Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T14:11:17.844Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Mamlūks of the Seljuks: Islam's Military Might at the Crossroads*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

David Ayalon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The study of the Mamlūks under the Seljuks is of pivotal significance, because those Mamlūks formed the essential connecting link between their predecessors in the ‘Abbāsid Caliphate and their successors in the Sultanates of the Zangids, the Ayyūbids and the Mamlūks of Egypt and Syria on the one hand, and in the Sultanate of the Ottomans on the other. They were also part of an exceptionally important stage in the ethnic transformation which those Mamlūks underwent with the progress of time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , November 1996 , pp. 305 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1996

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.)

Footnotes

*

This study is an enlarged version of my lecture which was delivered to the Royal Asiatic Society on 12 October 1995. A considerably larger one is in preparation. [Editorial note.JRAS, 1946, part 1, contained, on pp. 67–73, an article on “The plague and its effects on the Mamlūk army”, by David Neustadt, as he then was. This was Professor Ayalon's first published learned article in a European language. The Society is very pleased to be able to mark the fiftieth anniversary of its publication in so uniquely appropriate a way.]

References

1 I repeatedly dealt with this term in a number of studies of mine, and not only those confined to the subject of eunuchs. In a book which I finished recently, called Eunuchs, Caliphs and Sultans – A Study in Power Relationships, now in the Magnes Press of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I discuss that and other terms relating to eunuchs in a very detailed Appendix.

Earlier studies where eunuch terminology is discussed at considerable length are: “The eunuchs in the Mamlūk Sultanate”, Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 267–9;Google Scholar “On the eunuchs in Islam”, JSAI, I (1979), pp. 74–93;Google Scholar “On the term khādim in the sense of ‘eunuch’ in the early Muslim sources”, Arabica, XXXII (1985), pp. 289–308.Google Scholar

2 See also my “Aspects of the Mamlūk phenomenon”, part A, Der Islam, LIII (1976), pp. 209–18.Google Scholar

3 al-Athīr, Ibn, al-Kāmil (Beirut edition), x, p. 131.Google Scholar According to Sibt Ibn al-Jawzī the number of these Turkish Mamlūks was more than one thousand (Mir'āt al-Zamān, Ankara, 1968, pp. 227, l. 18–225, l. 17).Google Scholar

4 In the obituary notices about Niẓām al-Mulk the fact that he drew his power and authority from the thousands of Turkish Mamlūks he possessed (kathrat mamālikihi; wa-malaka min ghilman al-Atrāk ulūfan) is clearly stated. See al-Athir, Ibn, al-Ta’rikh al-Bāhir fi al-Dawla (Cairo, 1963), p. 10;Google Scholar and Abū Shāma, who cites Nizām al-Mulk’s contemporary or near-contemporary, the historian Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Malik al-Hamdānī, who died early in the sixth/twelfth century (Kitāb al-Rawdatayn, Cairo, 1288H, i, p. 26).Google Scholar For more detail see “Aspects of the MamlⅫk phenomenon”, pp. 213–14. The Siyāsat-nāma certainly reflects Nizām al-Mulk's personal attitude to the Turkish Mamlūks and the spirit of the time, even if it was edited after his death.

5 Zubdat al-Nusra wa nukhbat al-'uṣra, ed. Houtsma, M. T. in Recueil de textes relatifs à l'histoire des Seljoucides, ii (Leiden, 1889), p. 235.Google Scholar

6 The evidence of Ibn al-Furāt is presented by me as a combination of literal citations, paraphrases and connecting sentences of mine. This does not affect in any way the unequivocal meaning of that evidence.

7 Ibn al-Furāt, Ta'rikh, iii, MS Vienna, A.F. 119, fols. 55b, 1. 19–56a, 1. 8. See also Ibid., fols. 47a; 72b; 98a–103a; 103b; 131a.

