The Political Struggle and Succession in the Mamluk Sultanate during the Reign of al-Ẓāhir Yalbāy and al-Ẓāhir Tamurbughā (1467–1468)

The reign of al-Ẓāhir Barqūq (1382–1389; 1390–1399), the first sultane of the Circassian sultanate (1382–1517), marked the transition from dynastic to non-dynastic principle of succession in the Mamluk State (1250–1517). The Circassian sultans did not create a dynasty in the full sense of the word. Most of them tried to hand the power over to their sons, but the rule of such heirs tended to be nominal and short-lived. Those Circassian sultans who did manage to remain in power generally were not lineal descendants of their predecessors. By the beginning of the third decade of the 15th century the non-dynastic system of succession acquired a stable character, and the short-term rule of the heir sultan began to play the role of a transitional period, during which the amirs united in coalitions and determined the candidacy of the next sultan. The failure of this new system of succession, which had been working properly for more than forty years, occurred after the death of the sultan al-Ẓāhir Khushqadam (1461–1467). This article unravels the complex events of the political crisis in Cairo in 1467–1468 to identify a set of factors that determined the level of stability of the political system based on non-dynastic succession. In order to examine the political upheaval during the reign of al-Ẓāhir Yalbāy and al-Ẓāhir Tamurbughā this paper deals with the conception of the Mamluk Sultanate by A. Levanoni and some modern scholarly approaches to the transformation of Syro-Egyptian political organization, discussed in recent publications of J. Van Steenbergen.