of Tripoli.
| | |
689|1290|El-Ashraf Ṣalāḥ-ed-dīn Khalīl |Capture of Acre,
| | |690.
| | |
693|1293|En-Nāṣir Nāṣir-ed dīn Moḥammad. _1st |
| |reign_ |
| | |
694|1294|El-‘Ādil Zeyn-ed-dīn Ketbughā |
| | |
696|1296|El-Manṣūr Ḥusām-ed-dīn Lāgīn |_Restoration
| | |of Mosque of
| | |Ibn-Ṭūlūn._
| | |
698|1299|En-Nāṣir Moḥammad. _2nd reign_ |Defeat of Mongols
| | |in Syria.
| | |
| | |_Collegiate Mosque
| | |En-Nāṣiriya_,
| | |698-703.
| | |
708|1309|El-Muḍhaffar Rukn-ed-dīn Beybars II. |_Monastic Mosque of
| | |Beybars_, 706.
| | |
709|1310|En-Nāṣir Moḥammad. _3rd reign_ |_Mosque of En-Nāṣir
| | |in citadel_, 718.
| | |
| | |Persecutions of
| | |Christians and
| | |destruction of
| | |churches.
| | |
| | |_Mosques of the
| | |Amīrs Kūṣūn_, 730;
| | |_El-Māridāny_,
| | |738-40; _Singar
| | |El-Gāwaly and
| | |Salār_, 723 ff.
| | |
741|1341|El-Manṣūr Seyf-ed-dīn Abū-Bekr |
| | |
742|1341|El-Ashraf ‘Alā-ed-dīn Ḳūgūḳ |
| | |
742|1342|En-Nāṣir Shihāb-ed-dīn Aḥmad |
| | |
743|1342|Eṣ-Ṣāliḥ ‘Imād-ed-dīn Ismā‘īl |
| | |
746|1345|El-Kāmil Seyf-ed-dīn Sha‘bān |
| | |
747|1346|El-Muḍhaffar Seyf-ed-dīn Ḥāggy |_Mosque of the Amīr
| | |Aḳsunḳur_, 747-8.
| | |
748|1347|En-Nāṣir Nāṣir-ed-dīn Ḥasan. _1st reign_|
| | |
752|1351|Eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Ṣalāḥ ed-dīn Ṣāliḥ |
| | |
755|1354|En-Nāṣir Ḥasan. _2nd reign_ |_Mosque of Sulṭān
| | |Ḥasan_, 757-60.
| | |
| | |_Mosques of the
| | |Amīrs Sheykhū_,
| | |756, and
| | |_Suyurghatmish_,
| | |757.
| | |
762|1361|El-Manṣūr Ṣalāḥ-ed-dīn Moḥammad |
| | |
764|1363|El-Ashraf Nāṣir-ed-dīn Sha‘bān |_Mosque of
| | |Umm-Sha‘bān._
| | |
778|1377|El-Manṣūr ‘Alā-ed-dīn ‘Aly |
| | |
783|1381|Eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Ṣalāḥ-ed-dīn Ḥāggy deposed by |
to| to|Barḳūḳ 784/1382, but restored, 791, |
792|1390|with new title of El-Manṣūr Ḥāggy, and |
| |finally deposed by Barḳūḳ, 792. |
B.—BURGY OR CIRCASSIAN LINE.
784|1382|Eḍh-Ḍhāhir Seyf-ed-dīn Barḳūḳ |_Tomb Mosque of
| |(interrupted by Ḥāggy, 791-2) |Barḳūḳ._
| | |_Collegiate Mosque
| | |Barḳūḳīya_, 786.
| | |
| | |War with Tīmūr
| | |(Tamerlane).
| | |
801|1399|En-Nāṣir Nāṣir-ed-dīn Farag. _1st reign_|Peace concluded
| | |with Tīmūr.
| | |
808|1405|El-Manṣūr ‘Izz-ed-dīn ‘Abd-el-‘Azīz |
| | |
809|1406|En-Nāṣir Farag. _2nd reign_ |
| | |
815|1412|El-‘Ādīl El-Musta‘īn (the Khalif) |
| | |
815|1412|El-Mu‘ayyad Sheykh |_Mosque of
| | |El-Mu‘ayyad_,
| | |818-23.
| | |
| | |Campaigns in Syria.
| | |
824|1421|El-Muḍhaffar Aḥmad |
| | |
824|1421|Eḍh-Ḍhāhir Seyf-ed-dīn Ṭaṭār |
| | |
824|1421|Eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Nāṣir-ed-dīn Moḥammad |
| | |
825|1422|El-Ashraf Seyf-ed-dīn Bars Bey |_Collegiate Mosque
| | |El-Ashrafīya_, 827.
| | |
| | |_Tomb Mosque of
| | |Bars Bey._
| | |
| | |Expedition against
| | |John, King of
| | |Cyprus, 827.