8 Al-Ḥusaynī, , Akhbār al-Dawla al-Saljūqiya (Lahore, 1933), p. 129.Google Scholar

9 Sibṭ al-Jawzī, Ibn (Ankara, ed.), p. 196, ll. 1–2.Google Scholar

10 al-Furāt, Ibn, Ta’rikh, iii, fol. 72b.Google Scholar

11 C. E. Bosworth has made very important contributions to the study of the Turks and the Turks' recruitment as Mamlūks during the first half millennium of Islam's history. He was also the first to call attention to crucial evidence relating to those subjects. Yet I have a fundamentally different view than his about a number of major issues regarding the Mamlūk institution. In the present context I cannot share his opinion about Caliph al-Muqtafi's Mamlāk policy. According to him that Caliph “disliked Turks” (my italics ȓ D. A.) and therefore “merely recruited Greeks and Armenians instead”, in order to preserve the Mamlūk character of his army (“Ghaznevid military organisation”, Der Islam, XXXVI (1961), p. 43;Google Scholar The Ghaznavids (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 100).Google Scholar All the sources, including the two he cites (al-Bundārī and al-Husaynī) appear to tell us something different. I have already stressed the unique importance of the al-Muqtafi story in my article “Egypt as a dominant factor in Syria and Palestine during the Islamic period”, Egypt and Palestine – A Millennium of Association, Jerusalem, 1984, p. 30, n. 25.Google Scholar But at that time I was not aware of Bosworth';s earlier mentioning and interpretation of it. For my disagreement with him about other essential parts of his view of the Mamlūks, see “Aspects of the Mamlūk phenomenon”, part A, p. 206, n. 18; “On the eunuchs in Islam”, pp. 94, 100, 105. Since, however, all these parts belong to one whole (which can be epitomised in Bosworth';s own words: “That any of the nations customarily supplying slaves were conspicuously superior to the rest is problematical” – see the two references cited in this note), I shall discuss them, together with other parts, in the fuller version of this study. There any points of agreement will also be referred to.

12 The only parallel which I can find (and this is a partial one) is the repeated praise, expressed grudgingly, which the Muslims and Franks bestow on each other';s military prowess during the Crusading period. But that is beyond the present subject.

13 Al-masālik wal-mamālik (Leiden, 1927), p. 291, ll. 16–17.Google Scholar This statement was already cited in my The Military Reforms of Caliph al-Mu';tasim – Their Background and Consequences, which appeared in the form of a stencilled brochure (Jerusalem, 1963 – reprinted, with changed pagination, in Islam and the Abode of War, Variorum (London, 1994), article I).Google Scholar The reference here (p. 25) and throughout the present study is to the Variorum pagination. Hawqal, Ibn expresses the same idea in different words (Ṣūrat al-Ard, Leiden, 1939, p. 448, ll. 9–10).Google Scholar

14 This is a very high distinction. In a tradition relating to the Medinan supporters of the Prophet Muhammad (the Anṣār) they are addressed: antum al-shi';ār wal-nās al-dithār, which Lane translates: “Ye are the special and close friends [and the people in general are less near in friendship]”. It is noteworthy that shi';Ⅻr means also a coat of mail [worn under the garment]. See Tāj al-'Arūs under dir',.

15 Manāqib al-Atrāk, ed. Van Vloten, (Leiden, 1903), p. 49, ll. 7–8.Google Scholar “Military reforms”, p. 26.

16 Ibid., p. 38, ll. 21–39,1. 8.

17 Quite often aṣḥāb fulān, relating to a ruler or a commander, means his army or his armed followers. See also below, in the same passage (no. IV).

18 , Al-Ya';qūbi, Kitāb al-Buldān (Leiden, 1892), p. 257, ll. 4–21.Google Scholar

19 In the Muslim sources Khurāsān sometimes includes Transoxania. See e.g. passage no. VII.

20 Hawqal, Ibn, p. 452.Google Scholar

21 Iṣṭakhrī, , p. 288, ll. 5–18.Google Scholar See also Ḥawqal, Ibn, p. 465, ll. 6–8.Google Scholar

22 Iṣṭakhrī, , p. 318, ll. 14ȓ17.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., pp. 292ȓ3.

24 , Al-Muqaddasīi, Ahsan al-Taqāsim fi Ma'rifat al-Aqālim (Leiden, 1906), p. 260, ll. 1–11.Google Scholar See also my “Egypt as a dominant factor …”, pp. 26–7, and p. 26, n. 19.

25 Sulṭān in the second half of the fourth/tenth century does not yet mean unequivocally Sultan. Loosely speaking, it is the equivalent of “the Higher Authority”.

