THE LAST DYNASTY
The last medieval dynasty of the Arab world, the Mamluk, was the most extraordinary. In other than Moslem annals the rise and prosperity of such a dynasty is hardly conceivable. The Mamluks were a dynasty of slaves—the word Mamluk means ’possessed’—slaves of varied races and nationalities forming a military oligarchy in an alien land. They arc noteworthy not only because they were, in a sense, the logical climax of the corruption in Arab social life which had been in process for centuries but also because of their real achievements. These slave sultans deserve a page in the closing history of the Arab empire.
They cleared their Syrian-Egyptian domain of the remnant of the Crusaders. They checked for ever the advance of the redoubtable Mongol hordes of Hulagu and of Timur, who might otherwise have changed the entire course of history and culture in Western Asia and Egypt. Because of this check Egypt was spared the devastation that befell Syria and Iraq and enjoyed a continuity in culture and political institutions which no other Moslem land outside Arabia enjoyed. For about two and three-quarter centuries, 1250-1517, the Mamluks dominated one of the most turbulent areas of the world, keeping themselves all the while racially distinct. Though on the whole uncultured and bloodthirsty, their keen appreciation of art and architecture would have been a credit to any civilized dynasty and makes Cairo even now one of the beauty spots of the Moslem world. And finally, when they were overthrown in 1517 by the Ottoman Salim, the last of the petty dynasties that had developed on the ruins of the Arab caliphate expired, clearing the way
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