These were stationed almost exclusively in Cairo itself, though for much of this period a few dozen were posted in Mecca, and occasionally small detachments were despatched to garrison particular trouble spots, especially during the sultanate’s last few years. A few were also posted to Cyprus following its conquest in 1426. They possessed a considerable esprit de corps, which eventually led to an over-indulgence in political power and self-aggrandisement at the expense of military training, this being apparent from the late-14th century and in particular from the reign of al-Ashraf Aynal (1453-60). From that time onwards they acted more like bully-boys and gangsters than soldiers, terrorising the civil authorities, and yet at the same time totally wanting in military expertise so that one authority (Ibn Taghribirdi) was confident that, but for their respect for the sultan, even the lowliest of Cairo’s black slaves could have put them to flight.
On the accession of each new sultan to the throne the previous sultan’s mushtarawat was thrown out of the Cairo barracks, its leaders often being exiled or imprisoned (or, under exceptional circumstances, even executed), while senior posts were stripped from its members and handed over to the new sultan’s own mamluks. Thenceforward it became part of the mustakhdamun, which comprised the mamluks not only of previous sultans (the mamalik as-salatin, al-mutaqaddima or qaranisa) but also those of dead or dismissed amirs (the sayfiya). Since they were never amalgamated, but continued to exist right up to the death of their last members, there could be a considerable number of qaranisa units in existence within the Royal Mamluks at any one time (al-Maqrizi records 7 in his own day), usually recorded in the sources by the surnames of their respective masters11 — for example, under al-Ashraf Barsbay (1422-38) they included the Zahiriya of al-Zahir Barquq (1382-98), the Nasiriya of al-Nasir Faraj (1398-1412), the Mu’ayyadiya of al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh (1412-21), and others besides. They usually remained bitterly resentful both of each other (having been displaced and persecuted in turn by the mushtarawat of an incoming sultan), and of the reigning sultan’s mushtarawat too, so that the sultan could place little reliance on any of them. The sayfiya, on the other hand, owed no loyalty to any particular sultan and had no axe to grind, merely serving whoever
Happened to be on the throne at the time, and, being experienced soldiers, some of them were occasionally promoted in preference even to the sultan’s amirs or mushtarawat.
During the Bahri period (1250-1382) the Royal Mamluks often totalled more than 10,000 men, counting all the above categories — Sultan an-Nasir Mohammed (who reigned, with interruptions, 1293-1340) reputedly built a barracks capable of accommodating 12,000 men in the early part of the 14th century, other sources confirming that he bought mamluks on an unprecedented scale (though one nevertheless makes it clear that in 1315 he had only 2,000, organised in 40 units of 50 men). However, under the Burji, or Circassian, sultans who succeeded to the throne in 1382, the number of Royal Mamluks dropped dramatically, Ibn Taghribirdi explaining that this decline resulted from the purchase of state iqta’at (fiefs) by the amirs in their own mamluks’ names: ‘Not satisfied with this, they also entered them in the sultan’s household troops for a salary, so that an amir’s mamluk became a trooper in the standing army [i. e. the halqa], a sultan’s mamluk, and an amir’s mamluk all at the same time, so that the livelihood of 3 men went to one. So the income of some increased and that of others decreased, and thus Egypt’s army was weakened.’ Indeed, there can be no doubt that it was from this date on that the military effectiveness of the Mamluks began to wane, a process which accelerated after the mid-15th century. Under the first Circassian sultan, al-Zahir Barquq, there were 5,000 mushtarawat and mustakhdamun according to Ibn Taghribirdi, and 4,000 according to al-Maqrizi, though Ibn lyas (whom Ayalon says tends to exaggerate) claims somewhat improbably that the mushtarawat alone numbered as many as 7,000. Sultan al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh probably had 5,500 Royal Mamluks of all types at the very most (there were only 4,000 at a pay parade of 1420 where most were present), and al-Ashraf Barsbay had a similar, but smaller, number — 5,000 at the most, even including the halqa, according to his contemporary al-Maqrizi, though Ibn lyas records 5,000 mushtarawat alone; either way, the Ashrafiya are still recorded as a major element of the Mamluk army even as late as 1465. The next sultan but one, al-Zahir Jagmaq, had 4,000 in the year of his accession, but in 1460 al-Ashraf Aynal had only 1,000, plus 200 bought from Jaqmaq. Longer reigns tended to facilitate the accumulation of larger numbers of mamluks, so it is no surprise to find that under al-Ashraf Qaytbay (1468-95) the Royal Mamluks almost reached a total of 8,000 men, and would have but for an outbreak of the plague; by contrast az-Zahir Qansuh, who reigned for only a year (1498-99), had less than 2,000 mushtarawat. The penultimate Mamluk sultan, Qansuh al-Ghawri (1501-16), probably had about 4-5,000 purchased mamluks.
Of all these totals, a considerable proportion could be qaranis: in 1513 there were well over 1,000, and in 1514 there were 1,900 in a field army that included just 500 mushtarawat. Probably there were usually about 2-3,000, as would seem to be proven by a list of mustakhdamun contingents in the reign of al-Zahir Khushqadam (1461-67), which gives the Ashrafiya Aynal some 1,600 men, the Zahiriya Jaqmaq over 600 (including 5 amirs of 100), and the Ashrafiya Barsbay an unspecified number comprised principally of Khassakiya (see below) and of amirs of 1,000, 40 or 10, plus small numbers of Mu’ayyadiya (30 men) and Nasiriya; these figures should be compared to the strength of Khushqadam’s mushtarawat, which numbered 3,000 of whom 400 were kuttabiya, i. e. mamluks who had not yet finished their training and received their freedom.
Elite of the corps of Royal Mamluks were the sultan’s Khassakiya or select bodyguard, who stayed close by him at all times. They were frequently sent on special diplomatic missions and most amirs were chosen from amongst them. At first they numbered no more than 24 or 40 men, later 80, and though they were increased to 400 or even (according to one source) 1,000 under al-Nasir Faraj at the beginning of the 15th century, they were subsequently reduced again to 80 men, then 40, under his successors. However, under al-Ghawri they were again increased, to 800 by 1503 and later to 1,200, at which strength they still stood when the sultanate was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.
World History
