Who were the Mamluks?
The term 'Mamluks', in Arabic, stands for the slaves to be captured apart from their parents. So a Mamluk is the slave who is subject to sale, unlike the slave who comes from captured parents, who is known as a bondman.
As general and applicable as the 'Mamluk' may be to all slaves, it was used as a particular technical term in Islamic history since the era of the famous Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma’moon (198-218 A.H.) and his brother Al-Mu‘tasim (218-227 H.). During those days, large numbers of slaves were brought after being purchased from the markets of the slave trade, and used as military detachments so that the rulers could strengthen their power of authority.
Across time, the Mamluks became the main, and, sometimes, even the only military instrument in many Islamic countries. The Ayyubid emirs in particular depended on their possessed Mamluks to strengthen their force, and fight through them, given that their number was limited, to an extent, till the army of As-Saalih Ayyoob, May Allaah Have mercy upon him, suffered from the breakaway of the Khwarezmids, thereupon he was forced to increase the number of the Mamluks to strengthen his force. In this way, the Mamluks greatly increased especially in Egypt.
Resources of the Mamluks
The Mamluks came mainly from their being taken as prisoners of war or purchased from slave markets. They were brought mostly from the territories beyond the river, i.e. the River of Jaihun (Amu Daria), North of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, separating them from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Those who lived in those territories were mostly Turks, and their territories were a theater of relentless fighting and instability, and this is why there were so many prisoners of war from those territories, which had lots of slave markets. Some of the cities most recognized for slaves were Samarkand, Farghaanah, and Khwarezm. For this reason, the Mamluks were mostly of Turkish origin, along with some of Armenian and Mongolian origins. There were also Mamluks of European origin known as Saqaalibah, brought mainly from Eastern Europe.
This remained in progress throughout many decades and even centuries. But the main change made by As-Saalih Ayyoob, and the Mamluk sultans after him, was that he brought only the very young Mamluks who were still in their early childhood, mostly from non-Muslim countries. But sometimes, some Muslim children who did not speak Arabic happened to be taken captives, and since neither they nor their origins nor their religion were known, they were treated as slaves.
