The beylicate in Ottoman Egypt during the seventeenth century

P. M. Holt

doi:10.1017/S0041977X00091424

The beylicate in Ottoman Egypt during the seventeenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009

P. M. Holt

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

The period of nearly three centuries which lies between Selīm I's overthrow of the Mamluk sultanate in 1517, and Bonaparte's landing at Alexandria in 1798 is one of the most obscure in the history of Muslim Egypt. For the latter part of the period, from the early twelfth/eighteenth century, there are ample materials for the reconstruction of the political history in the famous chronicle by Jabartī. The Ottoman invasion, and the years which immediately succeeded it have also received some attention, thanks to the detailed information provided by the chronicler Ibn Iyās. In contrast, there has been virtually no investigation of the last seventy-five years of the sixteenth century and the whole of the seventeenth.

Type: Articles
Information: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , February 1961 , pp. 214 - 248

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00091424 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 214 note 1} al-Jabartī, 'Abd al-Ramān, 'Ajā'ib al-āthār fī'l-tarājim wa'l-akhbār, Būlāq, 1297/1879–1880—the edition used in this studyGoogle Scholar. Later editions, both in Cairo, in 1302/1884–5 and 1322/1904–5.

^{page 214 note 2} Muḥammad, b. Aḥmad, b. Iyās, , Badā'i' al-zuhūr fī toaqā'i' al-duhūr, V, Istanbul, 1932Google Scholar.

^{page 214 note 3} cf. Stanford J. Shaw, El, new ed., s.v. al-Bakrī, b. Abi'l-Surür.

^{page 214 note 4} See Brockelmann, , GAL, II, 383Google Scholar, Suppl., II, 409. The manuscripṭ cited in this study is Bodleian MS Pocock. 80.

^{page 215 note 1} See Brockelmann, as above, p. 214, n. 4. The manuscript cited in this study is BM Add-9973.

^{page 215 note 2} BM MS Add. 9972.

^{page 215 note 3} Bibliothèque Nationale, MS arabe 1855.

^{page 215 note 4} Muḥammad, 'Abd al-Mu'ṭī al-Isḥāqī, Akhbār al-uwal fī man taṣarrafa fī Miṣsr min arbāb al-duival, Cairo, 1311/1893–1894Google Scholar.

^{page 216 note 1} The spelling ‘Mamluk’ is used for institutions, whereas mamlūk is used for the actual slaves or emancipated persons of the Mamluk households.

^{page 217 note 1} A belief has arisen that the viceroy of Egypt ‘could not leave Cairo, and was indeed con-fined to the Citadel by the Ḳânûn-Nâma’ (Gibb, H. A. R. and Bowen, Harold, Islamic society and the West, I, Pt. I, London, 1950, 202, n. 4Google Scholar. Although it is substantially true that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the viceroys were restricted to the Citadel, this was not so previously, nor was it in any case an administrative requirement. The Qānūnnāme merely assigns the Citadel to the viceroy as his customary residence; cf. Barkan, O. L., Osmanh imparatorluǧunda ziraî ekonominin hukukî ve malî esaslan, I, Istanbul, 1943, cvGoogle Scholar, ‘Misir kanunnâmesi’, 378. In 923/1517, Sultan Selīm appointed a military governor of the Citadel, who was enjoined to remain there, and not to go down into the city (lyās, Ibn, op. cit., 202)Google Scholar. This person, an Ottoman named Khayr al-Dīn Pasha, was, however, quite distinct from the viceroy. Ibn Abi'l-Surūr, who copies Ibn Iyās's statement verbatim (Kawākib, f. 14b) indeed adds the gloss respecting this officer, ‘and now in our time he is called the agha of Janissaries’.

