Mamelukes!

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Extracts and commentary from the outstanding Internet web site www.isegoria.net.

The Mamelukes!

"The Mameluke Empire"

"The empire of the Mamelukes of Egypt provides a case in point, Glubb argues, for it was one of the most exotic ever to be recorded in history"

Sir John Glubb, also better known as Glubb Pasha. British military commander in the aftermath of the Second World War famous for his leadership of the Arab Legion. Glubb an expert on all things Islamic and Arabic.

"The Mameluke government appears to us utterly illogical and fantastic. The ruling class was entirely recruited from young boys, born in what is now Southern Russia. Every one of them was enlisted as a private soldier. Even the sultans had begun life as private soldiers and had risen from the ranks. Yet this extraordinary political system resulted in an empire which passed through all the normal stages of conquest, commercialism, affluence and decline and which lasted approximately the usual period of time."

That usual period of time about two hundred and fifty years. Great nations going through the process of ascendancy, affluence, decline.

Mamelukes military slaves, that concept perhaps unique and only found in the Islamic world, the Mameluke ruler Baybars famous for his conquests and audacity.

coolbert.