4 Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–17)

Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–17)

The Ottoman–Mamluk War of 1516–1517 was the second major conflict between the Egypt-based Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire, which led to the fall of the Mamluk Sultanate and the incorporation of the Levant, Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula as provinces of the Ottoman Empire.^[1] The war transformed the Ottoman Empire from a realm at the margins of the Islamic world, mainly located in Anatolia and the Balkans, to a huge empire encompassing thetraditional lands of Islam, including the cities of Mecca, Cairo,Damascus and Aleppo. It continued to be ruled however fromConstantinople.^[2]

The relationship between the Ottomans and the Mamluks had been adversarial since the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453: both states vied for control of the spice trade, and the Ottomans aspired to eventually taking control of the Holy Cities of Islam.^[3] An earlier conflict, which lasted from 1485 to 1491, had led to a stalemate.

By 1516, the Ottomans were free from other concerns—Sultan Selim Ihad just vanquished the Safavid Persians at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514^[2]—and turned their full might against the Mamluks, who ruled inSyria and Egypt, to complete the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East.^[2]