Note 70 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
The relative termination, y, affixed to a name, though originally implying the relation of slave to master (as El-Ashrafy, the Mamlūk of El-Ashraf), came to signify also the mere relation of a retainer, liegeman, or even courtier, without the notion of ownership. Beysary was called El-Ashrafy, as one of the courtiers of El-Ashraf Khalīl, the Sultan’s “man;” but he was not his slave.