Topics in Middle East History
Chapter 8: Turks, Crusaders, and Mongols
Copyright ©2010 by T. Pavlidis
A Tumultuous Period
The defeat of the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071 ushered a period of upheavals in the region we call Middle East. For a while the Seljuk empire was dominant but that dominance was challenged by the Crusaders who over a period of nearly 200 years fought not only the Muslim powers but also the Byzantines. The first Mongol invasion in the early 1200's produced more upheavals and it was not until the mid 1300's that a power had risen that was eventually going to dominate the region. These were the Ottoman Turks. A second Mongol invasion in 1402 delayed their rise, but in 1453 the Ottomans took Constantinople and dominated the region until the 20th century. In many ways, they were the successor state of the eastern Roman Empire. Their rise will be the subject of Chapter 9, after we deal with the main events of the 1071-1453 period.
The Mamluks
The first Turks in the Middle East appeared as slave soldiers, the Mamluks (or Mameluks). The Abbasid caliph al-Mutasim (833-842) is reported to have used them extensively [1, BL95, p. 87]. Gibbon describes them as "the hardy natives of Tartary, who at a tender age had been purchased by the Syrian merchants, and were educated in the camp and palace of the sultan." [EG, Chapter LIX, vol. 6, p. 130]. (The term Tartary refers to a large of Asia covering modern Turkestan, Siberia, and Mongolia, all the way to Manchuria.) The young slaves (at or near the age of puberty [2]) were converted to Islam and then were trained to be professional cavalry soldiers. They rose through the ranks to become officers so the leaders of the troops were also of slave origin. Sons of Mamluks were not eligible to serve in the troops, so the number of soldiers had to be kept up by new slaves. (This policy was changed under the Ottomans [1, p. 401].) At some points the slave recruits were switched from Turkish to Georgian and Circassians [1, 2]. Originally, there were also infantry troops consisting of black slaves and they gained considerable influence in Egypt by allying themselves with the black eunuchs of the palace but they were dismissed by Saladin (see below) in 1169 [2].
The Mamluk army consisted of three groups. The Royal Mamluks were the property of the sultan. The Mamluks of the Amirs were the property of officers who were members of the Royal Mamluks. Finally, there was a non slave cavalry unit consisting mainly of sons of Mamluks. [1, p. 400, 2nd col.]
The term slave soldier may appear self-contradictory to a modern reader and the term slave officer even more so but the term "slave" has to be understood in its historical context. Slavery meant that the individual had no other choice for his avocation than that assigned to him. It did not mean ill-treatment. Slave soldiers, and especially their leaders, were treated very well. The motivation for using an army of slaves is similar to that for using foreign mercenaries (see How to stay in power); their loyalty is only to the ruler and have no connection with the subjects of the ruler.
Of course, things did not always work that way. Given their shared experience, Mamluks developed loyalty to each other and to those leaders who came from their own ranks. Soon after the reign of al-Mutasim, Mamluk generals became de facto rulers of the caliphate. In 1250 they took power formally initiating two dynasties of Mamluk sultans who ruled over Egypt, Syria and the lands in between. The first dynasty (Bahri Mamluks) ruled during 1250-1382 and were mostly of Turkish origin. The second dynasty (Burji Mamluks) ruled during 1382-1517 and were mostly of Georgian origin [1]. Their sultanate was abolished when Egypt was taken over by Ottoman Turks (see below), but Mamluks continued to hold positions of power well into the 19th century. When Napoleon invaded Egypt was quite impressed by them and he attached some Mamluk troops to the French army [2]. A major factor for the defeat of the Mamluks by the Ottomans was the reluctance of the Mamluks to use firearms [1, p. 400, 2nd col, BL95, 112-113]. Mamluks were well aware and proud of the superior skill needed to wield a sword, a bow, or lance. Any "dummy" could use a firearm and early firearms were less effective than arrows. But a state could raise a much bigger army of musketeers than of archers who had to be trained since youth.
Sources on Mamluks
1. Article on Mamluks in Encyclopedia
Britannica, Fifteenth edition, 1982, vol. 11, pp. 399-401.
2.
http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/c_mameluks1.html.
"The Georgian Mameluks in Egypt" by Alexander Mikaberidze.
