Sultans, Emirs and Government

The Mamluk Sultanate ruled Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517. Its Bahri period (1250–1382) and Burji period (1382–1517) were governed by a military elite of mamluks, men bought as youths, trained for service and freed. The sultan stood at the head of this elite, but emirs, senior military commanders with their own households, shared power and resources. Government depended on keeping these relationships workable while appointing officials to administer a large territory.

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The sultan and the emirs

An emir’s support could make a sultan, but powerful emirs also expected a share in appointments and state resources. When Baybars became sultan in 1260, other senior commanders swore loyalty only after he acknowledged their rights as partners in the ruling coalition. He later tried to secure succession for his son Berke by installing him as co-sultan. The senior emirs rejected the boy as a figurehead and eventually chose a different ruler from their own ranks. Dynastic ties mattered, but succession still required acceptance among the commanders.

Qalawun’s descendants held the throne for much of the next century, and their rule shows how a family name could preserve continuity while emirs contested real authority. A young sultan might be installed while older commanders decided who would control the government. Al-Nasir Muhammad’s long third reign, from 1310 to 1341, gave him time to overcome rivals and strengthen his own household. The sultan needed to reward allies, but appointments or grants that favored one group could unite others against him.

Household officers and the sultan’s finances

The royal household was also a working government. The ustadar, or chief steward, managed the sultan’s domestic offices and provisions. Under the Burji sultan Barquq, who took power in 1382, new financial bureaus placed the payment of the royal mamluks under the ustadar’s administration. A separate office managed Barquq’s property. The change brought the sultan’s household resources into a new administrative structure and increased the authority of the official who managed them.

Later in Barquq’s reign, the state’s finances were divided among offices with different income and duties. One provided meat and rations for the sultan’s mamluks and supplies for the royal kitchens; another paid the soldiers’ monthly salaries, clothing allowances and horse fodder from income drawn from farming villages. When the senior ustadar presided over all three bureaus, his position gained influence relative to the vizier. The form of government shifted as the sultan reassigned responsibilities among court officers.

Cairo and the Syrian provinces

The sultan and central administration exercised close control over Egypt. Syria, by contrast, consisted of separate provinces, each governed by a deputy of the sultan. The main provinces were Damascus and Aleppo, followed by Hama, Tripoli, Safad and al-Karak. The deputy of Damascus held the highest provincial rank and acted with considerable authority, but he remained appointed by the sultan. His power could be withdrawn, and grants of revenue he proposed still required the sultan’s approval in Cairo.

Hama demonstrates how local dynasties could remain within this provincial system. The descendants of an Ayyubid ruler continued to govern there after the Mamluks took power elsewhere in Syria. Al-Nasir Muhammad made Abu al-Fida governor and granted him the title of sultan in 1320. After Abu al-Fida’s death, his son inherited the position and title, but in 1341 the Mamluk ruler removed the last Ayyubid prince and appointed a Mamluk governor. In other provinces, the sultan typically appointed emirs. Local rulers and the central court negotiated the terms of authority over time.

Revenue and political power

Egyptian land revenue supported the army and the sultan’s household. A land survey, or rawk, assessed cultivated land and set how its proceeds were divided. In 1298 Sultan Lajin proposed a new settlement that would have increased the income assigned to a new standing army while cutting the amirs’ shares nearly in half. The amirs revolted and killed him before the plan took effect. When al-Nasir Muhammad returned to the throne in 1310, he ordered a new survey in the 1310s; it increased the share assigned to the sultan’s treasury. Revenue registers therefore helped determine how much power the ruler could fund for himself and his commanders. The related work of surveys and registers made those distributions visible and actionable.

The royal chancery drafted orders and diplomatic correspondence, while the senior dawadar, literally the holder of the inkwell, presented incoming reports to the sultan. An official relay system carried messages between Cairo and provincial officials; its Relay communications linked provincial administration to decisions at court. The sultan’s office depended on this written and physical flow of information, as well as on the emirs whose authority rested in the provinces.

Caliphs, judges and public recognition

After the Mongols destroyed Baghdad in 1258, Baybars installed an Abbasid caliph in Cairo in 1261. Baybars took an oath of allegiance to him and received formal investiture as sultan. The caliph did not command an army or direct the provinces, but his presence gave the new Mamluk regime recognition across the Sunni Muslim world. Subsequent caliphs held little political power, yet their role in confirming a ruler remained part of the accession ceremony.

Baybars also changed judicial administration. In 1265 he appointed chief judges for the four Sunni schools of Islamic law in Cairo, replacing a single chief judge with four offices. The sultan and senior officials could also hear grievances and make executive decisions. Religious recognition, judicial appointments and military command thus contributed distinct forms of authority to the Mamluk state.