Mamluk Identity

[Tunch Khan]

Hope Paradox can set the record straight this time by giving Mamluk their proper culture as Turks.

It was ridiculous to have their main and only culture as Arabs. Only AGC-EEP tried to fix this and they came up with Caucasian culture, referring to the Burji Dynasty, falsely stated as "Caucasian" in Wikipedia. Both the Bahri (meaning 'of the Sea' in Arabic) and Burji (of the City/citadel - Burg) Dynasties were of Turkic origin consisting mostly of slave soldiers captured from Caucasia and North of Black Sea regions.

The initial slave army structure dates back to pre-Seljuk turkoman mercenaries and is structured according to the classic conventional Turkish army model. Ever since then, the power remained firm in the elite Turkish commander class and the promotions were saved for those who showed loyalty and often granted to fellow tribesmen.

Even though there had been occasional recruits from other cultures, Circassians, Georgians, Armenians, Syrians and Kurds, the ruling class was strictly reserved for the Turks, or those who were Turkified. The names of the powerful generals and sultans are a proof for this, since they are all Turkish names (unlike the Arabised muslim names of Anatolian Turkish Principalites).

Another striking note is the Mamluk's rise to power, as it was a Turkish slave girl Shajar (al-Durr / Duru) who claimed herself as the Sultana (female for Sultan) of Egypt and to consolidate her power married a Turkish general, Aybak in 1249.

The Burji takeover in 1382 was just a clique winning over another within the same group, and those who had stonger Circassian ties were still raised and assimilated in the Turkic tradition. They all spoke Turkish and considered themselves closer to the Anatolian Principalities than those other Arab neighbors. Their official language and foreign correspondence was made in Turkish.

Considering how poor they dealt with the local Arab population and their constant instability, I wouldn't suggest giving them Arab even as a second culture. However, this shouldn't mean that they managed to stay pure, on the contrary, just like every other large state, the Mamluks did get influenced from the local Arab culture, just like the locals received Turkish influence.

On a final note, Mamluks were neither the first, nor the last Turkish dynasty to rule over Egypt and Syria. Tulunid Emirate was founded by a Turkish general named Ahmad ibn Tulun in 868.

 

[unmerged(485)]

I think the culture was Arab to differentiate them from the Ottomans (or something like that).

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

The game will no most likely have several Turkic and Arabic cultures, at least I can't imagine that they only divided the Scottish (Gaelic) in Highland and Lowland culture

 

[Lurken]

The game will no most likely have several Turkic and Arabic cultures, at least I can't imagine that they only divided the Scottish (Gaelic) in Highland and Lowland culture

Which means more cultures to play around with = more fun for modders!

 

[Tunch Khan]

I think the culture was Arab to differentiate them from the Ottomans (or something like that).

It's like giving each German Principality different cultures to differentiate them from Prussia... like Italian Saxony, French Bremen and Spanish Palatinate...?

 

[Ulyanov]

I agree with Tunch Khan that if

I think the culture was Arab to differentiate them from the Ottomans (or something like that).

was the argument for giving them arabic culture, it's an appalling argument indeed.

 

[unmerged(14477)]

An interesting fact is that Mamluks were not all Turk. Not even the majority of the Mamluks were Turks. And stating that the culture of Egypt was Turkish because of a handfull of slave-fighters becoming Sultans... well, that borders the realms of ridiculous... Egypt wasn't turkified even after centuries of Ottoman rule.
So as far as "culture" goes, much more than just Turkish culture should be represented among them. Without a Vicky-like system, I don't know how they can represent that...

 

[Twoflower]

An interesting fact is that Mamluks were not all Turk. Not even the majority of the Mamluks were Turks. And stating that the culture of Egypt was Turkish because of a handfull of slave-fighters becoming Sultans... well, that borders the realms of ridiculous... Egypt wasn't turkified even after centuries of Ottoman rule.
So as far as "culture" goes, much more than just Turkish culture should be represented among them. Without a Vicky-like system, I don't know how they can represent that...

He was suggesting Turkish as state culture for the Mameluks, not as province culture for Egypt, which would indeed be ridiculous.

The game will no most likely have several Turkic and Arabic cultures, at least I can't imagine that they only divided the Scottish (Gaelic) in Highland and Lowland culture

I wouldn't consider that "most likely"; it is pure speculation.
There is quite a substantial difference between the (Anglosaxon) Lowland and the (Gaelic) Highland that would justify giving them different cultures within EU2's culture model as well. From a linguistic point of view, the Lowlands could just as well be given Anglosaxon culture, but Paradox probably opted not to do that in order to discourage an ahistorical early conquest of the Lowlands by England, which is a sound reason. We don't even know yet whether the Highlands will have their own culture or whether they will be (remain) Gaelic (which I'd consider preferable).
So the only thing that the existance of Lowland Scottish culture tells us is that the culture model has been refined in some way - whether this means an entirely new approach or just a few corrections for the sake of historicity and game balance can't be told by anybody who hasn't seen the game yet.