26 Al-Muqaddasī, , p. 340, ll. 12–17.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., p. 341, note.

28 This statement about the manumission of the Mamlīk before he started his great career is of great weight, because it constitutes unconscious evidence and because it is so general. The central problem of manumitted Mamlīks and those of them who were lifelong slaves even when they rose in rank and office has still to be studied systematically.

29 Here is yet another instance of Khurāsān in the wider sense (including Transoxania).

30 This is a free translation.

31 Hassūl, Ibn, pp. 41, 1. 8–43, 1. 15. On this author and his work cited here see below.Google Scholar

32 Diwān Lughat al-Turk (Ankara, 1939–46), i, pp. 293, 1. 13–294, 1. 15Google Scholar.

33 See e.g. the list quoted and discussed in my “The Great Yāsa of Chingiz Khān…”, SI, XXXVI (1972), pp. 117–30.Google Scholar The translation of the whole passage from Ibn Khaldūn's history, Kitāb al-'Ibar, and its analysis were published in my“Ibn Khaldūn's view of the Mamlūk phenomenon”, JSAI, II (1980), pp. 340–9.Google Scholar For my acquaintance with and treatment of that piece of evidence see idem., p. 341. The moral qualities of the Turks, mentioned by Mahmūd Kāshgharī (passage XII), are often praised by other sources as well. See e.g. notes 4 and 5.

34 Al-Ya'qūbī, , pp. 255, l. 19–256, l. 1; 262,1. 19;Google Scholar Tabarī, (series III), ii, p. 1180, l. 17;Google Scholar al-Mas'ūdī, , Murūj (Paris, 1861–77), vii, pp. 118, l. 5; 122, l. 3Google Scholar.

35 Al-Mu'asim had three great drawbacks in forming his Turkish Mamlūk regiment: (a) his reign was short (218–27/833–42); (b) he started building Sāmarrā several years after he became Caliph; (c) that regiment came into being on the verge of the great disintegration of the Άbbāsid empire. Thus the Mamlūks could never be used as part of a general strategy conducted from Islam's central seat of government. Furthermore, the Caliphs who succeeded al-Mu'tasim were not of his calibre, and did not possess the vision for properly following up his great work.

36 See “Egypt as a dominant factor …”, p. 27 and n. 22.

37 Bosworth, , The Ghaznavids, p. 59.Google Scholar

38 Belleten (Ankara), IV. The part in Arabic is at the end of the volume, pp. 1–51. It includes an introduction by ‘Abbās al-Άzzāwī (pp. 3–24), and the text itself is on pp. 24–51.

39 When the ‘Abbāsid Caliphs were under Buwayhid suzerainty their Mamlūk policy was not free from the pressure of that Daylamite dynasty. The success of the Daylamite soldiers in so many eastern armies is really astounding, but in the slightly longer run they stood no chance against the Turkish Mamlūks, and they disappeared. Even a Buwayhid ruler preferred Turks over them (see e.g.Bosworth, , “Ghaznevid military organisation”, p. 42;Google Scholar Ayalon, , “On the eunuchs…”, p. 109Google Scholar).

40 “Aspects of the Mamlük phenomenon”, part A, pp. 202–3; 206, n. 18.Google Scholar

41 I have already pointed out, in “Egypt as a dominant factor …”, pp. 30–1Google Scholar, some of the reasons which prevented the Mamlüks from taking real root under the Fātimids. There I mentioned especially the fact that, on moving from the Maghrib to Egypt, much of their ruling and military systems had already been crystallized, and they could not replace, or at least replace properly, the already existing and most powerful military bodies. Another factor which I referred to there was the great distance separating Egypt from the Turkish Mamlüks” homeland, which was, in addition to that, cut off from Egypt by mainly Sunnite states hostile to the Fātimids. (The antagonism of the Seljuks to the acquisition of Turkish Mamlüks by the Sunnite al-Muqtafī must have been at least as strong in the case of the Fātimids. This, coupled with the much greater distance of Egypt from the sources of supply, illustrates well the obstacles which the Fātimids faced in forming a proper Mamlük army.) Yet another major factor was the very inadequate military schools of the Fātimids, when they had them (I discuss this aspect in my book on the eunuchs). The impossibility of the Mamlük system (with the Turkish Mamlüks at its heart) developing under the Fātimids as it should, was clearly demonstrated in the second half of the fourth/tenth century, as soon as its great protagonist al-'Aziz billāh died (386/996), that is to say, quite soon after their occupation of Egypt. That was one of the reasons why their hold on Syria was even then not strong enough. With the later appearance of the Seljuks and the Crusaders that hold, without a further military force, could not but become more precarious. Note also the military feats of the Turkish Mamlük contingent which Saladin sent in 568/1172–3 to the Maghrib (“Aspects of the Mamlük phenomenon”, part B, pp. 12–13Google Scholar).

