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Who Were the Mamluks?
- kfe 8y agoFor those find the topic interesting I would suggest reading "The Arabs: A History"[1] by Eugene Rogan. A truly fascinating read. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Arabs-History-Eugene-Rogan/dp/0465025048 https://www.amazon.com/Arabs-History-Eugene-Rogan/dp/0465025...
- Drup 8y agoThe Mamluks are a major power stuck between the Ottomans and Persia with a weird government form that almost guarantees rulers with a 6 in paper mana. They somehow often colonize Australia.
- shrimp_emoji 8y agoI'm sorry; is "paper mana" some uneducated term for admin power? Also, yep. I was surprised to see them in Indonesia!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- swampthinker 8y agoPaper Mana, Bird Mana, and sword mana
- dimillian 8y agoThis is the answer I was looking for. Sometime they also form Egypt too.
- catacombs 8y agoThey were those bastards who nearly dominated the Ottoman Empire and all of the western Mediterranean region in my recent EU4 game. They listed me as a rival for nearly 200 years without ever waging war, which, in hindsight, was a blessing.
- Symmetry 8y agoThose games have taught me so much about history and geography. On a game map you have to fill in every bit of territory with whatever state was there at the time, not just ignore it the way the history you're taught in school can.
- sgslo 8y agoGames like EU4 often make me think about the role that video games have in education. It seems as though all educational games are created with a primary goal of "education" and a secondary goal of "fun game". The result is always an unfun game. What if the ordering were reversed? Create a fun game, then try to tack on some educational elements after the fact. Perhaps some games like this already exist. I'm sure you could make a claim that Minecraft is a fun game that also teaches resource management and spatial awareness.
- mipmap04 8y agoThis reminds of me "Typing of the Dead". It's like the arcade shooter House of the Dead, but instead of a light gun, you use your keyboard and shoot zombies by typing words to kill them. Pretty fun way to work on typing speed.
- flukus 8y agoGames often have the opposite problem of trying to be balanced that can harm the educational aspects, think Civ and Total War. EU4 and most paradox games have asymmetric starts that make it both more realistic and offer some great a-historical challenges.
- ayayecocojambo 8y agoyou should first handle memluks before going west. (in the history, whole memluk region is conquered by ottoman empire with only a single war)
- wiz21c 8y ago
- dfsegoat 8y agoTying things back to today: A Mameluke Sword is what you see US Marine Corps. officers carry on specific formal occasions (or in recruiting commercials!): "Marine Corps history states that a sword of this type was presented to Marine First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon by the Ottoman Empire viceroy, Prince Hamet, on December 8, 1805, during the First Barbary War, in Libya, as a gesture of respect and praise for the Marines' actions at the Battle of Derna (1805)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mameluke_sword#United_States_Marine_Corps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mameluke_sword#United_States_M...
- torstenvl 8y agoCame here to talk about this. Prince Hamet was the heir to the Tripolitan throne before being usurped by his brother and moving to Egypt to live in exile. The U.S. Marines were sent ashore to assist Prince Hamet in retaking Tripoli from his brother (who had been raiding U.S. ships in the Mediterranean). After the first Combined Joint operation in U.S. Marine history resulted in a complete victory at Derne, Prince Hamet gifted Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon with a Mameluke sword - a scimitar he had presumably obtained in Egypt. Subsequent to his devastating loss at Derne, of course, the Tripolitan usurper Bashaw Yusef agreed to release the members of the U.S.S. Philadelphia and cease his attacks on Americans on the condition that the Marines withdraw from Derne. So it was that the U.S. political class started its long tradition of abandoning its allies and agreements across the Islamic world... Today, the Marines honor O'Bannon (one of the barracks at The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia is named after him) and wear a replica of the Mameluke sword in some configurations of our Dress Blue uniform.
- ivanhoe 8y agowhat's exactly the distinction between swords and sabres in English? In my native language we'd call this a sabre (sablja), as word sword (mač) is used only for straight double-edged blades.
- enraged_camel 8y agoA saber is a type of sword. It’s pretty heavy and was meant for use on horseback (i.e. cavalry).
- hmd_imputer 8y ago"the Mamluks were not native to Egypt but were always slave soldiers, mainly Qipchak Turks from Central Asia." - if two Turks come together, they would establish an empire.
- swampthinker 8y agoAccording to my EU4 history lessons, Ottoman food.
- glastra 8y agoFrancisco Goya painted some of them in The Charge of the Mamelukes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_of_May_1808 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_of_May_1808 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamelukes_of_the_Imperial_Guard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamelukes_of_the_Imperial_Guar...
- beat 8y agoIf you're interested in this kind of history stuff, I recommend reading The Silk Roads, by Peter Frankopan. It's a recent (2015) epic-scope history book, from the beginning of written history to the present day, based on the idea that the Middle East, rather than Europe, is the true center of civilization - that the area stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to western India has been foremost, and remains foremost. (In particular, he argues that northern/western Europe was basically an uninteresting, barbarian backwater until 1500 or so.) Great book, totally fascinating reading, with the hottest geopolitical issues of today traced back through thousands of years of history.
