Who Was When

You are looking at

Mamluk Sultanate

Middle East & Central AsiaHeartland today: Egypt and Syria

Compare with…

Meanwhile…

A state ruled from Cairo by sultans who were mostly former slave soldiers. It held Egypt and Syria, stopped the Mongols at Ain Jalut in 1260, took Acre from the Crusaders in 1291, and fell to the Ottomans in 1517.

Also alive at the same time

Key events

  1. Mamluk officers kill the Ayyubid sultan Turanshah and Shajar al-Durr takes the throne of Egypt

    Also happening around

  2. A Mamluk army under Qutuz and Baybars defeats the Mongol force of Kitbuqa at Ain Jalut

    Historians debate how much the Mongol withdrawal owed to supply shortages, since Hulegu had already taken most of his troops away.

    Also happening around

  3. Sultan Baybars proclaims an Abbasid refugee as caliph in Cairo and receives investiture from him

    Al-Mustansir, an uncle of the last Baghdad caliph, was the first Abbasid caliph in Cairo (1261). Baybars installed a second, al-Hakim I, in 1262, and his line lasted under Mamluk protection until 1517.

    Also happening around

  4. Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil besieges and takes Acre, the last major Crusader stronghold on the Levant coast

    Also happening around

  5. – Sultan al-Nasir Hasan builds his mosque-madrasa in Cairo, with a minaret 84 metres tall, the tallest of the Mamluk eraDisputed

    Work began in 1356. Sources give completion in 1361 or 1363: the sultan was deposed in 1361 and the building was finished after his fall. The 84-metre height of the surviving minaret comes from Wikipedia.

    Also happening around

  6. Barquq, a Circassian mamluk, becomes sultan and begins the Burji line

    Also happening around

  7. – Ottoman forces under Selim I defeat the Mamluks at Marj Dabiq and Ridaniya and take Cairo; Sultan Tuman Bay II is executed

    Marj Dabiq was fought on 24 August 1516 and Ridaniya on 22 January 1517 (23 January in some accounts); Tuman Bay II was executed in April 1517.

    Also happening around