Mameluk

Mamluk (Arabic: مملوك mamlūk (singular), مماليك mamālīk (plural), meaning "property" , also transliterated as mamlouk, mamluq, mamluke, mameluk, mameluke, mamaluke or marmeluke) is an Arabic designation for slaves. The term is most commonly used to refer to Muslim slave soldiers and Muslim rulers of slave origin.

More specifically, it refers to:

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, but also Copts,Circassians,Abkhazians, and Georgians,. 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 ninth to the nineteenth centuries.

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 centered on Egypt and Syria 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.

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