Burji dynasty

The Burji or Circassian[1] Mamluk (Arabic: المماليك الشركس‎) dynasty ruled Egypt from 1382 until 1517, during the Mamluk Sultanate. It proved especially turbulent, with short-lived sultans. Political power-plays often became important in designating a new sultan. During this time Mamluks fought Timur and conquered Cyprus. Constant bickering may have contributed to the ability of the Ottomans to challenge them. Their name means 'of the tower', referring to them ruling from the Citadel east of Cairo.

Map of the Mamluk Sultanate (orange), under Burji dynasty rule in 1389.

History

Tomb of al-Zahir Qansuh, a Burji Mamluk Sultan, in Cairo.

Tomb of Sultan al-Zahir Qansuh circa 1858

From 1250 Egypt had been ruled by the first Mamluk dynasty, the mostly Cuman-Kipchak Turkic Bahri dynasty.[1] In 1377 a revolt broke out in Syria which spread to Egypt, and the government was taken over by the Circassians Barakah and Barquq; Barquq was proclaimed sultan in 1382, ending the Bahri dynasty. He was expelled in 1389 but recaptured Cairo in 1390. Early on, the Zahiri Revolt threatened to overthrow Barquq though the conspiracy was discovered before agitators could mobilize. Permanently in power, he founded the Burji dynasty.

Faced with a common enemy, Timur, Barquq joined with Bayezid I and Toktamish in a combined resistance and executed Timur's peace envoys.[2] In the following months Timur was engaged in Georgia and unable to respond to Barquq's actions, while Barquq had died by 1399.[2] In 1401, Timur invaded Syria and sacked Aleppo[3] and Damascus. Syria was regained by sultan Nasir-ad-Din Faraj after Timur died in 1405, but Faraj continually faced rebellions from the emirs there and he was forced to abdicate in 1412.

In 1421 Egypt was attacked by the Kingdom of Cyprus, and although the Egyptians were unable to capture the island they forced the Cypriotes to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Egyptian sultan Barsbay. During Barsbay's reign Egypt's population was greatly reduced from what it had been a few centuries before, with only 1/5 the number of towns. He frequently raided Asia Minor, but died in 1438.

During the reign of Sayf-ad-Din Jaqmaq an attempt to conquer Rhodes in 1444 from the Knights of St. John was repelled.

Sayf ad-Din Inal came to power in 1453 and had friendly relations with the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, who captured Constantinople later that year, causing great rejoicings in Egypt. However, under the Greek reign of Khoshkadam,[4] who took power in 1463, Egypt began the struggle between the Egyptian and the Ottoman sultanates which finally led to the incorporation of Egypt in the Ottoman Empire. Both Koshkadam and Mehmed II supported different candidates to the principality of Karaman; then in 1467 sultan Kait Bey offended the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II, whose brother was poisoned while being entertained by Kait. Bayezid II seized Adana, Tarsus and other places within Egyptian territory, but was eventually defeated by Kait. Kait also tried to help the Muslims in Spain by threatening the Christians in Syria, but without effect. He died in 1496, leaving several hundred thousand ducats debts to the great Venetian trading families.

