The ninth of October, in the year 1365.. an unforgettable day in history.. the day Alexandria fell.
In order for us to reach that day.. we must know how the matter happened from the beginning.. Murad I, like Osman I.. gathered historians and scribes around him to weave a special halo about him.. and spin a legend for him.. while in truth he was a nasty man.. as we shall see in the coming lines.
Murad realised that he would not be able to defeat the Mamluks in Egypt.. all the countries around them, whenever one of the Ottomans took the throne.. would send him gifts and congratulate him.. except Egypt.. and when Murad ascended the throne.. King al-Mansur Salah al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Qalawun ignored him completely.. and what happened was that the tables were turned.. so Murad sent envoys of his own laden with gifts.. and Salah al-Din ibn Qalawun accepted them with thanks.. and he ignored Murad all the same.. he sent him nothing.
The secret here is that the Mamluk state, by the standards of this era, was supremely powerful.. and did not court anyone in this way.. despite the deterioration of its economic conditions.. unfortunately Salah al-Din ibn Muhammad ibn Qalawun was in no way like his grandfather.. and this led them to depose him and appoint in his place al-Ashraf Sha'ban ibn Muhammad ibn Qalawun.
And al-Ashraf Sha'ban was young, twelve years old.. and the situation the country was in when he took it over was a new disaster.
The struggle of authorities and apparatuses.
The sovereign apparatuses of the state turned into blocs striking at one another from below.. and the spies hated the Circassian Mamluks.. and the Circassian Mamluks hated the Bahri Mamluks.. and the head of the diwan was with these.. and the chief of the security system was with those against those.. and the commander of the troops was against the amir of arms Taybugha al-Tawil, who was with I don't know who.. and so on.
Murad realises that he must defeat this state.. but while he is far from the picture, he appears an ally.. while deep down he is a loathsome enemy.
The first thing Murad does is that he calls himself 'Caliph of the Muslims'.. and this is the first caliph title that one of the sultans of the House of Osman gave himself.. and by it he lent himself prestige and religious authority..
Murad besieges the city of Edirne and it falls into his hands in the year 1363.. the Ottomans' policy was often the long siege.. until the cities fell without a fight.
Murad thinks a little politically.. and makes a rapprochement with the Byzantines.. and urges the Byzantine emperor Andronikos IV towards Europe.. on the idea that Jerusalem would not return and the Crusader campaigns would not succeed unless Egypt fell.
And the truth is that, after the Seventh Crusade, Europe was not enthusiastic about attacking Egypt again.. because the Seventh Crusade had ended in catastrophe.. and a crushing defeat at the hands of the Egyptian army led by Fakhr al-Din Yusuf and al-Zahir Baybars and Faris al-Din Aqtay.. and in it Louis IX, King of France himself, was taken captive.. and imprisoned in the house of Ibn Luqman in Mansoura.. and because of this a violent uprising broke out in France.. which the Church at the time called the 'Croisade des Pastoureaux' (the Shepherds' Crusade).. to belittle and demean it.. but the truth was that the people wanted France to attack Egypt and take revenge and free Louis from captivity.. but France was unable to attack Egypt anew.
So when the Byzantine emperor Andronikos began to drip poison into the honey for the kings of Europe.. no one followed him.. the Pope already had a long-term plan to weaken Egypt economically and was not intending to fight it after the scandal of the French king's capture at the Battle of Mansoura.. so the Pope of Europe at that time issued a law.. banning trade with Egypt.. or passing through Egyptian ports.. so that Egypt would become economically impoverished and thus militarily weak.
But the European merchants ignored the law completely.. so the Pope went and formed a military force in Cyprus.. whose aim was to monitor these merchants.. and see who was going to Egypt in order to be punished.. and sometimes they were kidnapped to appear before the Pope.. and despite that, trade continued as normal.
The Byzantine emperor tries to present his idea to the kings of Europe away from the Pope.. so everyone ignored him except one.
The King of Cyprus.. Pierre I de Lusignan.
And Pierre was an enemy of the Ottomans.. so when Murad learned that he had accepted his idea without knowing that it was his idea.. he sighed in relief.. whichever side lost this war.. it would be a victory for Murad.. and a weakening of his enemies.
And two days before the date mentioned above.. on the seventh of October, in the year 1365.. eighty warships set out from Cyprus laden with about fifty thousand horsemen and foot soldiers with their weapons.. and no one knew where they were heading.. until, in the middle of the sea.. Pierre announced to them that they were bound for the Egyptian city of Alexandria.
And Pierre's plan, which Murad had poured into his ears through the emperor of Byzantium.. was that Alexandria was full of foreigners and European merchants living in it.. therefore no one would expect Europe to attack it.. secondly.. it was the most important Egyptian port and centre of maritime trade.. and occupying it might make the Egyptians agree to exchange it for Jerusalem.. and thirdly.. if this Crusader campaign succeeded, the Pope would bless it.. because Alexandria was the seat of the Egyptian Church.. and the Pope in Europe considered the Egyptian Church schismatic.. and its priests wicked, innovative heretics.
And the truth is that news of this campaign reached Egypt while the ships were already moving.. but we were in the disaster of the 'struggle of authorities'.. so the army commander imagined that this was a rumour from the amir of arms.. so he ignored the information and set off on a land hunting trip in Abbassia.. and al-Ashraf Sha'ban imagined.. that this was a trick by the head of the diwan.. so he went to Shibin al-Qanater to relax at the Siryaqus resort.. and the most amusing thing is that the commander of the troops imagined that this was a trick to move the army to Alexandria.. and for al-Ashraf Sha'ban's opponents to turn against him.. so he withdrew the army garrison from Alexandria and took it to Cairo.
