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Who Were the Mamluks?

historytoday.com

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Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#41

Post by AnimalMuppet »

halflings wrote: post #39
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question the "devoted to peace" part. They were devoted to expanding Islam by force, and peace after they had conquered you. I once saw a comparison of the battles fought against Islam in the Crusades, and the battles fought by Islam in expanding. Islam fought maybe ten times more battles to expand than the Crusades fought against Islam. (And much of the Islamic expansion was against civilizations that were already…

North Africa was christian? The amazigh were animists, and Islam was present before any large scale invasion, and was mostly spread by amazigh tribes themselves. (at least in the case of Morocco)

Well, Egypt certainly was heavily Christian. I had assumed that most of North Africa was, because it had been Roman, and the Roman Empire was heavily Christian post-Constantine.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#42

Post by ng12 »

halflings wrote: post #39
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question the "devoted to peace" part. They were devoted to expanding Islam by force, and peace after they had conquered you. I once saw a comparison of the battles fought against Islam in the Crusades, and the battles fought by Islam in expanding. Islam fought maybe ten times more battles to expand than the Crusades fought against Islam. (And much of the Islamic expansion was against civilizations that were already…

North Africa was christian? The amazigh were animists, and Islam was present before any large scale invasion, and was mostly spread by amazigh tribes themselves. (at least in the case of Morocco)

Egypt was a major player in early Christianity -- one of the five patriarchs was in Alexandria. Carthage and Tunisia were also largely Latin Christian.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#43

Post by Amezarak »

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.

This is a really bizarre interpretation, considering that the 'writing of ancient Greece' was only endangered due the destruction of the eastern Roman Empire (and the Persian Empire) by the Muslim conquests. The era of the conquests was extremely chaotic and a major setback for civilization in the region. The historical record practically falls apart because of this. Prior to the conquests, the eastern Roman Empire and its long heritage of learning and culture was trucking along quite happily, even if there were periodic border conflicts with the Persians.

Even during the conquests and their ever-shrinking territory, the Romans maintained their technological superiority over the surrounding civilizations. The final conquest of Constantinople, and the consequent fleeing of the learned with their texts westward, was a key factor in helping along the European Renaissance.

It's always been a bit strange to me how the history of the Roman Empire is pretty much ignored after the fall of the western empire. The East remained one of the greatest, wealthiest, and most educated powers in the world for centuries.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#44

Post by boomboomsubban »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #29
beat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I question the "devoted to peace" part. They were devoted to expanding Islam by force, and peace after they had conquered you. I once saw a comparison of the battles fought against Islam in the Crusades, and the battles fought by Islam in expanding. Islam fought maybe ten times more battles to expand than the Crusades fought against Islam. (And much of the Islamic expansion was against civilizations that were already…

> I question the "devoted to peace" part. They were devoted to expanding Islam by force, and peace after they had conquered you

Also known as an empire.

>Islam fought maybe ten times more battles to expand than the Crusades fought against Islam.

What a strange comparison. Without seeing the details, it seems to be comparing the battles sanctioned by the Pope during a few centuries against any expansion battle by any Islamic state over a period greater than a millennium. If it is the video linked, that seems like an accurate description. It doesn't even show the Christian expansion into Spain.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#45

Post by dmix »

mustaflex wrote: post #30

Fun fact: the mamluks where prohibited by their masters to marry arabs to not "lessen" their warrior genes

The article says as much:

> And they kept their garrisons distinct, not mixing with the populace in the territories. The contemporary Arab historian Abu Shama noted after the Mamluk victory over the Mongols at Ayn Jalut in 1260 that, ‘the people of the steppe had been destroyed by the people of the steppe’.

They kept their south Russian steppe blood well into their empire.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#46

Post by Amezarak »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #41
halflings wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Africa was christian? The amazigh were animists, and Islam was present before any large scale invasion, and was mostly spread by amazigh tribes themselves. (at least in the case of Morocco)

Well, Egypt certainly was heavily Christian. I had assumed that most of North Africa was, because it had been Roman, and the Roman Empire was heavily Christian post-Constantine.

You are correct that most all of Roman North Africa was Christianized. Augustine, for example, was a Numidian, and writes a lot about religious perspectives in North Africa.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#47

Post by [deleted] »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #44
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question the "devoted to peace" part. They were devoted to expanding Islam by force, and peace after they had conquered you. I once saw a comparison of the battles fought against Islam in the Crusades, and the battles fought by Islam in expanding. Islam fought maybe ten times more battles to expand than the Crusades fought against Islam. (And much of the Islamic expansion was against civilizations that were already…

> I question the "devoted to peace" part. They were devoted to expanding Islam by force, and peace after they had conquered you Also known as an empire. >Islam fought maybe ten times more battles to expand than the Crusades fought against Islam. What a strange comparison. Without seeing the details, it seems to be comparing the battles sanctioned by the Pope during a few centuries against any expansion battle by any…

[deleted]

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#48

Post by swampthinker »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #10
Drup wrote: post #3

The Mamluks are a major power stuck between the Ottomans and Persia with a weird government form that almost guarantees rulers with a 6 in paper mana. They somehow often colonize Australia.

I'm sorry; is "paper mana" some uneducated term for admin power? Also, yep. I was surprised to see them in Indonesia!

Paper Mana, Bird Mana, and sword mana

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#49

Post by torstenvl »

dfsegoat wrote: post #8

Tying things back to today: A Mameluke Sword is what you see US Marine Corps. officers carry on specific formal occasions (or in recruiting commercials!): "Marine Corps history states that a sword of this type was presented to Marine First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon by the Ottoman Empire viceroy, Prince Hamet, on December 8, 1805, during the First Barbary War, in Libya, as a gesture of respect and praise for the Mar…

Came here to talk about this.

Prince Hamet was the heir to the Tripolitan throne before being usurped by his brother and moving to Egypt to live in exile. The U.S. Marines were sent ashore to assist Prince Hamet in retaking Tripoli from his brother (who had been raiding U.S. ships in the Mediterranean). After the first Combined Joint operation in U.S. Marine history resulted in a complete victory at Derne, Prince Hamet gifted Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon with a Mameluke sword - a scimitar he had presumably obtained in Egypt.

Subsequent to his devastating loss at Derne, of course, the Tripolitan usurper Bashaw Yusef agreed to release the members of the U.S.S. Philadelphia and cease his attacks on Americans on the condition that the Marines withdraw from Derne. So it was that the U.S. political class started its long tradition of abandoning its allies and agreements across the Islamic world...

Today, the Marines honor O'Bannon (one of the barracks at The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia is named after him) and wear a replica of the Mameluke sword in some configurations of our Dress Blue uniform.

Re: Who Were the Mamluks?

#50

Post by pishpash »

ng12 wrote: post #20
beat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Exactly. It's not like the Byzantines didn't keep the writings of the Greeks. They were the Greeks. Greece still owns islands right off of Turkey, being from the very start a circum-Aegean state.
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