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, “great amīr ”, title which had originally been granted in the Mamlūk kingdom to “all those who had seniority in service and in years”. Consequently there was a whole group of amīrs of which every individual was called al-amīr al-kabīr . In the days of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ūn al-ʿUmarī (752/1352) the title became reserved for the commander-in-chief ( …

(under the Mamlūks). These were the sultan’s bodyguard and select retinue. Most of them usually belonged to the corps of the reigning sultan’s freedmen ( mus̲h̲tarawāt , ad̲j̲lāb , d̲j̲ulbān ). Most of the commanders ( amīrs ) rose from the khāṣṣakiyya . They were consi…

a Mamluk regiment in Egypt. Most of the Ayyūbid sultans had mamlūks in their service, but it was only Sulṭān al-Ṣāliḥ Nad̲j̲m al-Dīn Ayyūb (637-47/1240-9) who recruited them in very great numbers. He seized the opportunity of the influx in the Muslim markets of Turkish slaves from the Ḳipčāḳ steppe and neighbouring areas who were uprooted from their homelands by the Mongol advance and created from amongst th…

, siege. The following articles deal with siegecraft and siege warfare. On fortification see burd̲j̲ , ḥiṣn , ḳalʿa and sūr . i.— General Remarks …

, also Dawātdār , Duwaydār and Amīr Dawāt , the bearer and keeper of the royal inkwell. Under the ʿAbbāsids the emblem of office of the wazīr was an inkwell. The post of dawādār was created by the Sald̲j̲ūḳs, and was held by civilians. Sultan Baybars transferred it to a Mamlūk Amīr of Ten. Under the Baḥrī Mamlūks the dawādār did not rank among the important amīrs, but under the Circassians he became one of the highest amīrs of the sultanate, with the title Grand Dawādār ( dawādār kabīr ), and with a number of dawādārs under him. The office of dawādār ranked among the seven most important office…

(a.), literally “thing possessed”, hence “slave” [for which in general see ʿabd , ḳayna and k̲h̲ādim ], especially used in the sense of military slave”; for these last in various parts of the Islamic world, with the exception of those under the Mamlūk sultanate of Egypt and Syria [see next article], see g̲h̲ulām . Although for many centuries the basis of several Islamic powers, the institution of military slavery can in many ways best be studied within the framework of the Mamlūk sultanate of Egypt and Syria (648-922/1250-151…

, master of audiences or ceremonies, one of the highest dignitaries of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs of Asia Minor (see sald̲j̲ūḳ ). In the Mamlūk kingdom the amīr mad̲j̲lis had charge of the physicians, oculists and the like. The sources do not elucidate the connection between the rank of amir mad̲j̲lis and this particular task, which seems to be of no special importance. Although the rank of …

, I. The navy of the Arabs until the time of the Fāṭimids [see Supplement]. II. The navy of the Mamlūks. The Mamlūk sultanate came into being a long time af ter Christian Europe had established its uncontested naval supremacy in the Mediterranean. Throughout that sultanate’s existence this supremacy had been much strengthened. Under such circumstances there was little chance for Mamlūk sea power to demonstrate its existence. Mamlūk naval activities occupy a prominent place in the sources, mainly in connexion w…

, term used in Ayyūbid and Mamlūk times for a socio-militaiy unit which, during most of the period ot Mamlūk rule, was composed of non-Mamlūks. The sources do not indicate the date of its foundation, and there is no convincing explanation of the meaning of its name (for two different views, see Quatremère, Histoire des Sultans mamlouks , i/2, 200-2 and A. N. Poliak, in …

i. — general In Arabic, the word nafṭ (Persian nafṭ) is applied to the purest form ( ṣafwa ) of Mesopotamian bitumen ( ḳīr —or ḳār — bābilī ). Its natural colour is white. It occasionally occurs in a black form, but this can be rendered white by sublimation. Nafṭ is efficacious against cataract and leucoma; it has the prope…

, The name of Čerkes (in Turkish čerkas , perhaps from the earlier "kerkète", indigenous name: Adi̊g̲h̲e) is a general designation applied to a group of peoples who form, with the Abk̲h̲az [ q.v.], the Abaza (cf. Beskesek Ab…

