The Ottoman Selim lived in constant terror of Tuman Bay.. but despite that, as we said.. he respected him greatly.
The historian Ibn Iyas described the events at the time with precision.. this man caused a major problem for the Ottomans.. because Ibn Iyas was an eyewitness.. he did not invent things.. and he described Selim saying:
“Ill-tempered, a shedder of blood, quick to anger, frowning, not to be contradicted in what he says”.
The occupier Selim was known as “Selim the Frowning”.. and he scowled and would not smile even at a hot loaf.. and he killed without reckoning.. to the point that he executed his own viziers without reckoning.. and mothers in Turkey would curse their children in moments of anger with “may God make you a vizier of Sultan Selim”.. he was a man as harmful as a nightmare.
With the victory of al-Ashraf Tuman Bay and his control of Cairo.. Selim ordered the Janissaries and they climbed onto the rooftops and scaled the minarets of the mosques.. and began firing at the people.. and they had new sniper rifles with them.. and they killed nearly fifty thousand civilians.. and blew up the mosques in which the men had fortified themselves with gunpowder.. and shelled them with artillery.. and they entered al-Azhar and al-Sayyida Nafisa, and al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, and the Ibn Tulun Mosque on horseback.. and they killed the sheikhs and violated the sanctities of the houses of God.. and cut people's necks without distinction.. and Selim sent word to Tuman Bay that the assassination of the people of Cairo with rifles from the heights would continue.. if Tuman did not withdraw and surrender.
These rifles were more modern than the ordinary Janissary rifles.. and by the way they came to Selim as a gift from England before the invasion of Cairo, as assistance.. so that no fool should come along and tell you “Selim was fighting the evil crusading English, you pack of idiots”…
And when Tuman Bay refused to surrender.. and chaos prevailed, the Janissaries set about seizing women.. and violating their honour openly.. so Tuman Bay had no choice.. but to come down from the Citadel.. and try to fight the Janissaries himself.
And Tuman set off through the streets on his horse.. at the head of a small detachment.. fighting and killing.. and being wounded and bleeding.. to protect the people of Cairo and ransom them with his life.
But Selim announced that whoever left Tuman Bay from among the Circassian Mamluk princes and surrendered to him.. would be pardoned.. and that they were originally from Anatolia and kinsmen.. so 800 Circassian princes withdrew from behind Tuman Bay.. going to Selim in Giza.. and offering him their submission.. but he was fed up with the traitors and in fact despised them.. so he broke his promise of safety.. and ordered that they all be slaughtered.
Tuman Bay's control began to wane as he gradually lost control of the districts of Cairo.. and the people fled and abandoned the resistance when the bullets poured down on them from the minarets and rooftops like rain.. and he lost the Middle Island in Zamalek.. then Imbaba and Bulaq.
And in order to spare the blood of the people of Egypt.. Tuman sent word to Selim announcing his acceptance.. and his readiness to negotiate a settlement. Ibn Iyas describes the massacres committed by Selim the Butcher as ones the like of which Egypt had never seen.. since the time of Nebuchadnezzar.
And the shooting stopped.. and Selim avoided entering Cairo as long as al-Ashraf Tuman Bay was at large in it.
But this whole settlement business was a manoeuvre by Tuman Bay.. who disappeared and all news of him was completely cut off.
And the Ottoman forces began to move from Giza cautiously.. but they were surprised by Tuman Bay.. storming into their ranks.. at the head of seven thousand fighters.. killing whomever his sword could reach.. near al-Wardan in Giza.
The Ottomans tried to repel the attack.. especially as their numbers were large.. more than seventy thousand soldiers.. but Tuman Bay's surprise and his courage and the courage of his men.. tipped the scales heavily in their favour.. and this battle went on for eight days.. and when Selim found himself threatened.. he ordered his forces anew.. and sent the Janissaries up into the minarets in Cairo once more.. and they sniped at the people.. so Tuman Bay withdrew.
And this time Tuman Bay disappeared completely, without a trace.