| | |
842|1438|El-‘Azīz Jemāl-ed-dīn Yūsuf |
| | |
842|1438|Eḍh-Ḍhāhir Seyf-ed-dīn Gaḳmaḳ |
| | |
857|1453|El-Manṣūr Fakhr-ed-dīn ‘Othmān |
| | |
857|1453|El-Ashraf Seyf-ed-dīn Īnāl |
| | |
865|1461|El-Mu‘ayyad Shihāb-ed-dīn Aḥmad |
| | |
865|1461|Eḍh-Ḍhāhir Seyf-ed-dīn Khōshḳadam |
| | |
872|1467|Eḍh-Ḍhāhir Seyf-ed-dīn Bilbāy |
| | |
872|1467|Eḍh-Ḍhāhir Temerbughā |
| | |
873|1468|El-Ashraf Seyf-ed-dīn Ḳāït Bey |_Mosque of Ḳāït Bey
| | |(intra muros)._
| | |
| | |_Tomb Mosque of
| | |Ḳāït Bey._
| | |
| | |_Wekāla of Ḳāït
| | |Bey._
| | |
| | |War with the
| | |Ottoman Turks, who
| | |were repeatedly
| | |defeated.
| | |
901|1496|En-Nāṣir Moḥammad |
| | |
904|1498|Eḍh-Ḍhāhir Ḳānṣūh |
| | |
905|1500|El-Ashraf Gānbalāṭ |_Mosque of the Amīr
| | |Ezbek_, 905.
| | |
906|1501|El-Ādil Tūmān Bey |
| | |
906|1501|El-Ashraf Ḳānṣūh El-Ghòry |_Mosque and Tomb
| | |Mosque Ghōrīya_,
| | |909.
| | |
| | |Battle of
| | |Marg-Dābik, and
| | |defeat of Mamlūks
| | |by Selīm I.
| | |
| | |Invasion of Egypt.
| | |
922|1516|El-Ashraf Tūmān Bey |
| | |
922|1516|Egypt annexed by the Ottoman Sultān Selīm.
GENEALOGICAL TREES OF THE FAMILIES REIGNING IN EGYPT.
* * * * *
HOUSE OF ṬŪLŪN.
1. Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn
|
+-------------+----------------+
| |
2. Khumāraweyh 5. Sheybān
|
+------+----------+
| |
3. Geysh 4. Hārūn.
* * * * *
HOUSE OF IKHSHĪD.
1. Moḥammad El-Ikhshīd
|
+-------------+----------------+
| |
2. Abu-l-Ḳāsim 3. ‘Aly
|
5. Aḥmad
* * * * *
FĀṬIMY KHALIFS.
4. El-Mu‘izz
|
5. El-‘Azīz
|
6. El-Ḥākim
|
7. Eḍh-Ḍhahir
|
8. El-Mustanṣir
|
+---------------+----------------+
| |
9. El-Musta‘ly Moḥammad
| |
10. El-Āmir 11. El-Ḥāfiḍh
|
12. Eḍh-Ḍhāfir
|
13. El-Fāïz
|
14. El-‘Āḍid.
HOUSE OF AYYŪB.
Ayyūb.
|
+----------------------+-----------------------+
| |
1. Ṣalāḥ-ed-dīn [Saladin] Yūsuf. 4. El-‘Ādil Abū-Bekr.
| |
2. El-‘Azīz ‘Othmān. 5. El-Kāmil Moḥammad.
| |
| +----------------+-----+
| | |
3. El-Manṣūr Moḥammad. 6. El-‘Ādil II. 7. Eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb.
|
8. El-Mu‘aḍhḍham Tūrān Shāh.
BAḤRY MAMLŪKS.
(A _dotted_ line denotes the relation of master and slave.)
Eṣ-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb. (See above.)
|
+------------+----------------+-----------+---------------+
· · · · ·
· · · · ·
1. 2. · · ·
Shejer-ed-durr = Eybek = _x_. 4. Ḳuṭuz. 5. Beybars. ·
(Queen). | | ·
| +--------+-------+---+ ·
| | | | ·
3. 6. 7. | ·
‘Aly. Baraka. Selāmish. Daughter = 8. Ḳalāūn.
|
+------------+----------------+-----------+--------+------+
| | · · ·
| | · · ·
9. Khalīl. 10. En-Nāṣir. 11. Ketbughā. 12. Lāgīn. 13. Beybars II.
|
+------------+------------+-----------+-------------+---------(2)
| | | | |
14. Abū-Bekr. 15. Ḳūgūḳ. 16. Aḥmad. 17. Ismā‘īl. 18. Sha‘bān.
(2)----+------------+---------------+-----------------+
| | | |
19. Ḥāggy. 20. Ḥasan. 21. Ṣāliḥ. Hoseyn.
| |
22. Moḥammad. 23. Sha‘bān II.
|
+-------+-------+
| |
24. ‘Aly. 25. Ḥāggy II.
The Burgy Mamlūks present some instances of a son succeeding his father,
but as a rule the Sultans of this second line bore no blood relation to
one another.