Wiktionary
n. (alternative form of mameluke English)
Wikipedia
Mamluk ( Arabic: mamlūk (singular), mamālīk (plural), meaning "property" or "owned slave" of the king, also transliterated as mamlouk, mamluq, mamluke, mameluk, mameluke, mamaluke or marmeluke) is an Arabic designation for slaves.
More specifically, it refers to:
- Khwarazmian dynasty in Iran (1077–1231)
- Mamluk Dynasty (Delhi) (1206–1290)
- Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo) (1250–1517)
- Mamluk dynasty of Iraq (1704–1831, under Ottoman Iraq)
The most enduring Mamluk realm was the knightly military caste in Egypt in the Middle Ages that rose from the ranks of slave soldiers who were mainly Turkic peoples, Circassians, Abkhazians, Georgians, and Copts. Many Mamluks could also be of Balkan origin ( Albanians, Greeks, and South Slavs). The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior class, was of great political importance and was extraordinarily long-lived, lasting from the 9th to the 19th centuries AD.
Over time, mamluks became a powerful military knightly caste in various societies that were controlled by Muslim rulers. Particularly in Egypt, but also in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and India, mamluks held political and military power. In some cases, they attained the rank of sultan, while in others they held regional power as emirs or beys. Most notably, mamluk factions seized the sultanate for themselves in Egypt and Syria in a period known as the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517). The Mamluk Sultanate famously defeated the Ilkhanate at the Battle of Ain Jalut; they had earlier fought the Crusaders in 1154-1169 and 1213-1221, effectively driving them out of Egypt and the Levant. In 1302 they formally expelled the last Crusaders from the Levant, ending the era of the Crusades.
While mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, who were not allowed to carry weapons or perform certain tasks. In places such as Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, mamluks were considered to be “true lords" and "true warriors" with social status above the general population in Egypt and the Levant.
In the Middle Ages, soon after the Mamlukes took up the practice of chivalry, or furusiyya in Arabic, they came to be known as knights (or faris in Arabic), although unfree until after their service. The faris or "knight" in the Muslim world (whether free like Usama ibn Munqidh or unfree professional warriors like ghulams and mamluks) was trained in the use of various weapons such as the saif (sword), spear, lance, javelin, club, bow and arrows, and tabarzin or axe (hence Mamluk body-guards known as tabardariyya) They were also trained in wrestling, and their martial art skills were to be honed first on foot and then perfected when mounted. They were popularly used as heavy knightly cavalry by a number of different Islamic kingdoms and empires, including the Ayyubids, the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt, and the Ottomans.
Mamluk may refer to
- Mamluk, a social institution in the Islamic world before the nineteenth century.
- Mamluk Sultanate (Delhi), a state in northern India in the 13th century.
- Mamluk dynasty of Iraq in the 18th and 19th centuries
- Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo), a state that ruled Egypt and Syria from the 13th through the early 16th centuries.
- Mameluke (horse), a racehorse.
- Mameluke sword, used by the United States Marine Corps and formerly by the British Army.
Usage examples of "mamluk".
Officer, was just climbing out of the lighter, surrounded by a group of the Men of the Pen, who were the senior administrators of the Mamluk government.
Bedawi prisoner, like a certain Mamluk Bey, jumped down the precipitous cove-face and effected his escape.
At the time of our passing through, it was an adjunct of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or what still remained of that kingdom, which has since fallen entirely under the rule of the Mamluk Saracens.
But in the fifteenth century, a Mamluk sultan built a fort on the peninsula.
Hussein and one of his mamluks cried out in shock and rushed to support him.
And in the hour of the evening prayer, while we all performed the prostrations toward Mecca, two of the Sultan's mamluks, the most trusted of his servants, whom he had loved like sons, rose up and killed him.