PART II.

EGYPT.

Egypt remained for a considerable time in quiet subjection to the Chalîfs, successors of Mohammed. But their power being on the decline, owing to the insolence of their Turcoman militia, the janizaries of that period, and other causes, this fertile country began to throw off the yoke.

DYNASTY I.

The Tholonides.

In the year of the Hejira 265, A.D. 879, Achmed, son of Tholon or Teilûn, governor of Egypt, usurped the sovereignty from the Chalîf Motamid-b’-illah. This short-lived dynasty expired in Sultan Harôn, grandson of the usurper, about thirty years after.

DYNASTY II.

The Fatimites.

The conquest of Egypt by Abu-Tammîm, Sultan of Africa, has been already mentioned.

975. Abu-Tammîm or Moaz was succeeded by his son Aziz. He carried on several wars in Syria.

996. Hakim, his successor, is only famed for his cruelty.

1021. Daher, fourth Chalîf of Egypt, conquered Aleppo, but was forced to abandon it.

1036. Abu-Tamîm Mostansir. In the reign of this Chalîf most of the Egyptian possessions in Syria were lost.

1094. Mostali. This Chalîf, in 1098, regained Jerusalem from the Turks; next year it was taken by the Franks, under Godefroy de Boulogne.

1101. Amer, a child. The Wizîr Afdhal exercised the sovereignty during his reign of thirty years.

1130. Hafed.

1149. Dafer. In his Chalîfate the Christians took Ascalon.

1155. Fayez.

1160. Aded. The Fatimite race had before this period sunk into such imbecility, that the Wizirs held the whole executive power. Shawûr, the reigning Wizir, having been supplanted by the intrigues of Dargham, passed to Syria, to implore the assistance of Nûr-el-din, Sultan of Damascus[19]. In 1164 his request was complied with. Shirakûk, called Syracon by the Christian writers, and his nephew, the famous Salah-el-dîn, or Saladin, were sent to re-establish Shawûr, who soon finding his associates too powerful, formed an alliance with the Franks. Shirakûk however defeated all his projects; and in 1169 procured an order from the Chalîf Aded for the decapitation of Schawûr, with the robe and firmân of wizîr for himself. He died in the same year, and was succeeded by his nephew Saladin.

1171. Saladin obliges the Franks to evacuate Egypt. An enemy of the Fatimites, from religious schism, he omits the name of Aded, in the public prayers, and substitutes that of the Chalîf of Bagdad. Aded died on the 13th of September 1171; and in him terminated the dynasty of the Fatimites. His successors renounced the title of Chalîf, and assumed only that of Sultans.

DYNASTY III.

The Aiûbite Sultans.

Salah-ed-din, son of Aiûb, a Kurd, usurped the title of Sultan of Egypt in 1174. Not contented with that sovereignty, he extended his views to Syria. In 1177 he is defeated at Ramlé by Rainaud de Chatillon.

1182. More success attended his arms in Syria; and next year he seized Amida in Mesopotamia, and forced Aleppo to a capitulation.

1187. Saladin gains over the Franks his famous victory at Hittîn: the Christian power falls, and Saladin becomes master of Jerusalem on the 2d of October.

1189. The Franks besiege Akka, or Ptolemais, which did not surrender till after it had been invested for two years.

1192. Saladin concludes a truce with Richard king of England. Akka and Yaffa were almost the only places left to the Franks.

Saladin died on the 4th March 1193, aged only fifty-seven, leaving sixteen sons and a daughter.

1193. Malek-el-Azîz, second son of Saladin. He seized Damascus, and left to his brother only Samosata.

1198. Malek-el-Mansûr. His uncle Afdhal, prince of Samosata, was called by the Emîrs to rule the kingdom during the minority, by the title of Atabek.

1200. Adel-Seif-el-dîn, brother of Saladin, usurps the crown.

1209. The Franks penetrate into Egypt, and retire with considerable booty. Nine years afterward they returned, and seized the isle Pharos and Damiatt.

1218. Malek-el-Kâmel, son of Seif-el-dîn. The crusaders abandon Damiatt in 1221.

1228. Malek surrenders, by treaty, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Sidon, to Frederic II. the Emperor of Germany.

