The day of the alliance of the Mamluks and the Ottomans.. the eastern Mediterranean under Islamic sovereignty

At the end of the fifth century AH / eleventh century AD, the European Crusaders hordes coming from land and sea were landing in the East. Relations between Islam and the West had reached their climax at that time in a fierce struggle on three fronts at the same time, in the east from Anatolia in the Seljuk conflict And the Byzantines, and from the south in the Mediterranean in terms of Egypt and the countries of North Africa, and from the west in a conflict that does not calm down in Andalusia.

Everyone - the Muslims and the Romans - realized that the Mediterranean and its islands, especially those located in the eastern part of it, are a key key to sovereignty, power and control in the political geography of this burning region, laden with conflicts of history and religion, and the ancient world trade center between the Far East on the one hand, where The trade of China and India, and the West on the one hand, which was the center of consumption with the greatest weight at that time.

And if the Crusaders had occupied the Levant and even Palestine since their first and second campaigns in 492 AH / 1099 AD, and then tried to occupy Egypt in the Fifth Crusades in 615 AH / 1213 AD, and the seventh in 647 AH / 1249 AD, they at the same time managed to gain absolute control over many of the eastern islands The Mediterranean, especially Cyprus, Rhodes and Crete, thanks to their great naval advance, and their ability to surpass the Roman Byzantine power in Eastern Europe and some Anatolia.

When the Ayyubids led by Salah al-Din, then the Mamluks led by "Baybars", "Qalawun" and "Khalil bin Qalawun" for nearly a century;

Whoever crushed the Crusaders and expelled them from Islamic geography in the Levant and turned it into Palestine, the presence of the remnants of the Crusaders in Cyprus and Rhodes remained a base for attacks on Muslim trade, shores, and their vital interests in the eastern and southern Mediterranean.

In conjunction with the power of the Mamluks in Egypt, the Levant, the Hijaz, the Red Bahrain and the Mediterranean, the Ottomans in Anatolia and Eastern Europe, after the fall of the Seljuks, were making their way, unifying their country, and getting stronger day after day.

It is true that the political and military competition between them and the Mamluks in the south continued for two whole centuries, during which they repeatedly tried to control important parts of Mamluk geography in the northern Levant and southern Anatolia. Eastern Mediterranean and Eastern Europe.

How, then, did the Mamluks and the Ottomans agree on the necessity of Islamic control over the eastern Mediterranean?

And how did the Egyptian Mamluks help the Ottoman Turks to control the island of Rhodes?

Egypt takes over Cyprus

In the year seven hundred and sixty-seven, the Franks took the city of Alexandria;

While inadvertently in seventy ships with the owner of Cyprus, they took them with the sword and continued for four days while killing, looting and capturing.

(Social Media)

After their defeat at the hands of the Ayyubids and Mamluks, the Crusaders made the island of Cyprus a center for attacking the Islamic ports in the eastern Mediterranean, and for threatening the Muslim trade.

They attacked Muslims intermittently through piracy, but the most dangerous of these organized attempts were those made by "Peter I of Luzhnan", King of Cyprus, in his crusade against Egyptian Alexandria in 767 AH / 1365 AD, and Egypt at that time was subject to the Mamluk Sultanate.

In this attack, the Mamluk historian Jamal al-Din bin Taghri Bardi wrote:

In the year seven hundred and sixty-seven, the Franks took the city of Alexandria on the twenty-third Friday of Muharram.

At a time of negligence in seventy (navy) pieces and with them the owner of Cyprus, and the number of the Franks exceeded thirty thousand, and they left the salty (Mediterranean) sea to the land of Alexandria, so its people came out to them and fought, so about four thousand Muslims were killed and the Franks stormed Alexandria and took it with the sword, and they continued with four Days while they were killed, looted and captured.”[1] Such a campaign was repeated on Tripoli in the year 796 AH / 1393 AD.

The Cypriot raids on Muslim ports in the eastern and southern Mediterranean did not stop, and the attempts of the Mamluk sultans did not succeed in repelling and eliminating this danger.