^{page 217 note 2} The common statement that Lower Nubia, Suakin, and Massawa were conquered by (or in the reign of) Sultan Selīm I is a myth. It derives ultimately from the accounts given by Burckhardt, J. L., Travels in Nubia, London, 1819, 133, 433Google Scholar, which presumably represent traditions current in the early nineteenth century. Burckhardt's statements were conflated with other local traditions by Shuqayr, Na'ūm, Ta'rīkh al-Sūdān, Cairo, [1903], I, 104Google Scholar; II, 55, 73–4, 108–9. Shuqayr's account was in turn paraphrased in English in Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Egyptian Sûdân, London, 1907, II, 200–1, 207Google Scholar. The resultant amalgam of legends has been uncritically accepted by such later writers as Crawford, O. G. S., The Fung kingdom of Sennar, Gloucester, 1951, 123Google Scholar, 168–71. The ascription by local tradition of these conquests to Selim is in accordance with the tendency, of which there are other examples, to present Selīm as an heroic figure. The Burckhardt-Shuqayr-Budge traditions all ignore Özdemir Pasha, for whose exploits, see Muḥmmad, Qutb al-Dīn b. al-Makkī, Aḥmad, al-Barq al-Yamānï, BM MS Or. 1183, ff. 43a–bGoogle Scholar, and Çelebi, Evliya, Seyahatname, X, Istanbul, 1938, 840 ff., 939 ff., 950 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 217 note 3} See Lewis, B., ‘Some reflections on the decline of the Ottoman Empire’, Studia Islamica, IX, 1958, 119–22Google Scholar.

^{page 218 note 1} Numbers prefixed to the names of beys refer to the notices in the biographical dictionary in Part II of this study.

^{page 218 note 2} See P. M. Holt, El, new ed., s.v. Dhu'l-Faḳāriyya.

^{page 218 note 3} This incident is mentioned, but not described, by Jabartī, I, 91. For a contemporary mono-graph on the subject, see Ibrāhīm, b. Abī Bakr al-Ṣāliḥī, Tarājim al-sawā'iq fī waqī'at al-ṣanājiq, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS arabe 1853Google Scholar.

^{page 219 note 1} Vansleb, P., Nouvelle relation… d'un voyage fait en Egypte, Paris, 1677, 93–1Google Scholar.

^{page 219 note 2} See Jabartī, I, 90, 105–6.

^{page 219 note 3} See Jabartī, i, 92–3, 106–7.

^{page 219 note 4} The form ṣanjaq is commoner in Egyptian sources than sanjaq or sanjāq.

^{page 221 note 1} Vansleb, , op. cit., 32Google Scholar, ‘Les Turcs chasserent il y a cinquante ans, ou environ, ces Princes Arabes, et mirent en leur place des Sangiac-Beys, qui estoient Turcs naturels, dont le premier s'appeloit Soliman-Gianballat'.

^{page 221 note 2} cf. Ayalon, D., ‘Studies on the structure of the Mamluk army—II’, BSOAS, XV, 3, 1953, 468Google Scholar.

^{page 221 note 3} Iyās, Ibn, op. cit., 365, 389, 439Google Scholar. See above, p. 216.

^{page 222 note 1} Al-Barq al- Yamānī, f. 25a.

^{page 222 note 2} Kawākib, f. 22b.

^{page 222 note 3} Al-Barq al-Yamānī, f. 28a.

^{page 222 note 4} Al-amīr Ibrāhīm b. Taghri (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS arabe 1854, ff. 46–49b); Ibrāhīm b. Taghrīwardī (Mar'ī b. Yūsuf, Bodleian, MS D'Orville 544, unfoliated); Ibrahim Bey(Kawdkib, f. 17a).

^{page 222 note 5} Bibliothèque Nationale, MS arabe 1854, f. 48a; Kawākib, f. 18b.

^{page 222 note 6} Paris Fragment, f. 31b.

^{page 222 note 7} Kawākib, f. 17a.

^{page 222 note 8} Paris Fragment, f. 37b; Isḥäqī, 169: confirmed by Ibn Abi'l-Surūr and the Zubda.

^{page 222 note 9} Kawākib, f. 25a. For Muṣṭafā 'Azmīzāde, see further F. Babinger, El, new ed., s.v. 'AzmīZāde Muṣṭafā.

^{page 223 note 1} Vansleb, , op. cit., 93Google Scholar, statcs that the beys were chosen from the aghas commanding the Regiments and from the Mutafarriqa. De Maillet, , Description de l' Égypte, The Hague, 1740, II, 291–2Google Scholar, and Lucas, P., Voyage, Rouen, 1719, I, 396Google Scholar, speak of the beys as actually forming part of the Mutafarriqa. Estève, (‘Mémoires sur les finances de l'Égyptc’, Description de l'Égypte, état moderne, I, i, 299)Google Scholar describing conditions in the late eighteenth century mentions as ‘a generally adopted opinion’ that the beys were chosen from the Mutafarriqa, but ceased to belong to that regiment oppiontment.