42 The Turkish Mamlüks of the Hamdānids, who were incorporated in the Fātimid army, and who seem to have been considered as seasoned soldiers, because of their combat experience.

43 Al-Maqrīzī, , al-Muqaffā, ed. Zakkār, (Beirut, 1973), p. 307Google Scholar (cited from Yaacov Lev's important article, “The Fātimid army, A.H. 358–427/968–1036”, Asian and African Studies, XIV (1980), pp. 171–2.Google Scholar This citation is from the quite late historian al-Maqrīzī, but there is good reason for accepting it. Al-Maqrīzī copied, on the whole correctly, from earlier authors, showing quite often little inclination to mention their names (see e.g. my “The Great Yāsa of Chingiz Khān – a reexamination”, Part C2, “Al-Maqrīzī's passage on the Yāsa under the Mamlüks”, SI, XXXVIII (1973), pp. 107–56Google Scholar). His writings about the Fātimids are invaluable. Where would we have been in the study of that dynasty without his chronicle Ittiāz al-Hunafā and his topographical work al-Khitat?

44 See “The military reforms of Caliph al-Mu'tasim”, pp. 28–9;Google Scholar “Preliminary remarks on the Mamlük military institution in Islam”, in Parry, V. J. and Yapp, M. E. (eds), War, Technology and Society in the Middle East (London, 1975), pp. 54–5Google Scholar (for the relevent passage in Arabic see al-Ya'qübī, , pp. 285, l. 15–259, l. 10).Google Scholar A strong feeling of affinity, of belonging to “the same race” (jinsiyya, min jins wāhid) existed between the Turkish Mamlüks and the non-Mamlük Turks (or Turcomans) and the Mongols, all of whom entered Muslim territory through Transoxania and its vicinity from the same wide region, and adopted Islam immediately or ultimately. Yet the barrier separating Mamlüks and non-Mamlüks of the same privileged stock was never surmounted (see e.g. my “The European-Asiatic steppe: a major reservoir of power for the Islamic world”, Proceedings of the 25th Congress of Orientalists (Moscow, 1963), pp. 47–52;Google Scholar “The Wāfidiyya in the Mamlük kingdom”, Islamic Culture (1951), pp. 89–104)Google Scholar.

45 “On the eunuchs in Islam”, part B; “Remarks on the Saqāliba within Dār al-Islām”, JSAI, I (1979), pp. 92–124, and especially pp. 92–101.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., p. 93.

47 Ibid., pp. 97–8. Maqbül Ahmad says: “A glance at the maps of Ibn Hawqal shows that they are superior to those of al-Istakhri” “Kharīta”, El2, iv, p. 1079a).Google Scholar

48 “On the eunuchs in Islam”, pp. 98, 106, 121, 124.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., p. 93.

50 Ibid., pp. 93, 100–1, 107.

51 Ibid., pp. 95–6.

52 Ibid., pp. 102–4.

53 The story of the emasculated Saqāliba is, of course, a different one. It would be interesting to find out, as far as the sources permit, what happened to the numerous unemasculated Saqāliba in the East. In the West, a systematic attempt should be made to distinguish between the Saqāliba eunuchs and non-eunuchs. I am not sure whether such an attempt has been made.