The attempts of the Mamluk sultan at that time, "Al-Ashraf Seif al-Din Barsbay", were unsuccessful in concluding a truce and peace treaty with Janus, King of Cyprus, which ensured that Muslim merchants and their ships would not be attacked[2].

And the Crusaders went too far in their arrogance, so they seized two merchant ships near the port of Damietta and captured those in them, then they seized a ship loaded with gifts sent by Sultan “Persebay” to the Ottoman Sultan “Murad II”, and “Persebay” at that time had no choice but to move with the support and support of this growing danger. A politician and diplomat from the Ottomans, the Mamluks in Egypt prepared three campaigns to invade Cyprus in three consecutive years[3].

In the third Egyptian campaign, Sultan "Persebay" aimed to conquer the island and subjugate it to Cairo. He prepared a campaign greater than the two previous ones and stronger in number and equipment. One hundred and eighty ships sailed from the port of Rashid in 829 AH / 1426 AD, and headed to Limassol, the most important port of Cyprus. The Cypriot capital surrendered to the Egyptian forces after their sweeping attack and strong siege, in Sha'ban 829 AH / July 1426 AD.

Then the campaign moved north to complete control of the entire island, and the Cypriot king tried to push the Egyptian forces with his strength, but he failed and fell captive.

Upon the return of the campaign that split the streets of Cairo, the Egyptians rejoiced and held celebrations and festivals, and its people gathered to receive the princes and volunteer mujahideen, while the prisoners - numbering 3700 - walked behind the procession, including King "Janus" and his princes on whom the Mamluks imposed harsh conditions for peace[4].

Cyprus, then, became politically affiliated with Cairo from that date until the fall of the Mamluks at the hands of the Ottomans after nearly ninety years.

The truth is that the conquest of Cyprus and its annexation to the Egyptian Mamluk sovereignty was always behind it keen Ottoman demands on western Anatolia and Rumeli. Europe.

Rasul Khond Kar Murad Bin Othman, who possessed the land of the Romans, was at the head of the audience in the official Mamluk celebrations that were held to receive the victorious armies coming from Cyprus.

Historian Said Ashour noted in his book “The Crusade Movement” that the view of Christians in the West and East towards the Turks of Asia Minor (today’s Turkey) appears clearly in the projects of the advocates of the Crusades in the late Middle Ages, and therefore many of these preachers called for the conquest of Asia Minor because it is the path that It brings the Crusaders to the Holy Land on the one hand, and their sense of the increasing Turkish danger and their desire to eliminate it before it is too late on the other.

The kings of Cyprus actively participated in the projects of these preachers, and even hastened their implementation;

Which achieved a great deal of understanding and alliance between the Turks of Asia Minor and the Mamluk sultans in Cairo with the aim of confronting the common enemy.

Among this is what the Egyptian historian “Ibn Fadlallah Al-Omri” states that the Turks in Anatolia turned towards the Mamluk sultans, so they took them as noondays and enemy of accidents as an asset, and their correspondences, messengers and gifts were constantly received in Cairo[5].

Egyptian-Turkish union to subjugate "Rhodes"

The Mamluks defeated the Cypriots, and reconsidered the Egyptian domination of the eastern Mediterranean in the era of "Persebay", but his predecessor, the apparent Sultan "Saif al-Din Jaqmaq" tried to achieve a victory over the Crusaders on another island, the island of "Rhodes", in response to an Ottoman desire in the original.

The Ottomans sent to Cairo, hoping from it to attack Rhodes, in light of the preoccupation of the Ottoman Sultan, "Murad II" with the Crusaders' war in the Balkans, in order to relieve the pressure on his forces.

Therefore, we see in the sources of Mamluk history the successive arrival of ambassadors of the Ottoman Empire to Cairo to inform its sultans of the latest developments in the war between the Ottomans and the Crusaders in Eastern Europe.

In the year 843 AH, "Messengers of Murad bin Othman attended at the time of service in the palace..., and his books included greetings and congratulating the Sultan for sitting on the king's bed, even if he was late in sending him congratulations because he was engaged in fighting Banu Asfar until God won him over them"[6] as Al-Maqrizi told us in his history.