The Burd̲j̲iyya regiment was second in importance only to the Baḥriyya [ q.v.] regiment throughout the history of the Mamlūk sultanate. It was created by Sulṭān al-Manṣūr Ḳalāʾūn, who selected for this purpose 3,700 of his own Mamlūks and quartered them in towers ( abrād̲j̲ , sing. burd̲j̲ ) of the Cairo citadel. Hence its name. The sources mention the creation of this unit only when they sum up Ḳalāʾūn’s career at the end of his rule, without specifying any date. It was composed of Mamlūks belonging to Caucasian peoples ( al-Ḏj̲arkas wa ’l-Āṣ = Circassians and Abk̲h̲āzīs). Al-Maḳrīzī ( Ḵh̲iṭa…

, (A.), the whole field of equestrian knowledge, both theoretical and practical, including the principles of hippology ( k̲h̲alḳ al-k̲h̲ayl ), the care of horses and farriery ( bayṭara ), and siyāsat al-k̲h̲ayl , a more exact rendering of the concept of “equitati…

After the decline of the office of the viceroy ( Nāʾib al-Salṭana ) the Atābak al-ʿAsākir (Commander-in-Chief) of the Mamlūk Army became the most important amīr in the Sultanate. His functions were much broader than the name of his office indicates. For all intents and purposes he had become the sultan’s viceroy. Very frequently the title mudabbir al-mamālik or mudabbir al-mamālik al-islāmiyya was appended to his name. It was common, especially in the Circassian period, for him to succeed the sultan on the throne. (See D. Ayalon, Studies on the Structure of the Mamluk Army , in BSOAS, 1954,…

, grand master of the armour. In the Mamlūk kingdom he was in charge of the armour-bearers ( silāḥdāriyya ) and supervised the arsenal ( silāḥk̲h̲āna ). It was his duty to bear the sultan’s arms in public ceremonies and to convey them to him in battle and other occasions. In the early Mamluk period the office of amīr silāḥ was not ¶ very high (cf. amīr mad̲j̲lis ); under the Circassians it w…

(a.), a collective formation from wāfid “one who comes, makes his way, in a delegation or group”, in the Mamlūk Sultanate applied to troops of varying ethnic origins who came to Egypt and Syria to join the Sultanate’s military forces. There is no better proof for the superiority of the Mamlūk socio-military system over any other military form during a great part of Islamic history than the attitude of the Mamlūk Sultanate to the Mongol warriors and others, such as Kurds, K̲h̲wārazmians, etc. who, for this or that reason, sought and found refuge within its boundaries as Wāfidiyya . The mainly Turkish Mamlūks considered the Mongols to be their next of kin and as belonging to the same ethnicity as they themselves ( min d̲j̲ins wāḥid ). They had the highest regard for their warlike qualities. Quite probably, the Mongols had an impact on the structure of Mamlūk society, although the degree and dimension of that impact have still to be studie…

, war. i.— Legal Aspect Ḥarb may mean either fighting ( ḳitāl ) in the material sense or a…

, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Ḥasan , the historian, b. 1167/1753, d. 1825 or early 1826, was a descendant of a Ḥanafī family from al-D̲j̲abart [ q.v.]. According to al-D̲j̲abartī the people of that region were very strict in their religion and were inclined to asceticism. Many of them went on foot to the Ḥid̲j̲āz, either as pilgrims or as mud̲j̲āwirūn . They had three riwāḳs , of their own: one in the mosque of Medina, one in the mosque at Mecca, and one in the mosque of al-Azhar at Cairo. The forefather of the Egyptian branch of the family of al-D̲j̲abarti, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b…

The mamlūk upper class constituted an exclusive society. Only a person who himself was born an infidel and brought as a childslave ¶ from abroad, who was converted to Islam and set free after completing his military training and who usually bore a non-Arab name, could belong to that society. These rules implied that the mamlūk upper class should be a non-hereditary nobility, fo…

, in Persian mīr āk̲h̲ūr , “high equerry”, one of the highest officials in the court of Oriental princes. Under the Mamlūks the amīr āk̲h̲ūr was the supervisor of the royal stables. He was generally an amīr of a thousand and had under his orders three amīrs of fourty. In the Circassian period he occupied the fourth place among the grand amīrs, cf. A. N. Poliak, Feudalism in Egypt , Syria …

(The battle of). The first great trial of strength between the Mamlūks and the Mongols took place more than twenty years after the battle of ʿAyn Ḏj̲ālūt [ q.v.] at Ḥimṣ in 680/1281. Though this battle was won by Ḳalāwūn, the real architect of the victory was undoubtedly Sultan Baybars [ …