The Ottoman Sultan Selim went on roaming around Cairo for 3 consecutive days.. getting to know its paths and roads and architecture and monuments.. while his men spread corruption in it, looting the houses and stealing the money of the people and the merchants.. and whoever stood up to them was killed on the spot.. Selim had decided to break Cairo before his campaign.. Ibn Iyas al-Hanafi mentioned in his book Selim's explicit phrase:
“If I enter Egypt I will burn all its houses and play havoc among its people with the sword”.
And to a great extent he carried out his promise.. he ordered his Janissary forces and the Ottoman army divisions to let loose and seize whatever they wished.. and they were killing nearly a thousand people a day.. sparing neither an old man nor a woman.. and they slaughtered any man who defended his home and his honour.. and they raped many women.. and in many incidents recorded in history.. of the rape of women who took cover in the mosques and sought protection in the houses of God.. the Janissaries went in after them and violated their honour inside them.. without mercy or pity…
Then Selim ordered his men to gather all the goods, from fabrics and antiques and silver, gold and copper artefacts and other things, and to ship them to his palace in Istanbul.. Ibn Iyas recounts this incident:
“And the treasures of the earth in Egypt were opened up to the Ottomans, from the plunder of cloth and weapons and horses and mules and slave women and slaves and other such things of every kind, and they gained things they had never gained in their own lands, and had never seen before, nor had their great master”.
And on the third day, 26 January 1517, Sultan Selim was amid his guard and his procession of Janissaries, in the Bulaq area.. and he was taken with its trees and its atmosphere.. so he ordered the magnificent royal tent to be pitched.. with a camp around it so that he could rest and enjoy the gentle breeze.
But Selim did not enjoy the gentle breeze for even a moment.. because suddenly.. and without warning.. Tuman Bay fell upon the camp.
Armed with a sword and a dagger and a horse.. and around him a small detachment of Mamluks.. as if he were a ghost returned to life.. Tuman Bay fell in a surprise attack on Selim's camp.. and his sword went to work on the Janissary forces who were taken by surprise by the sudden assault.. whose numbers and equipment they did not know.. so more than a thousand Ottoman soldiers began to retreat.. before a few soldiers.. at whose head was al-Ashraf Tuman Bay.
But the Janissaries regained their composure.. and were about to launch the attack.. had not the people of Bulaq suddenly.. risen up at the sight of Tuman Bay once more.. and enthusiasm coursed through their veins.. so they fell upon the camp with cudgels and bricks and bladed weapons.. and began slaughtering the Ottomans without hesitation.
And the news spread through Cairo with astonishing speed.. al-Ashraf Tuman Bay is alive.. and resisting the invaders.. so all the people of Cairo rose up.. and set off against the Ottoman army in a terrifying street war.. in which they killed more than 20 thousand soldiers.. everyone fighting in defence of his freedom and his life.. even the women took part in the fighting.
And in Selim's camp.. Tuman Bay nearly slaughtered the Ottoman sultan in fact.. and it was said that the blade of his sword passed within a fist's length of Selim's neck.. because he was hit at that very moment by a Janissary bullet in his shoulder.. and Selim set off on the back of his horse in flight with the Janissary forces around him.. and he escaped death by a miracle.. and in the end.. the people of Bulaq burned the camp completely after finishing off everyone in it.
Despite his wounds and injuries.. al-Ashraf Tuman Bay went on falling upon the Ottoman soldiers in the streets.. supported by the people and the last remnant of the Mamluks.. who stood fighting alongside him.. and the Janissaries took cover behind the walls of the houses and opened fire.. only to be surprised by the people falling upon them from behind.. smashing their heads with stones.. or slaughtering them with bladed weapons.
And this time.. it was Selim who disappeared.
He hid in the Citadel in secret and ordered that his whereabouts not be disclosed.. and left his forces to engage with the people and their leader al-Ashraf Tuman Bay.
And sleep fled from the eyes of the Ottomans.. and the first night ended in alertness and mobilisation and heavy losses.. and their nerves were inflamed and tense.. in one of their camps at the Muqattam hill.. and this camp had priority for Tuman Bay because it was an elevated stronghold.. that had to be eliminated.
And under the wing of darkness.. Tuman Bay fell upon the Janissaries with his men.. clad in black.. concealed by the cloak of night.. and they began slaughtering them in silence until he gained control of the entire camp.. and seized from it a new weapon.. gunpowder.
And on the second night.. Tuman Bay and his men fell, with blazing clay shells filled with Ottoman gunpowder.. upon the Ottoman camps in Cairo and Giza.. and killed 12 thousand of their soldiers.
And then word reached the Ottomans that Tuman Bay was encamped at one of the bridges on the Nile on the “Middle Island”.. now in the Zamalek district.. so the Ottoman forces set off against him with ten thousand soldiers.. to fight him and take control of the situation.. but he had dug a trench with the local people.. hidden it with branches and leaves.. and filled it with gunpowder.. and when the Ottomans reached it on the approach to the island.. he set the trench alight.. and besieged them.. and annihilated this army entirely, down to the last soldier.
And the people of Cairo regained their confidence.. and it seemed to them that victory over the Ottoman invaders was inevitable.. and ambushes began to be set for the Ottomans in the streets and alleys.. and Ottoman morale sank to zero.. because they had never encountered direct resistance like this in any country they had entered before.. and street warfare was new to them.. and they did not understand it.
And Tuman Bay's epic of resistance in this street war continued for another two days.. the truth is that the stories and epics of Tuman Bay's resistance and his heroics, if we were to speak of them in detail.. we would need novels upon novels and huge books.. to do them justice.. so on the fourth day.. the black news reached Selim.. Tuman Bay has recovered his archaic cannons from the Ridaniya stronghold.. and is coming with them to the Citadel to pound them down on his head and the heads of his army if necessary.. in exchange for Cairo being liberated.
And for the first time in his life.. Selim withdrew from a country after entering it.. and on the morning of the following day.. the Friday after the invasion in January of that same year, 1517 AD.. the sheikhs called out from the pulpits with fervour for the sultan of Egypt, al-Ashraf Tuman Bay.. and Selim withdrew with half his army.. and encamped at al-Wardan in Giza.. leaving the other half in a continuing street war with the Egyptians and Tuman Bay.
And the balance of this war tipped in favour of the Egyptians.. and Tuman Bay recovered Cairo.
He did indeed recover it and gained control of most of it.. and the men fortified themselves in the houses and the mosques.. carrying the swords and bows and arrows.. that they had taken from the bodies of the Ottomans.
And for the first time since Ridaniya.. the houses were lit up and the women's trills of joy rang out.. and the people of Egypt felt enthusiasm and hope.
And Selim hated Tuman Bay madly.. but admired him intensely at the same time.. he loathed him and wished him dead.. and at the same time respected him and wished to clasp his hand.. because, as we said.. Selim was surrounded by traitors who sold their homeland for money, and he valued and respected the brave, honourable fighter.. even if he was an enemy.
And the rest of the story of the hero al-Ashraf Tuman Bay with Selim the Butcher is long.. so we will continue talking about it later.
And there remains.. more to be said.
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- Previous posts in the first comment.
- The image is a painting of Sultan al-Ashraf Tuman Bay.
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#The_Ottoman_Caliphate 22