List of Burji Sultans

Titular Name(s)	Personal Name	Reign
Al-Zahir الظاہر	Sayf-ad-Din Barquq سیف الدین برقوق	1382–1389 first reign
Sultan As-Saleh Al-Muzaffar Al-Mansur سلطان الصالح المظفر المنصور	Salah-ad-Din Hajji II صلاح الدین حاجی ثانی	1389
Al-Zahir الظاہر	Sayf-ad-Din Barquq سیف الدین برقوق	1390–1399 second reign
Al-Nasir الناصر	Nasir-ad-Din Faraj ناصر الدین فرج	1399–1405 first reign
Al-Mansur المنصور	Izz ad-Din Abd al-Aziz عز الدین عبدالعزیز	1405
Al-Nasir الناصر	Nasir-ad-Din Faraj ناصر الدین فرج	1405–1412 second reign
Al-Adil العادل	Al-Musta'in Billah المستعین باللہ	1412
Al-Mu'ayyad المؤید	Shaykh al-Mahmudi شيخ المحمودى	1412–1421
Al-Muzaffar المظفر	Ahmad أحمد	1421
Al-Zahir الظاہر	Sayf ad-Din Tatar سیف الدین تتر	1421
As-Saleh الصالح	An-Nasir ad-Din Muhammad ناصر الدین محمد	1421–1422
Al-Ashraf الأشرف	Sayf-ad-Din Barsbay سیف الدین برسبای	1422–1437
Al-Aziz العزیز	Jamal-ad-Din Yusuf جمال الدین یوسف	1437–1438
Al-Zahir الظاہر	Sayf ad-Din Jaqmaq سیف الدین جقمق	1438–1453
Al-Mansur المنصور	Fakhr-ad-Din Uthman فخرالدین عثمان	1453
Al-Ashraf الأشرف	Sayf-ad-Din Inal سیف الدین إینال	1453–1461
Al-Mu'ayyad المؤید	Shihab-ad-Din Ahmad شھاب الدین أحمد	1461
Al-Zahir الظاہر	Sayf ad-Din Khushqadam سیف الدین خوش قدم	1461–1467
Al-Zahir الظاہر	Sayf ad-Din Bilbay سیف الدین بلبأی	1467
Al-Zahir الظاہر	Taimur Bugha تیمور بغا	1467–1468
Al-Ashraf الأشرف	Sayf-ad-Din Qait Bay سیف الدین قایتبای	1468–1496
Al-Nasir الناصر	Muhammad bin Qait Bay الناصر محمد بن قایتبای	1496–1497 first reign
Al-Zahir الظاہر	Qansuh Khumsama'ah قانصوه خمسمائة	1497
Al-Nasir الناصر	Muhammad bin Qait Bay الناصر محمد بن قایتبای	1497–1498 second reign
Al-Zahir الظاہر	Qansuh Al-Ashrafi قانصوہ الأشرفی	1498–1500
Al-Ashraf الأشرف	Al-Ashraf Janbalat جنبلاط	1500–1501
Al-Adil العادل	Sayf-ad-Din Tuman Bay I سیف الدین طومان بای	1501
Al-Ashraf الأشرف	Qansuh Al-Ghawri قانصوہ الغوری	1501–1516
Al-Ashraf الأشرف	Tuman Bay II طومان بای	1516–1517
Burji dynasty of the Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo) falls to Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim I in 1517 C.E.

• Orange shaded row signifies brief interruption in the rule of Burji dynasty by Bahri dynasty.
  • Silver shaded row signifies interruption in the rule of Burji dynasty by Abbasid dynasty.

Conquest by Ottomans

The relationship between the Ottomans and the Mamluks had been adversarial since the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453; both states vied for control of the spice trade, and the Ottomans aspired to eventually taking control of the Holy Cities of Islam.[5] An earlier conflict, which lasted from 1485 to 1491, had led to a stalemate.

By 1516, the Ottomans were free from other concerns—Sultan Selim I had just vanquished the Safavid Persians at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514[6]—and turned their full might against the Mamluks, who ruled in Syria and Egypt, to complete the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East.[6]

In 1517 the Ottoman Turks and their Sultan Selim I defeated the Mamluks with the capture of Cairo on January 20. The centre of power transferred from Cairo to Constantinople. However, the Ottoman Empire retained the Mamluks as an Egyptian ruling class and the Mamluks and the Burji family succeeded in regaining much of their influence, but remained technical vassals of the Ottomans.

See also

• History of Arab Egypt
• History of Ottoman Egypt
• List of Sunni Muslim dynasties

References

1. McGregor, Andrew James (2006). A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 15. ISBN 9780275986018. By the late fourteenth century Circassians from the north Caucasus region had become the majority in the Mamluk ranks.
2. The Mamluk Sultans: 1291–1517, Mustafa M. Ziada, A History of the Crusades: The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Vol. III, ed. Kenneth Setton, (University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), 490.
3. Aleppo:the Ottoman Empire's caravan city, Bruce Masters, The Ottoman City Between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul, ed. Edhem Eldem, Daniel Goffman, Bruce Master, (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 20.
4. Kenneth Meyer Setton (1969). A History of the Crusades: The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, edited by .... Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 502.
5. Ottoman seapower and Levantine diplomacy in the age of discovery by Palmira Johnson Brummett p.52ff
6. The Ottoman Empire: A Short History by Saraiya Faroqhi p.60ff

Further reading

• Petry, Carl Forbes (2012). "Circassians, Mamlūk". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.