Btw, an even more important change in comparison to vanilla EU2 would be to get rid of the entirely whacky Shiite religion for the Mameluks (which I believe they still have in vanilla EU2, or has that been changed in a recent patch?). The Mameluks were Sunnites. I know that this has been done in order to weaken them and make them an easier target for the Ottoman AI, but with a correct cultural setup this will probably not be necessary - and weakening them by an incompatible state culture instead of an incompatible state religion will have the advantage that the Ottomans won't have to convert back the provinces that the Mameluks manage to turn shiite.

 

[unmerged(485)]

Maybe I was thinking of the Shiite thingy. That and/or culture differences were to make them imcompatible with the Ottomans. Otherwise the AI Ottomans would not attack them.

Pretty sure I remember this discussion in the EU2 forum though I cannot say for sure that the reason I give are 100% accurate.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

He was suggesting Turkish as state culture for the Mameluks, not as province culture for Egypt, which would indeed be ridiculous.

I wouldn't consider that "most likely"; it is pure speculation.
There is quite a substantial difference between the (Anglosaxon) Lowland and the (Gaelic) Highland that would justify giving them different cultures within EU2's culture model as well. From a linguistic point of view, the Lowlands could just as well be given Anglosaxon culture, but Paradox probably opted not to do that in order to discourage an ahistorical early conquest of the Lowlands by England, which is a sound reason. We don't even know yet whether the Highlands will have their own culture or whether they will be (remain) Gaelic (which I'd consider preferable).
So the only thing that the existance of Lowland Scottish culture tells us is that the culture model has been refined in some way - whether this means an entirely new approach or just a few corrections for the sake of historicity and game balance can't be told by anybody who hasn't seen the game yet.

I am pretty sure that every province in Scotland will have its own culture because it was so significantly different from surrounding provinces culture .

Paradox won't go into so much trouble to just create a separate culture in lowland Scotland and then make the whole middle-east have either Arabic of Turkic culture.

So yes, that is speculation, that is why I used the words 'most likely'.

 

[Twoflower]

So yes, that is speculation, that is why I used the words 'most likely'.

And I was not saying that it is impossible, just that I consider it "rather unlikely" Only a screenshot or the game itself will tell who is right.

I am pretty sure that every province in Scotland will have its own culture because it was so significantly different from surrounding provinces culture .

Paradox won't go into so much trouble to just create a separate culture in lowland Scotland and then make the whole middle-east have either Arabic of Turkic culture.

There is a difference though: the Arabs and Turks all speak one language, Lowland and Highland Scots don't. That is a substantial difference, and it's also one that makes sense in game, in two ways:
1. Scotland would only get Lowland Scottish culture, so that the Highlands are hard to control and tax even for the King of Scotland
2. England would get cultural compatibility with Scotland in two steps: the Act of Union would give it Lowland Scottish culture, and the Highland Clearances would turn the Highlands Lowland Scottish (which, thinking about it, appears rather silly; in fact it would be better to call the culture Scots
That should be enough of OT in this thread, though

 

[unmerged(11633)]

There is a difference though: the Arabs and Turks all speak one language,

?

Arabs speak Arabic, Turks speak Turkish. Kind of the best definition really, considering origins.

May as well give the Mamelukes and their State of Turkey (literal translation of what they called themselves) Turkish culture.

 

[Charle_88]

?

Arabs speak Arabic, Turks speak Turkish. Kind of the best definition really, considering origins.

May as well give the Mamelukes and their State of Turkey (literal translation of what they called themselves) Turkish culture.

I think he meant that all Arabs speak Arabic and all Turks speak Turkish, but that all Scots don't speak Scottish.

 

[unmerged(11633)]

Ah.

Actually, these days all Scots speak English, but I guess in EU times this wasn't the case.

 

[Twoflower]

Ah.

Indeed, that was what I meant, obviously, though misunderstandably expressed o

Actually, these days all Scots speak English, but I guess in EU times this wasn't the case.

Another clarification: speak in the sense of "speak as native language".

 

[Tunch Khan]

May as well give the Mamelukes and their State of Turkey (literal translation of what they called themselves) Turkish culture.

Indeed, Devlet-i Turkiye (State of Turkey) is what Mamluks called themselves as you have mentioned correctly.

 

[Brownbeard]

I bet 25 EP that Slavonic culture does not get split.

edit. So, pre-kemalist Turkey was actually Mamluk Caliphate?

