Chronograph Русский Open the atlasAtlas
Middle East and Egypt (14th – mid-15th c.)Politics and state

Third reign of al-Nasir Muhammad: the height of the Mamluk sultanate

Returning from al-Karak in March 1310, al-Nasir Muhammad, the son of Qalawun, removed the amirs who had dominated his first two reigns and ruled alone for more than thirty years. Historians regard his reign as the apogee of Mamluk power: peace was made with the Ilkhans, and Cairo, which he adorned with palaces and mosques, received rulers and envoys from Mali to Europe.

Date
March 1310 – 7 June 1341start: month known; end: exact date · duration: ≈ 31 years
Place
Citadel of Cairotoday: Cairo, Egypt · Middle East and Egypt
Participants
al-Nasir Muhammad, Mamluk Sultanate
Threads
Middle East and Egypt (14th – mid-15th c.)
Also known as
al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun; Rawk al-Nasiri; Третье правление ан-Насира; Мухаммад ибн Калаун

Al-Nasir first came to the throne as a boy in 1293 and again in 1299, but each time real power lay with the great amirs. In 1309 he withdrew to the fortress of al-Karak, and the next year, with support from Syria and amid popular discontent in Cairo, he returned. He had the amir Baybars al-Jashnakir, who had taken the throne in his absence, put to death, later arrested his ally Salar, abolished the office of vice-sultan (1314), confiscated the wealth of corrupt officials, cancelled a number of extraordinary taxes and in 1315 had the lands of Egypt surveyed anew to reassess their revenues. The Mongol threat that had shaped the reigns of his predecessors receded: after Öljeitü’s siege of al-Rahba on the Euphrates (1312–1313), peace was concluded with the Ilkhanate in the early 1320s.

Cairo drew visitors from far away. In July 1324 Mansa Musa of Mali passed through on his way to Mecca; envoys came from the Ethiopian emperor Amda Seyon, protesting at the persecution of the Copts, from Pope John XXII (1327) and from Philip VI of France (1330). Tension between Muslims and Christians broke out in 1321, when churches were destroyed in several parts of Egypt and a series of fires followed in Cairo. The sultan reopened the canal linking Alexandria with the Nile (1311), rebuilt much of the Citadel — the Striped Palace (Qasr al-Ablaq), the Great Iwan, a new Friday mosque and an aqueduct — and restored more than thirty mosques; the portal of his madrasa at Bayn al-Qasrayn is a Gothic doorway taken from a church in Acre after his brother al-Ashraf Khalil captured the city in 1291. He died in June 1341, and six years later the Black Death struck the realm.

Open in the interactive atlas

Connections

Related events

  • Reign of Sultan Baibars24 October 1260 – between 30 June and 1 July 1277 · Middle East and EgyptThe Mamluk state consolidated by Baibars reached its height under al-Nasir Muhammad, the son of Qalawun
  • Fall of Acre18 May 1291 · Middle East and EgyptA Gothic portal taken from a church in Acre after its capture by al-Nasir’s brother al-Ashraf Khalil was set into al-Nasir’s madrasa in Cairo
  • Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca1324 – between 1325 and 1326 · AfricaIn July 1324 Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad received Musa in Cairo
  • Ibn Taymiyya dies in the Citadel of Damascus26 September 1328 · Middle East and EgyptSultan al-Nasir Muhammad, who had released Ibn Taymiyya from the citadel in 1321, had him imprisoned again in 1326
  • Reign of Amda Seyon I: the expansion of Christian Ethiopia1314–1344 · AfricaIn the early 1320s Amda Seyon sent envoys to al-Nasir Muhammad in Cairo, threatening reprisals if the persecution of the Copts did not stop
  • The travels of Ibn Battuta14 June 1325 – between January and February 1354 · AfricaIn 1326 Ibn Battuta passed through Mamluk Egypt and Syria in the reign of al-Nasir Muhammad
  • Building of the Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan1356–1363 · Middle East and EgyptSultan Hasan, a son of al-Nasir Muhammad, built on the site of a palace that his father had raised for one of his amirs

Same place

Adjacent events in the thread

Meanwhile in the world

Other regions, within a year of this event

Western and Central Europe

Eastern Europe

Balkans and Anatolia

Africa

Central and Northern Asia

South Asia

East Asia

Southeast Asia and Oceania

North America

Latin America

The same period

131014th century

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Al-Nasir Muhammad
  2. Wikipedia (English): Mamluk Sultanate
  3. Wikipedia (Russian): Ан-Насир Мухаммад I
  4. Wikipedia (Russian): Мамлюкский султанат
  5. Levanoni A. A Turning Point in Mamluk History: The Third Reign of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad Ibn Qalāwūn (1310–1341). — Leiden: Brill, 1995.