The Seljuk Turks (960-1250)
While Mamluk soldiers had converted individually to Islam a momentous event occurred in 960. A whole Turkish population, the Karakhanids, numbering to "200,000" tents converted to Islam as a nation and made the new religion the core of their ethnic identity [BL95, p. 88]. Eventually other Turkish groups migrated in that territory and also accepted Islam as their religion. The most notable amongst them was a group led by Seljuk who became known as Seljuk Turks [ibid, p. 89]. In Chapter 7 we described their conquest of the Abbasid caliphate, and their victory over the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071. At the end of the 11th century the Seljuk had a large empire stretching from Iran to the border with Egypt (Figure 1). The caliph was a figurehead under the "protection" of the Sunni Seljuk Sultans [EG, Chapter LVII, vol. 6, pp.1-12][BL95, pp. 89-90]. Lewis notes that "In their administration, the Seljuks relied largely on Persians and on the well-entrenched Persian bureaucracy" [ibid, p. 92]. Of course, the Seljuks continued to use Mamluk soldiers.
 |
 |
| Figure 1: Extent of the Seljuk Empire near the end of the 11th century. Click on the link below for a full size color version. | Figure 2: Extent of the Ayyubid sulatnate (in red) at the end of the 12th century. Crusader states are shown in green. |
| Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Seljuk_Empire_locator_map.svg | Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ayyubid_Dynasty_1171_-_1246(AD).PNG |
.PNG){kind=link}
Pretty soon the Seljuk empire split into several sultanates but around 1150 there was a consolidation of power under Emir Nur al-Din. Nur al-Din and his Kurdish general Salah al-DIn (or Saladin) are best known for their fights against the Crusaders that we discuss in the next section. In 1172 Saladin took over Egypt, abolishing the Fatimid caliphate and after Nur al-Din's death in 1174 he took also control of Syria, establishing the Ayyubid dynasty (1171-1246). See Figure 2 for a map. However, the unified Syro-Egyptian sultanate did not survive Saladin's death in 1193 [BL95, pp. 90-91]. Finally, in 1250, the Ayyubids were replaced by the Mamluk sultanate.
The Crusades
The Turkish conquest of the Holy Land caused an outcry in Europe and led to the Crusades. A major motive for the Crusaders was to get hold of the wealth of the region and the first crusade in 1097 resulted in four Crusader states and some territorial gains for the Byzantine empire that we discussed in Chapter 7. Several crusades followed. The second crusade took place in 1147-49 and was a failure because of the effective resistance of Nur al-Din and Saladin. Saladin captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187 treating his enemies in a humane way, in sharp contrast of the massacres by the Crusaders when they had captured Jerusalem in 1099. After the capture Saladin invited Jews to resettle in the city.
The third crusade was launched in reaction to the capture of Jerusalem and one of its leaders was the English king Richard the Lionhearted. In 1191 he captured the island of Cyprus from the Byzantines. The gains of the Crusaders against the Turks were limited and they failed to capture Jerusalem. Ten years later the fourth crusade was launched but this time the Holy Land was ignored (the Turks were too tough) and the crusaders captured Constantinople in 1204 establishing a Latin empire in place of the Byzantine Roman empire (see Chapter 7).
There were five more crusades (the last one in 1272) but they failed to achieve any significant gains. They were soundly defeated by the Mamluk armies and by 1291 the last trace of Crusaders had disappeared except for some island possessions. The Knights Templar held an island off the Syrian coast for another decade and only the Knights of St John stayed in the Greek Island of Rhodes until 1522. Venice held Cyprus until 1570. The most lasting effect of the crusades was the damage to the Roman empire. While the Latins were eventually expelled from Constantinople, several parts of Greece stayed under Latin or Venetian control until the Turkish conquest. The reconstituted Byzantine empire was a shadow of its former self and it was unable to resist the Turkish assaults.
Lewis [BL95, p. 275] provides a quote of Saladin that characterizes the enterprise of the Crusades. Referring to European merchants he states "there is not one of them that does not bring and sell us weapons of war, to their detriment and to our advantage".
Gibbon [EG, Chapter LXI, vol. 6, pp. 205-208] provides an interesting evaluation of the crusades. He points out that the Latins were inferior to both the Greeks and the Arabs in "knowledge, industry, and art" but they had the advantage of an inquiring spirit and were able to learn from the East. However, such improvements could have been achieved better by trade than by war that resulted in large loss of lives. He goes on to say that the major effect of the crusades was "not so much in producing a benefit as in removing an evil." The crusades weakened the oppressive European feudal structure. He writes "The estates of the barons were dissipated ... Their poverty extorted from their pride those charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave, secured the farm of the peasant and the shop of the artificer ...". He concludes the section with a metaphor: "The conflagration which destroyed the tall and barren trees of the forest gave air and scope to the vegetation of the small and nutritive plants of the soil." [ibid, p. 208]. It is worth adding in this context that the king of England signed the Magna Carta in 1215, toward the end of the period of the crusades. And the start of the Renaissance is usually placed around 1300, right after the crusades.
