Migration Processes in Ottoman Egypt in the 16th — 18th Centuries (Some Notes Concerning the Formation of Power Elites)

Abstract

The author focused his research on the migration processes in the Nile valley in the 16th — 18th centuries, which had a significant impact on the formation of the political institutions in the largest of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The inclusion of Egypt in the Ottoman imperial space was accompanied by a partial replacement of the former foreign ruling elite of the Mamluk meritocracy with a new one, in many respects similar to it. The balance of internal forces established by the Ottomans was held by the administrative apparatus headed by the Ottoman viceroy, the army corps (ojaqs), and the leaders of the main Mamluk groups. The main content of the study is to analyze the ethnic structure and recruitment sources of Egyptian power elites. As a result of his research the author concludes that the main influx of new representatives of the Egyptian “nobility” was carried out at the expense of external migration flows, which took place within an impressive area extending from the remotest territories of the Mediterranean in the west to the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia in the east. After examining a wide range of sources, it has been established that at the end of the period under consideration the power mechanism of the Egyptian Eyalet was held by the main neo-mamluk “households”, which were headed by Egyptian beys of predominantly Mamluk origin, who formed their hierarchy within the Ottoman military-administrative system.