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248 7. Under the Ottoman Turks (1517-1882)

Meanwhile, the kingdom founded by Osman (1281-1326) on the ruins of the Selǵūḳ power had grown to a mighty empire. It was gathering all Moslem states in the Levant under its power. When Mohammed the Conqueror entered Constantinople in 1453, he sent news of his conquest to the Mamluk Sultan at Cairo (Īnāl, 1453-1461). Cairo was illuminated in honour of so glorious a triumph of Islam; but I imagine it was done without enthusiasm. The power of the Ottoman Turks was becoming a very serious danger to all their neighbours — Moslem as well as Christian. It must already have been clear that they would swallow up everything until they were resisted by a greater force than their own; every victory they gained made that less likely. Then for half a century the Ottoman Sultan was too busy conquering his Christian neighbours to trouble about Egypt. But in 1514 the inevitable happened. Selim I (1512-1520) picked a quarrel with Egypt, invaded the country, in 1517 easily conquered Cairo from the effete Mamluks, and so made himself master of Egypt. Tūmān Beg, the last Mamluk Sultan, was hanged; the last Abbasid Khalif, Al-Mutawakkil III, was carried off to Constantinople. Later he was allowed to return to Cairo; he died there in 1538, bequeathing his title to the Turkish Sultan.

We have noted that, after the abominations of the later Mamluks, the rule of the Ottomans came as a benefit to Egypt. Bad as Turkish rule is, it was better than the anarchy which had gone before. From now till Napoleon's invasion, Egypt is a province of the great Turkish Empire. A Turkish Pasha was its governor. But the Mamluks revived their strength and gradually became again a great power in the land. Their chief Amīr (the Shaiḫu-lbilād) was always a dangerous rival to the Pasha. In 1768