Selim did not forget the resistance of the people of Cairo.. so the Ottomans took revenge on them.. and shed their blood.. Ibn Iyas says:
“Then the Ottomans spread out among the common folk and the boys and others, and they played havoc among them with the sword, and the good went with the bad, and perhaps one who had committed no offence was punished, so their bodies lay thrown on the roads from Bab Zuwaila to al-Ramla and from al-Ramla to al-Saliba to Qantarat al-Siba' to al-Nasiriyya to Old Cairo”.. and the roads filled with the bodies of Egyptians.. and: “and at the end of this month the grain vanished from Cairo and bread disappeared from the markets”.. the reason for the disappearance of bread here was that Selim plundered the grain stores.. and gave the wheat of the Egyptians as food for his horses, leaving the people with nothing to eat.
“until nothing at all remained of the grain in the stores, and they plundered the wheat that was in the mills, and the affairs of the people were thrown into disorder”.. and Ibn Iyas adds, in grief:
“And were it not for the grace of God Almighty, the sword would have played havoc among all the people of Egypt”.
And he continues with a bitterness you can taste from his lines:
“We weep for Egypt and its inhabitants.. its flourishing pillars have been laid waste and it has become overpowered by humiliation.. after it had been Cairo”.
And Tuman Bay was at that time in a distant place.. in Upper Egypt.
This Upper Egypt of ours is frankly incomprehensible and very strange.. if you look at the map of any occupation.. Ottoman or otherwise.. you find that from just south of Asyut all the way to Nubia.. it has no presence.. the occupier throughout history has never managed to enter there.. even Cambyses, who occupied all of Egypt.. came to south of Aswan and the walls of Nubia and struck himself with his boot and withdrew. And so that no one tells me “you are Upper Egyptian and you are flattering them”.. I am Alexandrian, generation after generation, and by the way I have absolutely no roots in Upper Egypt.. but this is a fact.
And in Upper Egypt Tuman Bay met a man named “Abu Sabih Seiba bin Omar”.. and he awakened in him and in his family the desire to fight against the Ottomans.. so he provided Tuman with an army of the people of Upper Egypt to help him and went to fight with him.. this man “Abu Sabih Seiba” would be martyred alongside Tuman Bay.. and the Ottomans would mutilate his body.. but only after he had bequeathed the hatred of the Ottomans to his children generation after generation and decade after decade.. and taught them that the independence of the land is part of guarding one's honour.. and later, after about two centuries.. a man would come from his descendants.. who would fight the Ottomans and make Upper Egypt independent of the Ottoman state altogether and set it up as a state of its own.
And this descendant was named “Hammam”.
Whom we know by the name of “Sheikh al-Arab Hammam”.
And Selim sent a message to Tuman Bay telling him that he was ready for a settlement.. and Tuman Bay replied.. that a settlement, in his view, is one that preserves the blood of men and the honour of women.. so he sent him a delegation of envoys.. to negotiate with him.
But Khayr Bey realised that a settlement between Tuman Bay and Selim meant that he would gain nothing.. and that Tuman Bay might demand his head as part of the settlement deal and have him killed.. because Tuman Bay was executing the Mamluks who cooperated with the Ottomans.. so he sent agents of his own.. who killed Selim's envoys.. and he informed Selim that Tuman Bay had killed his envoys.
And here Selim demanded that Tuman Bay be captured alive.. whatever the price.
And after three months.. in which matters settled down for Selim and he regained control of Cairo and plundered it.. to the point that he dismantled the thresholds and doors of the mosques and stole the treasures of the churches and shipped them to Istanbul.. Tuman Bay surprised him suddenly like a ghost in Imbaba.. and nearly killed him.. and for the third time.. Selim escaped by a miracle from Tuman Bay's sword.
And here the Ottomans organised their ranks.. and Tuman Bay's small army met them in Giza.. and this time, with the disparity in equipment and numbers.. Sheikh “Abu Sabih Seiba” was martyred.. and Tuman Bay was defeated and fled to Beheira.
