21. The Final Destruction of the Warrior Slave Class That Had Dominated Egypt for Centuries
Of the 470 Mamluks who entered Cairo’s Citadel on March 1, 1811, only one, Amin Bek, is reported to have survived the massacre. He was at the back of the procession when the gate was slammed shut. When he saw death closing in upon him from all sides, he spurred his horse into a jump from one of the Citadel’s walls, from a height of about 65 feet – equivalent to a modern building’s seventh floor. The horse died, but Amin Bek miraculously survived and managed to escape to Syria.
The events at the Citadel kicked off an indiscriminate slaughter of Mamluks throughout Egypt. Muhammad Ali Pasha had instructed subordinates throughout the country to be ready, and when word arrived, they fanned out to slay any Mamluks they could lay their hands on. In Cairo, the Pasha’s soldiers began to loot Mamluk houses, and by the time order and discipline were restored among the troops, over 500 houses had been pillaged and trashed. A few Mamluk survivors fled south to Nubia, but even that refuge was lost to them in 1820 when the Pasha’s troops invaded and conquered the region. Muhammad Ali had secured the final destruction of Egypt’s Mamluks, and he went on to find a dynasty that ruled Egypt until 1952.