^{page 223 note 2} cf. Ayalon, , ‘Studies—I’ BSOAS, XV, 2, 1953, 213–14Google Scholar.

^{page 223 note 3} Professor Lewis points out that in Ottoman diplomatic, amīr was commonly used as equivalent to bey.

^{page 224 note 1} Qānūnnāme in Barkan, , op. cit., 381Google Scholar.

^{page 224 note 2} Report of Ḥusayn Efendi to Estève, the French controller-general of the finances during Bonaparte's occupation of Egypt. Text in Ghorbal, Shafiq, ‘Miṣr 'ind mafraq al-ṭuruq’, Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Cairo, iv, 1, 1936, 1–69Google Scholar.

^{page 224 note 3} cf. Isḥhāqī, 149–50; Jabartī, I, 21–3.

^{page 224 note 4} The ethnic origins of the Mamluks have recently been discussed by ProfessorAyalon, in ‘Studies in al-Jabartī’, JESHO, III, 3, 1960, 318–21Google Scholar. Since Ayalon's underlying assumption is that the ṣanjaq beys were necessarily mamlūks, his investigation overlaps with that pursued in the following paragraphs, which, however, query the assumption and reach rather different conclusions as far as the seventeenth century is concerned.

^{page 224 note 5} Ḥusayn Efendi in Ghorbal, , ‘Miṣr’, 14Google Scholar.

^{page 225 note 1} See Jabartī, i, 93.

^{page 225 note 2} Paris Fragment, f. 50b.

^{page 225 note 3} Jabartī, m, 321.

^{page 225 note 4} One may note in passing a contrary process—the foundation of Mamluk households by officers of the Seven Regiments. Such a regimental household, originating in the late seventeenth century, was established by Ḥasan Balfiyya, agha of the Gönüllüyan Regiment (cf. Jabartī, I, 91). Another was founded in the middle of the eighteenth century by Ibrāhīm Kâhya (cf. Jabartī, I, 191–2, and note that neither Ibrāhīm nor his colleague, Riḍwān Kâhya, was a bey, as stated in Gibb, and Bowen, , op. cit., I, i, 227)Google Scholar. These houses produced both beys and regimental officers.

^{page 225 note 5} See p. 231, n. 1.

^{page 227 note 1} Thus in Husayn Efendi's late eighteenth century account four beys served as deputyviceroy and qapvdans of Alexandria, Damietta, and Suez (see above, p. 224), three held the great offices of state as daftardār, amīr al-Ḥajj and amīr al-Khazna, while five were the provincial governors of Upper Egypt, the Sharqiyya, the Gharbiyya, the Manūfiyya, and the Buhayra. The remaining twelve served in pairs on a monthly rota as commanders of the guard in Cairo. Here the definition of the term ‘bey’ by function is complete, but it would be wrong to read this back into the more fluid conditions of the seventeenth century, and still more wrong to state, as Ḥusayn Efendi does, that a ṣanjaqate with these specific functions was instituted by Sultan selīm I.

^{page 228 note 1} Assassinated: see (101) ‘Uthman Khaṭṭāṭ. Hammer gives his death date as Rabī’ II, whereas the Egyptian chroniclers date the assassination 1 Jumādā I.

^{page 228 note 2} Hammer: 1 Jumādā I 1020/12 July 1611.

^{page 228 note 3} Hammer: 13 Qa'da 1027/21 November 1618.

^{page 228 note 4} Hammer: 21 Rabī’ II 1031/5 March 1622.

^{page 228 note 5} First term.

^{page 228 note 6} Second term. In the intervening period a certain ‘Alī Pasha was appointed viceroy, and is so listed by Hammer. He was refused recognition by the sanjaq beys, and never entered Cairo: see (36) 'Isā.

^{page 228 note 7} Deprived of office by the sanjaq beys: see (86) Qayṭās al-Kabīr.