54 Ibid., p. 118, and “Aspects of the Mamlük phenomenon”, part A. p. 206, n. 18.Google Scholar

55 This is a very brief summary of my argumentation concerning Turk vs. Saqāliba in “On the eunuchs in Islam”. For a more comprehensive picture see Ibid. pp. 92–124, with special stress on pp. 114–24 (and within them pp. 115–21). An erroneous comment on my criticism of Dozy's handling of Ibn Hawqal's evidence was published in the article “Sakāliba” in El2, viii (1995), pp. 879b–880aGoogle Scholar. This comment will be exhaustively discussed in the fuller version of this study.

56 Certain aspects relating to the Saqāliba which are relevant to the subject of our study are the following. Saqāliba serve as soldiers already under the Umayyads in the East, especially in the frontier areas, but they do not seem to have formed a central part of the Umayyad army. At that time, and well into the 'Abbāsid period, they were still pagans. The process of Christianization, in the full sense of the word, of those of them who did adopt that religion must have been slow, as was the case with the Islamization of pagans of a more or less similar level of civilization. Furthermore, there still remained many pagan Saqāliba in the fourth/tenth century, as stated by al-Mas'üdi (“On the eunuchs”, p. 113Google Scholar). What was said about people of long-established Christianity as a possible source of Mamlük recruitment does not, therefore, apply to them (for a fuller clarification see ibid., pp. 109–14). The eunuchs from amongst the Saqāliba, who are only briefly referred to here but discussed at length in the abovecited article, belong to a different category. What is particularly indicative within the framework of the thesis presented here is that under the Umayyads of the East there was some room for the employment of the Saqāliba in their armed forces. Under the ‘Abbāsids there seems to have been no such room, and since the Mamlüks became the main army of that dynasty, no chance was left for the Saqāliba to join them.

57 See e.g. my “The military reforms of Caliph al-Mu'tasim”, pp. 26–7;Google Scholar “Preliminary remarks on the Mamlük military institution …”, pp. 52–3;Google Scholar “Egypt as a dominant factor …”, pp. 9–27.Google Scholar Some citations in our context will be of use. Al-Muqaddasī, , p. 261, ll. 5–11:Google Scholar “Islam is fresh in it [in Transoxania]” (al-Islām bihā tariyy). Al-Istakhri, , p. 291:Google Scholar “They [the people of Transoxania], in spite of the remoteness of their country, are the first to perform the Hajj duty. No one enters the [Arabian] desert before them, and no one leaves it after them”. Speaking about the people of Syria (al-Shām), al-Muqaddasī, (p. 152, ll. 4–5)Google Scholar says: “They are not as [good as] the Iranians in learning, religiousness and [the observance of] the [religious] prohibitions” (laysü kal-A'ajim fi al-'ilm wal-din wal-nahyi). The same author (p. 32, ll. 4–12) says about the people of the East (Iqlim al-Mashriq): “Of all the [Muslim] people their Arabic is the most accurate, because they stuck to learning it and clung to it” (asahh al-nās' Arabiyyatan li-annahumtakallafühā takallufan wa-talaqqafüha talaqqufan). This was the kind of people who welcomed the Mamlük novice when he made his first steps in his new world. A combination of fresh and deeply rooted Islam, strengthened by unusual command of the language of the Qurān, and linked to hardiness and fighting spirit against the Infidel. Nothing could suit the novice more, for, as Ibn Khaldün puts it so succinctly, “They [the Mamlüks] embrace Islam with the determination of True Believers, while retaining their nomadic virtues” (yadkhulüna fi al-Din bi-'azāim imāniyya wa-akhlāq badawiyya) (“Khaldün's, Ibn view …”, p. 345Google Scholar).

58 The difficulty of adaptation to changing circumstances, especially technological innovation, was not confined to the Islamic armies. It lasted even in the Western European armies well into the twentieth century, although not with the same degree of persistence.

59 They are called ghulām or ghilmān by Sibṭ al-jawzī, Ibn (Ankara, ed., pp. 64, ll. 11, 16, 17, 18; 67, l. 12)Google Scholar and said to be Turk (p. 67, ll. 8, 14). According to al-Athīr, Ibn (ix, cp. p. 648, l. 7, with p. 649, l. 3)Google Scholar, those 2000 cavalrymen were Atrāk, see also Canard, M., “Al-Basāsīrī”, EI2Google Scholar. The identity of ghulām and mamlük is well established for that period. Very indicative in this context is the account of Sultan Alp Arslān's capture of an immense number of Mamlüks in a big foray into the land of the Khazars in 456/1064 (Sibṭ, Ankara, , p. 117, ll. 11–13).Google Scholar This event, which took place between the liquidation of al-Basāsīrī and the victory of Manzikert won by the same sultan, is very meaningful within the framework of building a major Mamlük force by the very first Seljuk rulers. It needs, however, some corroborative evidence.