- beat 8y agoOne interesting thing that comes from the book is realizing just how tremendously important the early Islamic expansion and empire was, filling the vacuum caused by the collapse of the Roman empire with a new culture, devoted to advancing technology, peace, trade, and preservation of the writings of earlier civilizations. Without them, we might have lost most of the writing of ancient Greece.
- ng12 8y ago> filling the vacuum caused by the collapse of the Roman empire What about the "other" Roman empire, the Byzantines? They seemed to have filled the vacuum even better.
- basilgohar 8y agoThere's a reason "Byzantine" when used as an adjective also has the negative connotation of "Overly complex or intricate." [1] It was not really a good successor in terms of success for the Roman Empire. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Byzantine#Adjective https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Byzantine#Adjective
- ng12 8y ago> It was not really a good successor in terms of success for the Roman Empire. How so? Constantinople was the richest, most recognized city on the European continent from the fall of Rome to the Fourth Crusade -- over half a millenium. At it's zenith it ruled almost as much territory as the Roman Empire. There's a reason the Islamic caliphs coveted it so much. Remember that there was a lot of distrust between the Latin and Greek worlds after the Great Schism. The whole reason we're calling them Byzantines instead of Romans (or even Greek/Eastern Romans) is because Renaissance scholars wanted to emphasize Latin Romans over (the still existing) Greek Romans.
- zeveb 8y ago> Boys of about 13 would be captured from areas to the north of the Persian empire, and trained to become an elite force for the personal use of the sultan or higher lords. The Arabic word Ghulam (boy) was sometimes employed for the bodyguards they would become. The boys would be sent by the caliph or sultan to enforce his rule as far afield as Spain (Venice and Genoa were major players in their transportation despite Papal interdictions) and sold to the commanders of the Islamic governments of the region. Under their new masters they were manumitted, converted to Islam, and underwent intensive military training. Think about the mass human history involved in that: each Mamluk was either bought from a desperate family or (more likely) captured in raids in which many of his friends and relatives were no doubt slaughtered; he was carried thousands of miles from anywhere he knew or recognised; then he was 'freed,' with no choice but to fight on behalf of those who'd bought him. No doubt many of them were subject to torture and abuse. It's very similar to the Janissaries, who were taken from Christian villages in the Balkans and Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), made to convert and then trained to serve as soldiers for the Ottomans. The mind boggles at the centuries of boys taken from their families at forced to fight on behalf of their kidnappers.
- sorokod 8y agoand we are not done yet... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_military#Current_situation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_military#Curre...
- mustaflex 8y agoFun fact: the mamluks where prohibited by their masters to marry arabs to not "lessen" their warrior genes
- dmix 8y agoThe article says as much: > And they kept their garrisons distinct, not mixing with the populace in the territories. The contemporary Arab historian Abu Shama noted after the Mamluk victory over the Mongols at Ayn Jalut in 1260 that, ‘the people of the steppe had been destroyed by the people of the steppe’. They kept their south Russian steppe blood well into their empire.
- puranjay 8y agoEvery time I read something like this, I'm reminded of how much I know my grounding in history to Age of Empires 2. Sure, it got a lot of things wrong and it took liberty with a lot of historical facts, but it also gave me a basis for, and appreciation of history. I knew about the Mamluks because they were an elite unit in the game, and I happened to one day just Google their name and read the wiki page.
- kumarharsh 8y agoSo true. AoE II was a great learning experience too on top of being an excellent game. The campaigns (although not exactly historically accurate) made me learn a lot about European and Asian histories, rivalries, amd personalities.
- shpx 8y agoIf you want to accidentally learn about history, I highly recommend Europa Universalis IV.
- Giorgi 8y agoone of the well known mameluks where actually Georgians. they are well known for world leaders, like Stalin
- esharte 8y agoI really enjoyed the wonderful In our Time podcast about the Mamluks https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bfmlh https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bfmlh
- davidwtbuxton 8y agoMe too. I love In Our Time, so many interesting subjects and I think it is a very well produced programme.
- onetimemanytime 8y agoIf you're go do it, do it fast and for good: https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/mamelukes-are-massacred-egypt https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/mamelukes-are... >>By 1811 Muhammad Ali was strong enough to deal with the Mamelukes. He organised a grand ceremonial procession in Cairo to which he invited some 500 Mameluke notables. Assembled in the citadel, they were warmly welcomed and treated to coffee, sweetmeats and polite conversation, but when the time came for the procession they had to go down a narrow, winding passageway between high walls in single file. Suddenly the gates at each end were slammed shut and the Wali’s soldiers appeared on top of the walls and opened a murderous fire with muskets. All or possibly all but one of the Mamelukes were killed. More Mamelukes were swiftly hunted down and killed in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt, to a total of perhaps 3,000.
- jmwenda 8y agoIt is actually interesting as 'Mamluki' is Swahili term for mercenary
- person_of_color 8y agoDo they have R1a?