Gibbon's interpretation provides food for thought and we can search for parallels. One that comes to mind is the extinction of the dinosaurs by the impact of a meteorite and the subsequent growth of the mammals.
The Assassins
We first discussed the Sunni/Shia split in Chapter 5. There were additional Shia splits. One took place around 765 about a disputed succession of an Imam: one, the Twelver Shi'a kept a moderate doctrine not too far from Sunni doctrines. The other sect, the Ismailis, followed extremist doctrines and eventually took control of Egypt as the Fatimid Caliphs [BL95, pp. 82-83]. A succession dispute of the Fatimid Caliph in Cairo around 1090 produced a split amongst the Ismailis. The Persian Ismailis rejected the authority of the Fatimid Caliph and established a fortified base in the mountains of Northern Persia and later in Syria. Their sect became known as the Assassins [BL95, pp. 92-93]. The name is derived from the Arabic word for hashish and the political tactics of the sect gave the word the meaning it has in European languages.
The Assassins waged a vicious campaign against Sunni rulers by placing men in their courts that would strike at their unsuspecting victim. Of course, the attackers would be killed by the rulers bodyguards, so they were in effect in suicide missions. However, while they spread terror amongst the rulers, they were unable to achieve any of their political goals. Eventually, their mountain bases were destroyed by the Mongols and the Assassins disappear from history, although their tactics were adopted by other groups at one time or another.
There is a book devoted to this subject: Bernard Lewis, The Assassins, Littlehampton, 2001.
The First Mongol Invation and its Aftermath
In 1206 Genghis (or Jenghiz) Khan was recognized as a leader of all Mongol tribes and at the head of an army of horsemen started an invasion of the lands to the West. By 1220 they had conquered estern Iran and while Genghis died in 1227, his successors continued the conquest of the Islamic states. In 1243 they defeated the Seljuk forces and in 1258 they stormed Baghdad, looted and burned the city, and put the caliph and his family to death. That was the end of the Abbasside caliphate. [BL95, pp. 96-97] One of the victims of the Mongols that was not lamented, was the sect of the Assassins.
Eventually the Mongols met their match in the Mamluk armies of Egypt and were defeated in 1260. They left Syria and Mesopotamia but they maintained their rule of Iran with a capital in Tabriz. By 1295 the Mongol rulers of Iran had converted to Islam [ibid].
One consequence of the Mongol invasion was the rise in the power of Mamluks in Egypt who established their own sultanate there. (See above) Another consequence was a respite for the Byzantine Empire that was able to recapture Constantinople from the Crusaders (see Chapter 7).
The Ottoman Turks (1300-1400)
The Seljuk empire never recovered from the Mongol invasion and it soon split into several principalities. One of them eventually grew to be the mighty Ottoman empire. The name Ottoman is derived from Osman, the founder of the principality in 1299, in the western part of the Seljuk lands. In 1326 the Ottomans captured Bursa from the Byzantines and made it the capital of their state [BL95, p. 107]. Gibbon considers that event the start of the Ottoman Empire. The office of Vizir was instituted and its first occupant was Aladin, the brother of sultan Orhan (son of Osman). A college of Islamic studies was founded and a military re-organization was carried out establishing infantry troops in addition to the traditional Turkish cavalry. [EG, Chapter LXIV, vol. 6, pp. 292-294]. During that time the Byzantines were engaged in a ruinous civil war between the emperor Andonicus II and his grandson Andronicus III who eventually won and became undisputed emperor in 1328. Gibbon remarks that "The Greeks, by their intestine divisions, were the authors of their final ruin" [ibid, p. 295]. Indeed, the conquest of Bythinia (the province surrounding Bursa) took place during the civil war between the two Andronicus.
In addition to the Ottomans, the Byzantines were facing threats in the Balkans from the Serbians and in the Aegean from the Venetians and the Genovese. In 1347 the bubonic plague (Black Death) broke out in Constantinople. Because the plague was spread by rats from port to port it affected the coastal areas more than it did the interior lands of the Serbians and the Turks [WT97, p. 773]. To make things worse a civil war broke out amongst the Byzantines and the co-emperor John VI Cantacuzenos relied on Ottoman mercenaries. At the end of the war he tried to dismiss them but they did not obliged. When an earthquake in 1354 destroyed the fortifications of Callipolis on the straights of the Dardanelles the Ottomans repaired the fortress and occupied the city achieving for the first time a foothold in Europe [ibid, p. 776]. Orhan was succeeded by his son Murad I who is credited with establishing the corps of the Janissaries (meaning new soldiers in Turkish). The consisted of young European captives who were converted to Islam and raised to become soldiers, not unline the Mamluks [EG, Chapter LXIV, vol. 6, pp. 299-300]. Gibbon quotes Murad as giving a blessing to the Janissaries that ends with the phrase "and wheresoever they go, may they return with a while face" [ibid]. The expression "white face" is used (In both Turkish and Greek) to denote someone who is proud of what he has accomplished.