1239. Malek Adel deposed by his brother.

1240. Malek Salah. In 1244 he defeated the Franks and Syrians, who were about to penetrate into Egypt.

1249. St. Louis seized Damiatt; and in the same year Malek Salah died.

He had bought from the Tatars a number of Turkish slaves from Kaptchak, to form a guard and marine. These he raised to the highest employments; and they became the famous Mamlûks, who seized the sovereignty of Egypt.

1249. Turân Shah, son of Malek. Next year he captures St. Louis, and his army of 20,000. On the 1st May 1250, Turân Shah is massacred by the Mamlûks, who assign the sceptre to his step-mother, and afterwards to a boy of the Aiubite race, which in him closed its domination over Egypt.

MAMLUKS.

SECT. I.

Baharite Mamlûks.

These were so styled, from having been originally employed as mariners on board the ships of the Sultan of Egypt. They were Turks.

A.D. 1254. Ezz-ed-dîn Moaz Ibegh was the first sovereign of this dynasty. He was assassinated.

1255. Nûr-ed-dîn Ali, son of Sultan Ezz-ed-dîn, followed.

It would be uninteresting to mark the names and short reigns of these princes, most of whom fell by assassination. The chief events alone shall be commemorated.

Bibars I. who reigned from A.D. 1260 to 1277, was an active prince, and seized most of the Christian possessions in Syria.

Kalîl Ascraf, who ascended the throne in 1290, took Ptolemais, and terminated the power of the Christians in Palestine.

During successive reigns many contests took place in Syria, the possession of which was disputed by the Mamlûk Sultans and the Moguls.

Nazr Mohammed, who died in 1341, distinguished himself by the protection which he granted to agriculture and the arts.

In 1348 a pestilence appeared in Egypt, or perhaps originally in Syria, which spread over a great part of Europe.

A.D. 1365. In October, Peter de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, besieged Alexandria; but he was soon constrained to abandon it, for want of provisions[20]. Shabân Ascrâf was then Sultan, and he was the first who ordered the Sherîfs, or descendants of the Prophet, to wear a green turban.

SECT. II.

Borgite Mamlûks.

This race was of Circassian extract, and continued to rule Egypt till the French invasion.

1382. Barkûk-Daher, who had been Atabek in the minority of Hadgi Salah, deposed his pupil, and seized the supreme authority. Timûr invading Syria, Barkûk obtained two victories over the Moguls, and forced them to withdraw.

1399. Faradj, son of Barkûk. Few of these Sultans reigned above a year, till

1442. Bursbai, who reigned sixteen. He sent a fleet against Cyprus, which took Lymissos and Nicosia, and brought John II. and most of his nobility, captives. Syria remained almost a constant appanage to Egypt.

1461. Abu-’l-Fathe Achmed received tribute from Cyprus, and assigned the crown to James, natural son of John III.

Of the succeeding Sultans we find nothing remarkable; and the Mamlûk aristocracy began to render their station more and more precarious.

In 1501 Kansû El-ghûri was raised to the throne.

In 1516, Selim II. emperor of Constantinople, having declared war against him, defeated and slew him near Aleppo, and seized Syria.

Tomân Bey was appointed his successor by the Mamlûks. On the 24th January 1517, he lost, at Rodania near Kahira, a great battle against the Othman troops. After another obstinate conflict, Tomân Bey was again defeated by Selim, taken prisoner, and hanged at one of the gates of Kahira on the 13th April.

Selim was contented with abolishing the monarchy of the Mamlûks, but suffered their aristocracy to retain its former power, on certain conditions; the chief of which were, an annual tribute, obedience in matters of faith to the Mufti of Constantinople, and the insertion of the name of the Othman Emperors in the prayers, and on the coin.

Syria, its usual appanage, being withdrawn, Egypt has rarely intermeddled with foreign affairs, and the Beys have generally been contented with squeezing the people, and enjoying in ease the fruit of their extortions. During the pre-eminence of the Othman power, Egypt appears one of the most quiet and submissive of the provinces: and the travellers of this and the two preceding centuries may supply what few materials arise, concerning its history, or rather its condition. The evening of the Turkish domination was marked by the appearance of that meteor, Ali Bey, who had scarcely dazzled the nations with his wild effulgence before he disappeared.