60 Sibṭ al-jawzī, Ibn (Ankara, ), p. 147, l. 15.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., p. 148, ll. 15–17, for the identity here of ghulām and mamlük, cp. ibid., pp. 147, l, 15 and 148, ll. 15–17 with p. 152, l. 8. See also al-Jawxī, Ibn, al-Muntazam (Hyderabad, Deccan, 1358/1939), vii, p. 262, l. 12;Google Scholar al-Athīr, Ibn, vi, p. 319, ll. 3–5;Google Scholar Shāma, Abü, Rawdatayn (Cairo, 1288H), i, p. 173, l, 1.Google Scholar For the account of the whole battle see Sibṭ (Ankara), pp. 147–52. I have already referred to this evidence in “Egypt as a dominant factor …”, p. 29 and n. 24. As far as I know, the decisive role of the Mamlüks in the victory of Manzikert is not pointed out in the rich Islamicist literature dedicated to that battle.

62 This has already been proved by Claude Cahen (“Sibt Ibn al-Jawzī”, EI1, French ed., iii, p. 775bGoogle Scholar), and after him by Suhayl Zakkār (Mukhtārāt min Kilābāt al-Mu'arrikhin al-'Arab, n.p., n.d., pp. 105–6).

63 These numbers are discussed in the as yet unpublished part of my work on the Mamlüks, called “The Mamlük army on the march”.

64 Factors and arguments which tend to reduce the importance of the battle of Manzikert cannot deprive it of the immense effects which it had on future events. A battle on such a large scale, fought out between two great armies headed by their two sovereigns, ending with the rout of one of them and the capture of its king, cannot be minimized. The battle of' Ayn Jālüt (1260), where the Mongol army was, in fact, a garrison of a province, did have its huge impact, and with full justification. How much more so the battle of Manzikert. It is highly improbable that without that battle the fate of Anatolia would have been the same.

65 This part of the present study is confined to the most general outlines of the thesis presented here, and will receive most detailed treatment in the fuller version.

66 The degree of the Mamlüks' knowledge of Islam or their strict observance of its precepts was secondary in importance to their Islamic awareness, namely, that Islam and what it stands for is superior to anything else.

67 These sources of supply might dwindle away even before Islam had taken deep root in those lands as a result of internal wars (see e.g. my “The Circassians in the Mamlük kingdom”, JAOS (1949), p. 136aGoogle Scholar, especially Ibn ‘Arabshāh's evidence); migration of the nomads from one homeland to the other; natural factors (including natural disasters); and the fact that exporting, over a long period, the pick of boys and girls from a certain tribe or group of tribes must have affected negatively that tribe or that group in various ways.