 

[Tunch Khan]

I bet 25 EP that Slavonic culture does not get split.

edit. So, pre-kemalist Turkey was actually Mamluk Caliphate?

Yes, the name Turkey was used by Mamluks in Egypt for the first time.

 

[Sanjar]

Hope Paradox can set the record straight this time by giving Mamluk their proper culture as Turks.

It was ridiculous to have their main and only culture as Arabs. Only AGC-EEP tried to fix this and they came up with Caucasian culture, referring to the Burji Dynasty, falsely stated as "Caucasian" in Wikipedia. Both the Bahri (meaning 'of the Sea' in Arabic) and Burji (of the City/citadel - Burg) Dynasties were of Turkic origin consisting mostly of slave soldiers captured from Caucasia and North of Black Sea regions.

Even though there had been occasional recruits from other cultures, Circassians, Georgians, Armenians, Syrians and Kurds, the ruling class was strictly reserved for the Turks, or those who were Turkified. The names of the powerful generals and sultans are a proof for this, since they are all Turkish names (unlike the Arabised muslim names of Anatolian Turkish Principalites).

The Burji takeover in 1382 was just a clique winning over another within the same group, and those who had stonger Circassian ties were still raised and assimilated in the Turkic tradition. They all spoke Turkish and considered themselves closer to the Anatolian Principalities than those other Arab neighbors. Their official language and foreign correspondence was made in Turkish.

I'm going to mostly agree, but since I'm feeling nitpicky tonight with just a caveat or two. First a very minor one - calling the ruling authority of the Burji and Bahri ( especially the Bahri ) periods 'dynasties' is kinda stretching it. More like occasionally hereditary ( but more frequently not ) shifting juntas - government by controlled chaos .

But more significantly I think you are just a little guilty of underselling the non-Turkic, particularly Circassian elements. The phrase I bolded is key - you're quite right that those that rose to power were 'Turkified'. To quote Robert Irwin in The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamluk Sultanate 1250-1382 ( 1986, Southern Illinois University Press ):

By no means all the sultans and leading emirs in the 'Circassian era' were Circassians. The racial origin of those sultans and emirs who have been deemed to have been Circassian is often in fact doubtful. Above all, members of the Circassian elite in the later Mamluk period owed more to their education in the Turco-Arab culture than to anything in their Caucasian infancy.

That said as early as Qalawun's ( a Qipchaq Turk himself ) reign starting in 1280 a significant number of Circassians had been imported and they formed a particularly strong presense in the 'Burji regiment' and this did play an occasional role in Mamluk power politics. Irwin, again:

The were other Mongols besides Kitbugha among the Egyptian emirs and mamluks and they tended to give their loyalty to Kitbugha. For instance a plot by Sanjar al-Shuja'i against Kitbugha was betrayed to Kitbugha by one of Sanjar's Mongol mamluks, Qunuq al-Tatari. Here racial affinity took preference over loyalty to ustadh...

Yet if Kitbugha had been able to count on the support of the Mongol mamluks, Lajin's Burji faction included a very strong Circassian element. The struggle between Kitbugha and Lajin was to be echoed later on in the struggle between Salar and Baybars al-Jashnakir. Salar's support was relatively broadly based and included the backing of many ageing Salihi and Zahiri emirs, as well as Mongols who favored Salar because he was a Mongol. Baybars al-Jashnakir, on the other hand, was a Burji emir and a Circassian and it was on Qalawun's former picked elite of Circassian Burjis that he primarily depended for support. So sentiments of racial solidarity were inextricably involved in the struggle for political power between what may be termed the inner and the outer elites of the Mamluk army.

So while I absolutely agree with you in terms of game mechanics and in the nature of the ruling culture, to say flatly that "both the Bahri and Burji dynasties were of Turkic origin" and that there were only "occasional recruits from other other cultures" I think in the first place is simply inaccurate ( a number of sultans were of Circassian ethnic origin, including the aforementioned Baybars al-Jashnaskir, who became Baybars II ) and in the second is a significant underexaggeration ( very significant numbers of Mamluks were originally of non-Turkic origins ).

Just MHO .

- Sanjar

 

[Tunch Khan]

Ethnicly speaking perhaps, but culturally as you and your source agrees, they were all Turkified since they rose to power through the Turkish state. Just like the Georgian prime minister Turkey has this modern day, the Caucasian/Circassian origins of the Mamluk sultans did not matter much, and it was their culture in which they were raised and trained in that mattered and that was Turkish.
And here we're speaking of Mamluk cultural identity, not their blood (Ottoman sultans weren't pure Turkish neither). Local culture can be Arabic, but the state culture was definately Turkish. I wouldn't mind if EU III had Circassian as a new culture and granted Mamluks that as a "second culture" after Turkish.