In 1365 the Ottomans captured Adrianople and made it their capital, encircling Constantinople from both the East and the West. In 1387 they captured the major port of Thessaloniki from the Venetians and in 1389 defeated the Serbians at Kosovo. While the Ottoman sultan Murad I was killed in the battle [CF05, p. 21] the Serbians lost their state and the defeat at Kosovo still reverberates at modern times. Within 35 years from their first foray into the European lands of the Byzantines, the Ottomans ended up controlling most of them. In addition, in 1352, they had signed a commercial treaty with the Genoese [BL95, pp. 107-108]. In 1371 the Byzantine emperor John V had agreed to pay tribute to Murad I and become his vassal [WT97, p. 780, EG, Chapter LXIV, vol. 6, p. 299]. The same emperor also tried to obtain help from the West by traveling to Italy and submitting the Eastern Church to the authority of the Pope, thus reversing the schisms of 1054. However, the so called union of the churches was rejected in Constantinople and no military help came from the West. The humiliation of the once mighty Roman empire was complete.
When Murad I was killed in Kosovo he was succeeded by son Bayezid I who was given the surname Yildirim or Thunderbolt. [EG, Chapter LXIV, vol. 6, pp. 300-301] (However I use the modern Turkish spelling of the word as well as its most prevelant meaning.) Bayezid completed the conquest of the Turkish principalities in Asia Minor capturing the old Seljuk capital of Iconium (Konya) [ibid].
Bayezid asked the caliph to recognize him as "Sultan of Rum" aiming at inheriting the authority of the Seljuk sultans of Anatolia. In 1396 his army met a European (mostly French and Hungarian) army in Nicopolis, a city on the south shore of Danube in Bulgaria. The Turks inflicted a crushing defeat on the European knights, thus solidifying their control of the Balkans [BL95, p. 108]. (See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nicopolis.) As the fourteenth century was ending the Ottoman Turks controlled most of the Balkan peninsula (including the modern countries of Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, and Serbia) as well as most of Asia Minor. It would seem that the end of the Byzantine Empire would be imminent but help came from the Far East with a second Mongol invasion.
The Second Mongol Invation
This time the Mongol leader was Timur the lame, or Tamerlane. He was born in what is today Uzbekistan and his reign began in 1370. He had risen from relatively humble circumstances and quickly became the ruler of an empire that covered Persia, what is now the central Asia states, parts of Russia, and parts of India [EG, Chapter LXV, vol. 6, pp.308- 317]. Tamerlane was a Muslim, but that did not stop him from attacking other Muslim rulers. Gibbon [ibid, pp. 318-19] reports a correspondence between Timur and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid, son of Murad I. Timur sent a haughty letter that enraged Bayezid, who flush from his victories in Europe replied in an even more insulting way. Timur postponed dealing with Bayezid and directed his attention first against Syria. His army included elephants that carried turrets filled with archers or with devices spewing Greek fire [ibid, p. 321] and easily defeated the Mamluk troops and his troops sacked and burned Aleppo. The Mongols had a practice of erecting a pyramid of human heads from their victims when they took a city. In the case of Baghdad the pyramid consisted of 90,000 heads [ibid, p. 322].
In 1402 Timur moved into Anatolia, occupied the major city of Kayseri and met Bayezid's army in the plain of Ankara. The Ottoman armies suffered a crashing defeat and Bayezid himself was captured by the Mongols [ibid, 323-326, also CF05, p. 29]. The Mongol troops took over most of Asia Minor and Bayezid died a prisoner. Timur died in 1405 and his empire dissolved after his death. His main legacy has been the wanton destruction of cities and the slaughter of people from India to Persia to Syria to Asia Minor [EG, Chapter LXV, vol. 6, pp. 334-336]. The destruction caused by the two Mongol invasions is sometimes seen as the cause for the stagnation of the Arab countries but not everybody agrees with that assessment.
The damage inflicted by the Mongols on the Ottomans served to prolong the life of the Byzantine state for a few more decades but it could not change its ultimate fate.
First Posted: March 30, 2010. Latest Revision: April 16, 2010.