What if the Mamelukes of Egypt bandwagon with the Ottomans?

raharris1973

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What if the last independent Mameluke ruler, Kansu Al-Ghauri, attempted to align with the Ottomans rather than the Persians in the early 1500s?

Could this result in the Mameluke realms of Egypt, the Levant and western Arabia remaining independent of the Ottoman empire for a prolonged period? Could it prevent the later OTL conflation of the Ottoman Sultan with the Caliphate?

Would this allow the Ottomans to accomplish more militarily against Europe, the Persians or the Russians?

An initial sketch might work like this, the Mamelukes offer to align with the Ottomans to crush the Shiite heretics of Persia after Selim the Grim wins the battle of Chaldiran. The Mameluke ruler proposes that his Syrian forces move east to crush the Shiite heresy and beat the Safavids in Mesopotamia-Iraq, while the Ottomans continue to advance into Persia proper.

Might the Ottomans have gone for an arrangement like this?

This scenario is inspired by the OTL bandwagoning behavior of Khayr-al-Din "Barbarossa", pirate sultan of the Maghreb, who made the bet that he would be stronger and safer paying homage to the Ottomans rather than working against them.
 
They might have done. The Mamelukes were on the decline anyway, so using one power that they're pretty sure they can beat in the next couple of decades to defeat a stronger power sounds like it would be a good move politically.
 
It would be very difficult for the Mamluks to constantly be successful in diverting the eyes of the Ottoman sultans from their lands. In truth Selim I. Yavuz which attacked them commenced his attack in the first place under the pretext that the Mamluk rulers were practicing Shi'a Islam in secrecy ( similar case to Spanish Moriscos ) and the fact that he was annoyed by the constant usage of the title of Kalifah by Mamluks.
Ottoman state without the lands of Mamluks is not as strong as it would be originally, she would not be able to project her naval power in the Indian ocean, counter the Portugese and possibly the dominance of islamic maghreb pirates would not be as strong as it was since Ottoman support would not be that direct as they would not share common land border.
 
What if a Mameluks lord, seeing writting on the wall so to speak, offered to join the empire in exchange for some limited fredom, a special Bey status or something?

'We WILL be conquered, so better try to strike a deal now."
 
What if a Mameluks lord, seeing writting on the wall so to speak, offered to join the empire in exchange for some limited fredom, a special Bey status or something?

'We WILL be conquered, so better try to strike a deal now."

That's what happened anyways. Even as the Ottomans conquered Egypt, the Mamluks remained the local ruling class.
 
Doubt the Ottomans will leave the Mameluke sultanate alone. They did after all go to war with them a few decades previous. The Mameluke sultanate was an unwelcome influence in Anatolia, and had propped up the Karamanids and a few other groups IIRC.
 
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