And in Beheira Tuman Bay met a man from the notables of Beheira at that time named “Sheikh al-Riwi”.. and he did not like the Circassian Mamluks.. but when the heroic deeds of Tuman Bay reached him.. he forgot any differences between the “al-Riwi family” and the Mamluks.. and he embraced him and took him in and provided him with a place where he could catch his breath.. and reorganise his ranks.
And word somehow reached the Ottomans.. that Tuman Bay was with Sheikh al-Riwi.. so an Ottoman army set off to capture him.. but Sheikh al-Riwi smuggled him away.. and fought the Ottomans for his sake with fierce determination.. and was martyred in defence of him.. beneath the swords of the Janissaries.
And this time Tuman Bay went to a man from the Bedouins named “Sheikh Hassan Mar'i”.. also in Beheira.. and this sheikh had been imprisoned by Sultan al-Ghuri, who ordered his execution.. but Tuman Bay at that time interceded for him and got him out of prison.
Sheikh Mar'i welcomed him.. and as soon as the wounded, exhausted Tuman Bay dozed off.. Hassan Mar'i sent a message to Sultan Selim.. that Tuman Bay was hiding with him.
And the Ottoman cavalry units swooped down.. accompanied by the infantry and the artillery forces and the Janissaries.. to capture one single man.. who had made them taste misery and terror for a long time.. al-Ashraf Tuman Bay.
Indeed the Ottomans captured him.. and brought him along to Sultan Selim, who ordered that he be imprisoned for a few days to think things over.. and the eager Khayr Bey suggested to him that they torture him.. but Selim absolutely refused.
And after more than 11 days.. Tuman Bay was brought before Selim.. and he reproached him for killing the envoys.. so Tuman Bay told him that he was no coward.. and that if he had killed the envoys he would have said so plainly.. and that he knew nothing about the matter.
Selim replied to him.. that he was braver than him.. because he had defeated him.. so Tuman Bay answered him.. that the Ottomans had only won through betrayal and treachery and vileness.. not through courage.
And the truth is that Tuman Bay's composure greatly impressed Selim.. so he offered him to remain in power.. in exchange for submitting to the Ottoman state.. and paying it an annual tribute.
And Tuman Bay shook his head in refusal.. and told Selim that Egypt does not submit to occupation.. so Selim offered him to remain in the rule of Egypt without paying tribute.. but to fight alongside Selim.. so Tuman Bay told him firmly.. that the Mamluks fight only for the land of Egypt.
And here Selim made an offer that no victor has ever made to a vanquished in history.
He offered him to remain in the rule of Egypt.. and the Ottoman state.. would pay him an annual stipend.. in exchange for him fighting with it!
And Tuman Bay refused. And he told him that the sons of Egypt are not mercenaries who fight with whoever pays more.. and that between Egypt and the Ottoman state there is honour and blood.. and that a settlement, in his view, means the Ottomans withdrawing unconditionally.. and refraining from violating Egyptian sovereignty again.. so Selim threw him back into prison in a rage.
And here Khayr Bey intervened.. and told Selim that it would not do for Tuman to remain in prison.. because if he escaped.. he would cause great trouble.. besides, he had become a symbol of resistance.. and he had to be executed.
And the truth is that Tuman Bay had no intention of escaping.. because, with the betrayal of the Bedouin “Sheikh Mar'i”, the very man he had saved from death.. he had lost the desire to fight.. and felt sorrow and defeat and brokenness.. and perhaps he had lost the desire for life itself.
And Selim realised that Khayr's words were true.. and decided to execute Tuman Bay because he was no longer an ordinary man.. he had become a symbol of resistance and of the humiliation of the Ottomans.. and Khayr suggested burning him or flaying him alive or impaling him.. but Selim.. who respected his honourable enemy and despised his treacherous ally.. rejected all of that.. and ordered the execution of al-Ashraf Tuman Bay by hanging.
And on 14 April of the year 1517 AD.. the Ottoman soldiers lined up by the thousands in the centre of Cairo in orderly ranks that screened the houses.. and he set off under the guard of five hundred Janissary soldiers heavily armed.. one man on a horse.. shackled in chains.
