Mamluk

The Mongols, like, exting- you know, sacked Baghdad.

I mean, they were kind of around actually down into the, you know, 16th century 'cause, like, there was a branch that was just kinda kept as pets, uh, by the Mamelukes in Egypt, you know? But, like, setting that aside, they had a huge influence on Islam 'cause they were around for a long time, whereas, like, the Umayyads had, like, like, a little less than a century, you know? Like, so the Abbasids started 750 A-AD, and they continued to about, like, 1250.

And so they had a huge shaping influence on the narrative.

Uh, you know, to the victors, you know, go the spoils, and also, like, they write history.

And you should know that there has been such a level of emancipation that at one time in the Islamic world, all the governments were of slaves.

In the Middle East, the governments of the Mamluks were of slaves.

The Mamluks were great kings.

In India, the first government established in Delhi was the family of slaves.

Qutb-ul-Din-Aibak.

Important developments took place during this time.

For instance, under the rule of the last Mamluk ruler, Dawud Pasha, there were modernization programs and army reforms.

In 1831, the Ottomans wrested back control of Iraq and began to centralize authority in Baghdad.

Over the following decades, there was a focus on modernization, centralization, and improvements in industry and infrastructure.

The aim of these pages is to close the vestiges of the medieval city with the associations that lend them their deepest interest.

Many of the buildings of Cairo, especially the later mosques of the Mamluk period, are exquisitely beautiful and may be admired as works of art without regard to their history.

But there are many more, ruined courts, crumbling arcades, mere fragments of walls or inscriptions, which appeal rather to the archaeological than the aesthetic sense and must be almost meaningless until their story is revealed.

In tracing the growth of Cairo I have tried to surround the remains of its buildings with the atmosphere of their historic associations.

We return, pay, receive our purchase, commend him to the protection of God, and wend our way on.

But if instead of going on, we accompany our late antagonist in the bargain to his own home, we shall see what a middle-class Cairene house is like.

Indeed, a middle-class dwelling in Cairo may sometimes chance to be a palace, for the modern Pasha despises the noble mansions that were the pride and delight of better men than he in the good old days of the Mamluks, and prefers to live in shadeless Route number twenty-nine or thereabouts in the modern bricklayer's paradise known as the Ismailiyah Quarter.

And hence, the tradesman may sometimes occupy the house where the great bey of former times held his state and marshaled his retainers when he prepared to strike a blow for the precarious throne that was always at the command of the strongest battalions.