Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt

The Mamluk Sultanate was a state ruled by Mamluks, slave soldiers mostly of Turkic and Circassian origin, who took power in Egypt by overthrowing the Ayyubid dynasty and went on to rule Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz. They defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut in 1260 and expelled the last Crusaders, capturing Acre in 1291. Cairo became a refuge for the Abbasid caliphate after the fall of Baghdad, and the Mamluks were great patrons of architecture, building mosques and madrasas that still define the old city. The sultanate is usually divided into the Bahri period, of Turkic rulers, and the Burji period, of Circassians. It fell when the Ottoman sultan Selim I defeated it in 1516 and 1517, though Mamluks remained a powerful local elite in Egypt for centuries.

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