And after sunset on the ninth of October, in the year 1365.. the ships appeared on the horizon to the people of Alexandria.. so they automatically assumed they were merchant ships.. but the next morning they realised they were warships.
And the walls of Alexandria were high and strong.. capable of withstanding this invasion.. but the people of Alexandria were civilians who did not understand.. so they gathered their weapons and crossed the walls and assembled at a spot in front of the island of Pharos.. waiting for the invaders to prevent them from entering the city.
Whoever saw the people of Alexandria in this state was the deputy governor of Alexandria.. and he was a stupid youth from the Circassian Mamluks.. so instead of advising them to go back behind the walls.. he went and joined them.. so Pierre waited for them to gather.. and then bombarded them with artillery impassively.. and the deputy governor fled.. and during his flight and the chaos and the landings that Pierre carried out.. the gates of the walls were open.
The Cypriot Crusader forces entered Alexandria.. and walked through the streets slaughtering whoever they met.. they spared no one, neither Muslim nor Christian, not even the Europeans.. they killed them and looted their shops and fell upon the churches and stole their votive offerings and golden crosses and precious possessions.. they already considered the Egyptian Church at that time infidel, as we said.. and they burned the churches and the mosques and even violated the cemeteries.. the English historian Sir Steven Runciman describes what happened as one of the most horrific massacres in history.. so much so that it is almost the most horrific massacre of the Crusades ever.
And the black news reaches Cairo.. and this time.. the army moves.
The terrible massacre continued for three consecutive days.. until the first signs of the Egyptian army began to appear on the horizon.. so Pierre wanted to engage them.. and stay in Alexandria and occupy it.. but his soldiers mutinied against him.. and told him they were absolutely not prepared to engage the men who had defeated the French forces and captured Louis.. and Pierre finds himself surrounded by soldiers who do not want to fight.. so he decides to flee...
They transferred everything they had stolen to the ships.. and it was so much that they threw much of it into the sea to lighten the load.. and there were tribes of Bedouin Arabs living in the desert hinterland of Alexandria.. when they learned of the incident.. they took up their weapons and headed for Alexandria.. and completed the pillaging.. a shattered city, the bodies of its men burned on the shore.. looted shops.. and open houses containing nothing but women.. the historian Muhammad ibn al-Qasim ibn Muhammad al-Nuwayri al-Iskandari al-Maliki recorded this incident and said of it: 'The poor among these Arabs grew rich.. and the rich among the people of Alexandria grew poor.'
The Catholic Pope in Europe was overjoyed at the blow to Alexandria.. and began to mobilise the kings of Europe to carry out Pierre's idea.. which was Murad's idea.. and occupy it.. but Italy refused and withdrew.. and France and Hungary followed.. the truth is that the destruction of Alexandria spoiled their trade.. and the prices of spices, silk, tobacco, carpets, manufactures and crops that used to come from Egypt and no longer came.. rose in Europe to a mad degree.. also, after Pierre's withdrawal, Egypt responded immediately with a retaliatory military strike on Cyprus.
This military strike was quick and brief given Egypt's economic loss.. but it vexed the Cypriot people and afterwards, with the sudden rise in prices.. they began to hate Pierre and felt that his military adventure had caused them problems.. and people grew weary of him and his rule and of the country's internal disturbances.. also Cyprus was economically weakened because Egypt boycotted the Cypriot merchants who used to sneak in without the Pope's knowledge.. and one night.. three knights of the Cypriot army set out for Pierre's bedchamber while he slept in his palace in Nicosia.. and fell upon him.. and killed him before he knew what was happening to him.
It is true that Egypt never forgets those who stood against it.. because sixty years later.. a group of Cypriots kidnapped an Italian ship from the port of Alexandria.. and when the port guard chased them at sea.. Cypriot ships clashed with him in Egyptian waters.. so the Sultan al-Ashraf Sayf al-Din Barsbay.. decided to teach them a lesson.. and to return Pierre's visit.. and he set off towards Cyprus and destroyed its cities one after another and raised Egyptian flags on their ruins.. and captured the King of Cyprus Janus Lusignan and brought him back bound in chains.. and put him in prison.. until the kings of Europe gathered.. and agreed to pay a huge ransom.. which Sultan Barsbay demanded for his release.. so he released the King of Cyprus on condition that Cyprus pay Egypt an annual tribute of 20,000 dinars.. and he concluded a peace treaty with him.. and the King of Cyprus stipulated, for the payment of the tribute, that Egypt protect Cyprus.. so Sultan al-Ashraf Barsbay agreed.. and Cyprus became an ally.. and the King of Cyprus left prison.. and visited the landmarks of Cairo and enjoyed himself and returned to his country.
The story of Cyprus has taken us a little away from the Ottoman caliph, the prince of addicts, Murad ibn Orhan, who was overjoyed at the economic blow to Egypt.. and was setting off in his expansion and his conquests.. with his eye on Europe.. until a frightening problem confronted him.. which had not been reckoned with.. and he solved it in a terrible, horrifying way.
And this problem we will talk about later.
And there remains more of the talk.. to come.
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