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Who Were the Mamluks?

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Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#91

Post by Keysh »

beat wrote: post #57
projectramo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the recommendation. (I was under the impression that the true center of civilization was China.)

China wasn't expansionist, though. They never grew much beyond their current borders. They were good trading partners, but didn't have the complexity and drive of the middle eastern civilizations, from the early Persians through the Ottomans.

China was extremely expansionist. It's just that over time they successfully assimilated (or suppressed) most of the regions they conquered, to the point where they and most other people think of them as naturally part of China (ignore what the Tibetans, Uighirs, and Mongols say, they're just disloyal).

That's a bit like saying, "The US never grew much beyond its current borders, so it wasn't expansionist."

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#92

Post by abecedarius »

beat wrote: post #18
beat wrote: post #16

If you're interested in this kind of history stuff, I recommend reading The Silk Roads , by Peter Frankopan. It's a recent (2015) epic-scope history book, from the beginning of written history to the present day, based on the idea that the Middle East, rather than Europe, is the true center of civilization - that the area stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to western India has been foremost, and remains foremo…

One interesting thing that comes from the book is realizing just how tremendously important the early Islamic expansion and empire was, filling the vacuum caused by the collapse of the Roman empire with a new culture, devoted to advancing technology, peace, trade, and preservation of the writings of earlier civilizations. Without them, we might have lost most of the writing of ancient Greece.

> Without them, we might have lost most of the writing of ancient Greece.

We did lose most of it. This isn't to diminish the preservation by the Islamic world of so much of what did survive.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#93

Post by nindalf »

notfromhere wrote: post #40
nindalf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't really make sense to "blame" the Islamic tribes/kingdoms for the fall of the Roman Empire. Perhaps some other power would have done the same. Hard to play historical what-ifs, but let me try. By the end of the 13th Century, almost all Crusader holdings had been taken over by the Sultan of Egypt Baibars. He used his consolidated power to defeat the Mongol horde at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, the first tim…

The islamic kingdoms actively fought wars against the byzantines and absorbed most of their territories into their own. So you literally can

You appear intent on blaming the Islamic kingdoms for the downfall of the Eastern Roman Empire. It's not at all clear that they would have flourished in the absence of Islam. It's likely they would have been swept aside by the Mongols.

Even otherwise, you realise that the body blow to the ERE wasn't struck any Muslim army. Constantinople was captured and looted by Crusaders in 1204, apparently on the Fourth Crusade. Though the Greeks recovered Constantinople a few decades later, it was a shadow of it's past self, left with the city, north Western Anatolia and parts of the Balkans. The Ottomans ended the empire in 1453.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#94

Post by HarryHirsch »

cat199 wrote: post #25
ng12 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> filling the vacuum caused by the collapse of the Roman empire What about the "other" Roman empire, the Byzantines? They seemed to have filled the vacuum even better.

Sorry, this is history from a western/anglo-centric perspective. The eastern empire simply doesn't exist after 1054.

You can go to any Orthodox church and see the liturgy celebrated as it was in the times of Emperor Basil Bulgar-Slayer. Constantinople survives.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#95

Post by evol262 »

GW150914 wrote: post #90
beat wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I can see that. Certainly, the Celts and Germans had plenty of contact with the Romans, and Roman bureaucracy and aristocracy (not to mention Roman-distributed Christianity) directly informed their institutions. But in a lot of ways, it's not so much an inheritance as a cargo cult, but it's still a valid connection. But Greek culture... yeah, that's a retcon.

Of course Roman culture was itself a retread of Greek culture with a few mods thrown in, they even pulled an asset flip with the Greek pantheon.

I mean, not really. The Romans, as always, picked and chose the parts they liked and integrated them into their own mythology. The Roman pantheon was a superset of the Greek pantheon (among others), as evocatio was used as a final part of conquest. The Romans also stole the gods of their foes, and more than just the Greeks.

Roman culture, though, was heavily focused on superstition and virtue, rather than logic, and is not in any way a retread of Greek culture.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#96

Post by evol262 »

ng12 wrote: post #82
beat wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Everyone else seems to be considering the Romans and the Byzantines to be a single contiguous entity. Sauce for the goose.

That's the original argument I made to which you were replying. The Byzantines carried on the Roman torch.

The "Byzantines" WERE Roman and always called themselves such. They were the "Rum" to the Turks because they called themselves Roman.

I'm not sure how a state which can trace a direct lineage of law and rulers back to Romulus is "carrying the torch".

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#97

Post by evol262 »

beat wrote: post #88
evol262 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd disagree that the Romans had more in common with the Middle East than northern/western Europe purely on the basis that a substantial part of the feudal organization, religion, and law of northern/western Europe comes directly from the latter Empire. That's unfair as an argument, because we don't really know what was there before that (lack of Celtic writings), but it's also hard to disagree with. The Goths and Va…

Yeah, I can see that. Certainly, the Celts and Germans had plenty of contact with the Romans, and Roman bureaucracy and aristocracy (not to mention Roman-distributed Christianity) directly informed their institutions. But in a lot of ways, it's not so much an inheritance as a cargo cult, but it's still a valid connection. But Greek culture... yeah, that's a retcon.

I commented elsewhere, but Roman culture was distinctively not Greek. The Romans valued virtue, filial duty, martial strength, etc. While the Eastern empire gradually became more "Greek" (in the same sort of cultural syncretism which "Sinocized" the Ming), this wasn't true of the Romans as a whole.

The Goths in Rome explicitly modeled their state after Rome, to the point where they considered the Western half to have survived. The organization of early Frankish kingdoms is a direct result of Roman estates, as experienced administrators were all... Roman. Rinse and repeat. It's not so much that it "informed" their institutions as that dux->duke, because they were the same position, and Diocletian's dioceses obviously survived as organizational units, along with Diocletian's organization of the empire (of which feudalism is a direct result).

During the Renaissance, ideas of liberty and democracy aped the Romans, but none of this was a cargo cult, as the ideas spread in the Renaissance drew directly from Roman historical sources (including arguments for why they did/did not work) rather than any cargo cult mythology.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#98

Post by ng12 »

evol262 wrote: post #96
ng12 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the original argument I made to which you were replying. The Byzantines carried on the Roman torch.

The "Byzantines" WERE Roman and always called themselves such. They were the "Rum" to the Turks because they called themselves Roman. I'm not sure how a state which can trace a direct lineage of law and rulers back to Romulus is "carrying the torch".

We're falling into pedantry here. I'm very well aware of that fact, which is why I referenced it in the original post.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#99

Post by BookmarkSaver »

enraged_camel wrote: post #62
ivanhoe wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's exactly the distinction between swords and sabres in English? In my native language we'd call this a sabre (sablja), as word sword (mač) is used only for straight double-edged blades.

A saber is a type of sword. It’s pretty heavy and was meant for use on horseback (i.e. cavalry).

And typically (always?) single-edged.
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