^{page 228 note 8} Hammer: 15 Jumādā I 1047/5 October 1637.

^{page 228 note 9} Hammer: 14 Ṣafar 1054/22 April 1644. The discrepancy is due to the fact that the sanjaq beys deprived Maqsūd Pasha of office on 21 Ḥijja 1054/1 March 1644, but his formal deposition by the sultan did not arrive untillater. See (92) Sha'bān.

^{page 228 note 10} Hammer inserts a certain Muṣṭafā Pasha between Muḥammad Pasha IX and Muḥammad Pasha X, but his appointment was almost immediately revoked.

^{page 228 note 11} Date from the Paris Fragment.

^{page 228 note 12} Hammer: 16 Ṣafar 1060/18 February 1650.

^{page 228 note 13} Date from Hammer. Month confirmed by the Paris Fragment.

^{page 228 note 14} Hammer: 8 Ramaḍān 1067/20 June 1657.

^{page 228 note 15} Hammer: Shawwāl 1070/June 1660.

^{page 228 note 16} Date from Hammer. The Paris Fragment gives Shawwāl 1071.

^{page 229 note 1} Hammer: 5 Ramadan 1074/1 April 1664.

^{page 229 note 2} Hammer: deposed, 9 Jumādā II 1079/14 November 1668. Both the Zubda and the Paris Fragment agree that he died in office: the former gives the date as 17 Jumādā I, the latter as 17 Jumādā II 1079/22 November 1668.

^{page 229 note 3} Hammer: deposed, 5 Sha'bān 1080/29 December 1669. Both the Zubda and the Paris Fragment agree that he died in office. The former gives no date, the latter Sha'bān 1080.

^{page 229 note 4} Date from the Paris Fragment. Hammer gives 23 Ṣafar 1084/9 June 1673.

^{page 229 note 5} Hammer: 5 Jumādā II 1086/27 August 1675.

^{page 229 note 6} Hammer: 27 Ṣafar 1087/11 May 1676. The viceroy was deprived of office by the ṣanjaq beys in Ḥijja 1086. His formal deposition by the sultan followed later.

^{page 229 note 7} Hammer: 20 Jumādā I 1091/18 June 1680.

^{page 229 note 8} Hammer: Jumādā I 1094/May 1683.

^{page 229 note 9} Date from Hammer.

^{page 229 note 10} The events of the viceroyalties of Ḥamza Pasha and Ḥasan Pasha III are confused in the Arabic chronicles, and I have been unable to arrive at any certain date for the accession of the latter viceroy.

^{page 229 note 11} Date from Hammer.

^{page 229 note 12} Date from the Zubda: Hammer gives 1 Muharram 1101/15 October 1689.

^{page 229 note 13} The Zubda and the Paris Fragment agree that Aḥmad Pasha VII died in office on 12 Jumādā II 1102/13 March 1691. Hammer gives his death-date as 13 Rajab 1102/12 April 1691.

^{page 229 note 14} Hammer: Qa'da 1106/July 1695.

^{page 229 note 15} Hammer: 14 Rabī' II 1111/9 October 1699. The Zubda and Paris Fragment give this as the date of commencement of the viceroyalty of Muhammad Pasha XIII.

^{page 229 note 16} Hammer: 1 Muḥarram 1116/6 May 1704.

^{page 229 note 17} Hammer inserts a certain Sulaymān Pasha between Muḥammad Pasha XIII and Muḥammad Pasha XIV. He did not take office.

^{page 229 note 18} Hammer: Jumādā I 1118/September 1706.

^{page 229 note 19} Hammer: Jumādā II 1119/September 1707.

^{page 231 note 1} Not (39) 'Iwaḍd/Īwāẓ Bey, but a later bey whose obituary is given by Jabartī, i, 94–5.

^{page 243 note 1} See Holt, P. M., ‘The exalted lineage of Riḍwan Bey: some observations on a seventeenth-century Mamluk genealogy’, BSOAS, XXII, 2, 1959, 221–30CrossRef Google Scholar.

^{page 246 note 1} Seep. 231, n. 1.

^{page 247 note 1} See Jabartī, I, 93–4.

Article contents

The beylicate in Ottoman Egypt during the seventeenth century

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests