The Term <i>Mamlūk</i> and Slave Status during the Mamluk Sultanate

Abstract

Scholars of the Mamluk Sultanate generally maintain that the status of all the mamlūk was that of an elite, and that the mamlūk were proud of their slave origin even after manumission. It is here argued that these assertions are based on a misconception of the term mamlūk as used in Mamluk sources. The term mamlūk has a double meaning: slave and servant, and it frequently expresses subordination, obedience and servitude. It is never used to express pride in slave status or slave origin. There is no evidence that manumitted mamlūk were proud of their slave status. On the contrary, manumitted slaves with aspirations made great efforts to repress their servile past by claiming an exalted origin or by creating marital ties with established families. Mamlūks were considered property and they lacked a legal identity of their own. They were often manumitted only upon their master’s death. They perceived themselves as slaves for lacking family ties. Only an outstanding few succeeded in completely freeing themselves of their slave status and become members of a ruling elite with family ties. It seems that starting from al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Qalāwūn’s third reign the enslavement of Turkish mamlūks who had been sold by their families became more of a formality. On the other hand, non-Turkish mamlūks , who were generally Christian war captives, were subject to discrimination. They were disdained, manumitted at a later age and prevented from establishing marital ties with the Qalawunids and creating their own families at a young age. They were perceived by their contemporaries as being “more slaves” than the Turkish mamlūks .