The Mamluk-Ottoman relations between Cairo and Istanbul grew stronger over time, especially after the conquest of Constantinople in 857 AH. When the Ottoman ambassadors came to preach this news, which caused a resounding effect in the Christian and Islamic worlds, the Mamluk Sultan "Al-Ashraf Inal" decided to celebrate this victory in a scene he described. Ibn Taghri Bardi," saying:The aforementioned destination came with two captives from the greats of Istanbul, and he took them to the Sultan, who were from the people of Constantinople, which is the great church in Istanbul. And in his hands the two (Byzantine) captives mentioned to the castle on Monday, the twenty-fifth of Shawwal, after the aforementioned destination and his company passed through the streets of Cairo, and people celebrated the decoration of shops and places, and they worked hard in that to the end, and the Sultan worked in the royal courtyard from the castle of the mountain "[7] .

(Social Media)

Although the Sultan sent the Conqueror to Cairo heralding this conquest, the conquest of Constantinople was the real beginning of the Ottomans' feeling that they had become stronger than the Mamluks, who had long sought to please them and sought their support for nearly a century.

The Ottomans began to interfere in the affairs of the northern Mamluk state bordering their borders, and the matter developed into an indirect (and then direct) military conflict;

This led to the fall of the Mamluks at the hands of Sultan Selim I.

Although the Ottomans overthrew the Mamluks, and seized the Levant, Egypt, and Hejaz;

At the same time, they kept the Circassian Mamluk element in the leadership and military positions in Egypt, and they were satisfied with them to fall under the rule of the Ottomans because they saw their strength and military importance, even if this led to the Mamluk coup against the Ottomans later.

Despite the control of the Mamluks over Cyprus, and after them the Ottomans;

The island of Rhodes

Sultan "Suleiman the Magnificent" (social networking sites)

And when the north and southeast of the Mediterranean became in the grip of the Ottomans, Sultan “Suleiman the Magnificent” decided in 928 AH / 1532 AD to open this island, so he sent to his deputy on Egypt, the Mamluk Prince “Khayyir Bey” ordering him to prepare a large military campaign to participate in this huge military operation. Bey" is one of the remnants of the Mamluks who showed their loyalty to the Ottomans, and indeed he began to prepare the campaign from the elements of the Ottoman divisions in Cairo, such as the Janissaries and the Sabbah, and from the Circassian Mamluk divisions. The Ottoman soldiers and the Circassians, and the strength of the Egyptian expedition at that time reached one thousand five hundred fighters.

The governor of Egypt not only made the leadership of the Egyptian military campaign to Prince "Qaytbay", but also assigned the leadership of the Ottoman military under the campaign banner to the Mamluk Prince "Ganim al-Hamzawi", in reference to the Ottomans that the Mamluk-Egyptian element that ruled Egypt and the Levant for more than two and a half centuries is still the same. An effective and reliable role in matters of military leadership.

The campaign started from Port Rashid in Sha’ban 928 AH / 1532 AD until it reached across the Mediterranean to a small island near “Rhodes” in the middle of the month of Ramadan, and Sultan “Suleiman the Magnificent” received them on that island with all the warmth and honor worthy of them[8].

The Ottoman Sultan announced the zero hour, and the attack on the island began in the month of Shawwal, and focused his attack on the fortified walls that were built around the island, and several attempts were made to storm it from the Ottoman side, and the siege and attack continued at intermittent periods for three years during which the Egyptian military campaign that did not withdraw Availability of the necessary material and in-kind support from Cairo.

Finally, in the year 931 AH / 1525 AD, the Ottomans, with the support of the Mamluks, achieved a victorious victory against the Crusaders in “Rhodes” under the leadership of the Hospitaller, and “Rhodes” has since entered the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire. life) with great gifts and favours;

They returned to Egypt victorious and rejoicing [9].

Egypt's contributions to Rhodes did not stop after that conquest. .

Thus, the political, diplomatic, and military union of the Mamluks of Egypt and the Ottomans of Turkey in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries AD played a pivotal role in subjecting the eastern Mediterranean to Islamic strategic, commercial and cultural hegemony for centuries.

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Sources