And at Bab al-Mutawalli in Cairo.. this man.. who was al-Ashraf Tuman Bay himself.. saw a hangman's rope dangling.. and he realised that the end had come.
And Tuman Bay was a religious Sufi man.. so he turned to the people and the women gathered there who had lost their husbands in the fighting against the invaders.. and asked them to recite al-Fatiha for him three times.. and they did recite it and he recited it with them.. and then he surrendered himself to the executioner.. who put the noose around his neck.. and pushed him from the top of the gate.. so that the body of the hero al-Ashraf Tuman Bay dangled.. dead in the void.. proclaiming the end of the Mamluk state.. and the victory of the enemies.. and the fall of Cairo into the hands of the invaders…
And the soul of the martyr Sultan al-Ashraf Tuman Bay passed to its Creator.. and “the people raised a great cry over him”.. and as Ibn Iyas says: “it was the most ill-omened day that ever passed over Egypt”.
And the name of Egypt at that time became the “Eyalet” of Egypt.. or the “Wilayah” of Egypt.. and Selim named himself:
“King of the Two Lands - the land of Egypt, eastern and western - and Khagan of the Two Seas - the Red and the Mediterranean - and Breaker of the Two Armies - Egypt and the Levant - and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”
Selim left Tuman Bay's body on the gallows for three days.. and then on 17 April of the same year.. a procession of Janissaries set off.. and they took the body down.. and carried it to the Citadel.. under the wing of darkness.
And although Ottoman tradition forbids the Ottoman sultan to carry a coffin except the coffin of his father.. Selim was waiting for them on the stairs of the Citadel.. and he came down to them and carried with them on his shoulder, in respect, the coffin of the hero al-Ashraf Tuman Bay.
Never forget.. even your enemy.. will always respect you if you are a patriot.. and will despise you if you are a traitor to your homeland.. no matter how he rewards you or praises you.
They carried the coffin to the dome of “Sultan al-Ghuri”.. to bury the body in an unknown place in it.. so that his grave would not become a shrine and a symbol of heroism.
But Selim had overlooked something very dangerous.
Tuman Bay had in fact awakened resistance in the people of the South and.. the North.
For during the execution of Tuman Bay.. a man from the Mamluks of Alexandria came.. named “al-Muqaddam Hassan Ra's al-Ghoul”… one of Tuman Bay's disciples.. “Muqaddam” was a rank in that era.. meaning “the one who leads a thousand soldiers”.. and with him was a small child.. his son.. and they stood watching the scene of Tuman Bay's hanging in a hushed, sorrowful silence.
And this Hassan Ra's al-Ghoul was married to a woman from Fayoum.. named “Fatima”.. who had borne him the child who had come with him to watch.. and he would let him know, and teach him, that the Ottomans were invaders with no covenant.. and that resisting them was a right.. and that martyrdom was an honour.
And this child's name was “Ali”…
“Ali bin Hassan Ra's al-Ghoul”, whom we will come to know historically by a rare, unique name…
“Ali al-Zibaq”….!
Historians said of the hero Tuman Bay, because of what he did, that he “was defeated alive and triumphed dead”.. but reviving resistance in people's hearts and the story of “Ali al-Zibaq” are not our subject.. so we will continue talking about the rest of the rotten line of the House of Osman.. and postpone talk of these stories for later.
Al-Ashraf Tuman Bay slipped into the conscience of Egyptians as a popular hero.. to this very day.. in Upper Egypt especially.. there are families who name their sons “Tuman”.
If you have read this post.. recite al-Fatiha for the soul of Tuman Bay.. and do not forget, when you pass by Bab al-Mutawalli or “Bab Zuwaila” in Cairo.. to recite al-Fatiha every time for the soul of the martyred hero Tuman Bay.. and pray for mercy and a good end for him.
And there will always remain.. more to be said…
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- Previous posts in the first comment.
- The image is of Bab al-Mutawalli or Bab Zuwaila.. where the hero Tuman Bay was martyred.
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#The_Ottoman_Caliphate 23