68 Generally speaking, the easiest to convert to Islam (and this is also true, to no small extent, of converts to Christianity) were pagans at a primitive level of civilization, bordering on the Abode of Islam; the hardest – people at a high level of civilization, who adopted monotheism long before the advent of Islam, or at least long before their encounter with it. The best proof that a high level of civilization alone was not enough to deter Islamization of a conquered people, or even to postpone it for a long time, is the relatively quick conversion of the Iranians, or most of them. The adoption of Islam by the Indians, another non-monotheistic people, or peoples, at a high level of civilization, is not a case similar to that of the Iranians. Their immense numbers, the slow Muslim conquest even of parts of that huge sub-continent, and the history of the relations between its Muslim and non-Muslim entities, form a different story. Their being a temporary and relatively local factor in the Muslim Mamlük armies, and the reasons for that, have already been pointed out (see again “Aspects of the Mamlük phenomenon”, part A, pp. 202–3Google Scholar). The negative effects of the conversion to monotheism of the peoples of the steppe on the slave trade have already been stressed by al-Itsakhrī (p. 223, ll. 11–15) in connection with the Khazar. (For the evaluation of that evidence see my “The Mamlük novice: on his youthfulness and on his original religion”, REI, LIV (1986), pp. 1–8.Google Scholar For the relative ease with which a pagan tribesman of the steppe parted from his adolescent child see ibid.). Conversion to monotheism (and even conversion to Islam) did not necessarily mean an immediate stoppage of or a drastic decline in the readiness of these peoples of the steppe to sell their next of kin (see e.g. the attitude of the Islamized Mongols of the Golden Horde: al-Maqrīzī, Sulük, ii, p. 525). However, in the long run conversion to Islam meant the end of slave traffic from the Islamized region. The Christians under the Ottomans faced a different situation from that of the pagans of the Abode of War. They were forced to raise a quota of their children for their Muslim rulers. There is abundant evidence of their antagonistic reaction to that levy. There were, however, cases where the parents did not lose sight of the great future awaiting their offspring. This brings us to the attitude of relatively new Christians, inhabiting the margins of the Christian world, and whose level of civilization was not high. A case in point is that of the Circassians who were Christians during the latter half of the Mamlük Sultanate. However, Christianity does not seem to have been deeply rooted in them, for ultimately they all became Muslims. The very interesting case of the Saqāliba is discussed in brief in an earlier section of this study, and at greater length in “On the eunuchs …”.

69 On the four fronts which Islam faced see my “Aspects of the Mamlük Phenomenon”, part A, pp, 198–204Google Scholar (on the Christian front, pp. 198–9).

70 See the passage referred to in note 23.

71 For the employment of Arman and Rūm, especially in Egypt under the Fāṭimids and earlier rulers, see e.g. Beshir, B. J., “Fāṭimid military organisation”, Der Islam, LV (1978), pp. 43–4.Google Scholar

72 Part of these Greeks and Armenians certainly came from the Abode of War, captured during Seljuk raids on Trebizond and Nicaea to the north and west and on the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia to the south (Vryonis, S., “Seljuk ghulāms and Ottoman devshirme”, Der Islam, XLI (1965), p. 227).Google Scholar Still, it is most unlikely that the Seljuks and whoever succeeded them would be so discriminating as to abstain from enslaving members of those two ethnicities outside these three centres in an area of constantly shifting boundaries (see alsoVryonis, , op. cit., p. 252).Google Scholar

73 I do not know whether the Seljuks had Rūm and Arman Mamluks on the margin.

74 See “Aspects of the Mamlūk phenomenon”, part B, “Ayyūbids, Kurds and Turks”, Der Islam, LIV (1977), pp. 1–32Google Scholar; and also “From Ayyūbids to Mamlūks”, REI, XLIV (1981), pp. 43–57.Google Scholar

75 “Un récit inédit du Vizirat de Ḍirghām”, Annales Islamologiques, VIII (1969), pp. 27–46;Google Scholar the Arabic text, pp. 40–6 (see there pp. 42, l. 19 – twice; 43, ll. 1, 12, 19, 13; 44, ll. 2, 12, 14; 45, ll. 4, 16, 23; 46; l. 1. For Shīrkūh al-Turki see p. 42, l. 19.

76 Of the chapter dedicated to the Mamlūk races in my work on the army of the Mamlūk Sultanate, only the part on the Seljuks has been published (JAOS, LXIX, 1949, pp. 135–47).Google Scholar In my article “Mamlūk military slavery in Egypt and Syria” in El2, fasc. 103–4 (1987)Google Scholar, a summary of the unpublished parts of that chapter is given. That article was, however, abridged by the editors. The unabridged summary appeared under the same title in the Variorum Reprint volume Islam and the Abode of War (London, 1994), no. II, pp. 1–21Google Scholar. The Islamization of the Turks in the Central Asian area did not affect the Mamlūk Sultanate, for it recruited its Turkish Mamlūks mainly from southern Russia.

77 For the reasons of that synonymy see the unabridged summary, op. cit., pp. 8–9.

78 The relatively new and transient Christianity of the Circassians, living on the margin of the Christian world of that time, has already been pointed out. See note 68.

79 See also my Gunpowder and Firearms in the Mamlük Kingdom – A Challenge to a Mediaeval Society (London, 1956, repr. 1978), especially pp. 46–133.Google Scholar

80 On this book see note 1. Only part of the source references collected in the chapter on the eunuchs of the Seljuks is cited here.

