The Mamluk Golden Alliance.. How did Barakat Khan protect the cities of Russia, Ukraine and the Islamic world from the encroachment of Hulagu?

In the thirteenth century AD, the massive Mongol advance began as if it would put an end to all Islamic cities and metropolis, after the fall of the Khwarizmian state that ruled vast lands in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Persia, followed by the bloody and rapid fall of Baghdad in 656 AH / 1258 AD and the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate with it, and then followed that The fall of most of the cities of the Levant and Palestine.

But the Mongol expansion quickly turned on its heels, forming one of the greatest paradoxes of history in the Middle Ages - the grandson of the Mughal Emperor Genghis Khan (1165-1227 AD) and a cousin of his successor, Hulagu Khan - allied with the Mamluk Bahri dynasty in Egypt (their origins also go back to the same tribes of the Kabjak Turks). from Central Asia) to put an end to the Mongol advance that nearly completed its way to North Africa, Arabia and even Europe.

The story of Baraka Khan, the leader of the Qibjaks, and the Khanate (emirate) of the Golden Horde, represents a challenge to all the stereotypes that were associated with the Mongols and their dynasty, as the man is described as the founder of the Islamic presence in his country. The culture of Muslim subjects prevailing in an imperial court was, only a few years ago, the greatest threat to the continuity of Muslim societies and their thriving metropolis in the three continents of the ancient world.

The territory of the Khanate of the Golden Horde included a vast area that extended across Khorasan, Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia, and Baraka Khan began his activities against the Ilkhanate state founded by his cousin, which made him in alliance with the Mamluks, and as a result some religious scholars came from the lands conquered by Hulagu to the state of the Golden Horde and Islam was accepted - Which was previously known through traders - in the country significantly.

Lands ruled by the Khanate of the Golden Horde and included Crimea and large parts of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia and the Caucasus (Shutterstock)

The rise and fall of the Golden Khanate

The Khanate of the Golden Horde formed the western part of the Mughal Empire, which flourished from the middle of the 13th century until the end of the 14th century. The people of the Golden Horde were a mixture of Turks, Mongols and other subjects, and the Mongols generally constituted the aristocracy, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The western part of the empire of Genghis Khan became a gift to his eldest son Juchi, who joined his father in 1227, and after his death Batu son of Juchi expanded his country's lands in a series of military campaigns that included the capture of the city of Kyiv (currently the Ukrainian capital) in 1240, and at the height of its expansion extended the lands of the tribe The Golden Horde from the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe (between present-day Czechs, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary) to the Siberian steppes (present-day eastern Russia) and to the south became the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the territory of the Mongol Ilkhanate dynasty in Persia the southern border of the Khanate of the Golden Horde.

The influence on Asian Islamic architecture is evident in the mausoleum of Juchi bin Genghis Khan in Karaganda, Kazakh (communication sites)

Batu established his imperial capital, Sarai Batu, on the lower Volga River.

The capital was later moved upstream, the New Saray, which was built by Barkeh Khan after he acceded to the throne in 1255 AD, some time after the departure of his brother Batu.

Barakat Khan united the White and Blue tribes as two wings of a single empire called the Golden Horde. From the later Islamic empires such as the Timurids, the Safavids, the Ottomans, the Mughals, and also the Tatar princes.

And he changed the conversion to Islam of the Mongols of the Golden Horde, and contributed to the movement of urbanization, stability and urbanization, and raising the cultural level of their cities, which were full of scholars, jurists, writers and intellectuals, mosques, schools and corners that Arab travelers wrote about, including Ibn Battuta.

The relationship between the two golden states and the Mamluks was not limited to the military alliance, but deepened thanks to the enormous trade exchange and diplomacy of gifts. The craftsmen, craftsmen and scholars sent by the Mamluks of Egypt to the Khanate contributed to the development of the Khanate, which acquired civilizational landmarks on the Volga River, influenced by the Mamluk Mediterranean culture.

Saray is one of the largest medieval cities and moved from Old Saray (Bato) to New Saray (Baraka) (Shutterstock)

After the departure of Barka Khan, the Khanate witnessed a new era of revival led by Uzbek (1312-1341). While the Turkish tribes focused on animal husbandry in the Eurasian steppes, their subjects from the Eastern Slavs, Mordovians, Greeks, Georgians and Armenians paid tribute, and the Russian princes, especially the Muscovy princes, obtained Responsibility for collecting local taxes, while the Golden Horde built a wide trade network with the peoples of the Mediterranean, especially the allies in Mamluk Egypt and Italian Genoa, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The epidemic of the Black Death, which occurred between (1346-1347) and the killing of the successor of Uzbek, marked the beginning of the decline and disintegration of the Golden Khanate, as the Russian princes achieved a prominent victory over the Golden Horde in 1380, but the latter returned to victory over the Russians and burns Moscow in revenge in 1382 and restores the influence of the Khanate The Golden Horde on the Russians.

The Golden Horde allies led by Timur devastated the lands of the Khanate that they conquered in the late 14th century, ravaged Sarai Barka, and deported most of the region's skilled craftsmen to Central Asia, thus depriving it of its technical advantage over Russia's Muscovy.

In the 15th century, the Golden Khanate disintegrated into several smaller khanates, the most important of which are the Crimean, Astrakhan and Kazan khanates.

The last remnants of the Golden Horde were destroyed by the Crimean Khan in 1502, and the Russians leaped for liberation from the hegemony of the Golden Khanate since the end of the 14th century, so the connection between the history of the Golden Horde Khanate and the confrontation with the Russians continued until the dissolution and division of the Khanate and the fall of its last remnants (the Crimean and Kazakh Khanates) in 1783 and 1847, respectively.

trade and prosperity

The "Mongol Khanate" was considered the central node in the Eurasian trade boom (Europe and Asia) in the 13th and 14th centuries, and was a channel for intellectual and commercial exchanges across thousands of miles, according to a previous report by Al Jazeera Net.

With their unique political system - a complex arrangement of power-sharing between the khan and the nobles - skilled administrators and diplomats were rewarded, and a vibrant, orderly and innovative economic system was fostered.

A model of Saray Batu, the capital of the Golden Horde in Astrakhan, one of the cities of the Russian Federation (Shutterstock)

From Sarai (the capital of the Golden Horde and the Mongol kingdom) which Ibn Khaldun described as one of the most beautiful cities, "full of people, beautiful bazaars and wide streets" and located on the lower Volga in the south of present-day Russia, the Mongol Khanate provided a model of rule for Russia, and influenced social practices and structure The state crossed Islamic cultures, provided theories and ideas about the natural world, and modeled religious tolerance, and ruled most of Russia as well as parts of Siberia, the Balkans, northern Central Asia, and the Caucasus.

As Batu Khan adopted a policy of religious tolerance towards the subjects of the Khanate, which included a mixture of multiple races, peoples and cultures, Baraka Khan made his brother and the ruler after him the Khanate an Asian Islamic state whose cities were a destination for merchants and scholars, who came from all over the Islamic world and contributed mainly to the conversion of the Khanate to Islam And the emergence of the name of the Abbasid caliph on the coins in circulation.

The religion of Islam had a great influence on the mandate of the Golden Horde at the political, economic and state levels.

Economically, Islam through Muslim merchants found the opportunity to spread in the country and make the capital, Sarai, a very crowded commercial center, according to a study of the researcher in the history of the Mughals, Fatih Bostanci.

The mosques, tombs, madrasas and hostels that were built in the state of the Golden Horde influenced the architectural structure of the country, and the country became a center for science, literature and knowledge, thanks to the developed political and cultural relations with its contemporary Islamic countries.