81 al-Jawzī, Ibn, al-Muntaẓam, viii, p. 262, l. 12.Google Scholar

82 On Khumārtakīn see e.g. Sibṭ (Ankara, ), pp. 64, ll. 9–20; 74, l. 14–75, l. 13; 81, ll. 2–3; 84, ll. 19–22;Google Scholar al-Athir, Ibn, ix, pp. 648–9.Google Scholar It should be noted here that while there were numerous eunuch commanders, hardly any eunuch fighting units are mentioned in the sources. I try to explain this phenomenon in my book on the eunuchs.

83 On Sāwtakīn see e.g. Sibṭ (Ankara, ), pp. 27, ll. 1–4; 67, l. 3; 161–4; 228–9;Google Scholar al-Athir, Ibn, x, p. 92, ll. 7–9;Google Scholar Bosworth, C. E., in Boyle, j. A. (ed.), Cambridge History of Iran, v (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 35, 50, 75, 88, 91.Google Scholar

84 Ibid., p. 54.

85 On Erdem see e.g. Sibṭ (Ankara, ), pp. 67, l. 3; 97, ll. 2–17; 102, ll. 6–10, III, ll. 8–10.Google Scholar

86 On Kūhrā'īn see e.g. al-Athīr, Ibn, x, pp. 66, 70, 73, 79, 90, 100, 116, 144, 162, 164, 165, 176–7, 184, 187, 204, 219–22, 289, 294f., 295, l. 18–296, l. 9, 435, 480.Google Scholar

87 On al-Kundurī see e.g. Sibṭ (Ankara, ), pp. 97, ll. 13–14; 124, ll. 12–14; 165, l. 13;Google Scholar al-Athīr, Ibn, x, pp. 32, l. 17–33, l. 5; 33, ll. 15–17;Google Scholar Khallikān, Ibn, Wafayā (Beirut, 1968–1972), v, p. 141, ll. 5–22.Google Scholar

88 al-Athīr, Ibn, xi, pp. 76, l. 14–77, l. 5.Google Scholar He was a black eunuch: Jawhar al-khādim al-Ḥabashi al-ma'rūf bil-muqarrab (al-Jawzī, Ibn, al-Muntaẓam, x, p. 87.Google Scholar Ibn al-Jawzī describes him there as the real ruler in Sanjar's reign – kāna mustawliyan 'alā mamlakatihi mutaḥakkiman fihā (Ibid.).

89 Ibid., p. 266, l. 3–268, l. 2.

90 The eunuch Bihrūz's connection with the forefather of the Ayyūbids is dealt with in the chapter in the eunuchs under the Ayyūbids in my above-mentioned books on the eunuchs.

91 He was also a black eunuch. He is called khaṣī by Ibn al-Furat, iii, fol. 2b, ll. 6–7; and aḥad al-khadam al-khiṣyān al-Ḥabashiyyīn al-kibār by Khalhkān, Ibn, Wafayāt, vi, p. 231, l. 17Google Scholar. On him see also al-Athir, Ibn, xi, pp. 118, 131, 161, 189, 195.Google Scholar

92 Ibid., p. 61, ll. 13–16. There is an immense amount of evidence on eunuch commanders in the armies of medieval Islam. Numerous instances are brought forward in that book, which form only a small part of the evidence (this statement excludes the eunuchs of the Mamlūk Sultanate).

93 Sibṭ, , Mir'āt al-Zamān (Hyderabad, Deccan, 1951), viii, part 1, p. 47, ll. 5–6.Google Scholar

94 EI2, ii, 1085b (“Ghulām”).

95 Der Islam, XLI (1965), pp. 224–52.Google Scholar Note also the numerous studies referred to in that article.

96 See especially ibid., pp. 227ff. and the summary, p. 252. There can be little doubt that had we possessed sources similar to that of Ibn Bībī on the Seljuks of Rūm for the other Muslim principalities of Anatolia, the same picture relating to their slave systems would have emerged.

97 Vryonis, , op. cit., p. 252.Google Scholar

98 EI2, “Ghuām”, p. 1086a.