The Mamluk state derived much of its strength from agriculture and long-distance trade. Eastern merchandise entered through Red Sea ports and was taxed again at Alexandria or Damietta, while customs houses operated along overland roads and the Nile. Kārimī merchants maintained fleets and commercial agents across Egypt, Ethiopia, Nubia, the western Sudan, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean, although the state subjected their activities to special regulation, heavy taxation, and forced loans.

International commerce connected Mamluk Egypt with Venice, Genoa, Florence, Marseilles, Barcelona, and other European trading centers. These communities maintained hostels in Alexandria and dealt with the Egyptian government through consuls, treaties, and guarantees protecting merchants and their property. Relations could nevertheless deteriorate sharply, as in 1365, when Cypriot forces allied with Venetian and Genoese contingents raided Alexandria, causing extensive damage and a prolonged interruption in normal trade.

After al-Nasir Muhammad died in 1341, the Bahri line entered a prolonged succession crisis. Twelve of his descendants were proclaimed sultan between his death and 1382, but effective authority increasingly belonged to competing mamluk amirs and military factions. Their intrigues and street battles in Cairo damaged the political order and imposed a serious burden on the country’s economic life.

The Black Death reached the Mamluk empire in the middle of the fourteenth century after spreading through Europe. Cairo, the Syrian provinces, and the Egyptian countryside suffered severe mortality, while abandoned land, labor shortages, and diseases affecting livestock and fruit trees intensified famine. The extract describes the crisis as lasting seven years and as the greatest catastrophe to affect Egypt during the Muslim period.

The plague and civil wars reduced the supply of Turkish military slaves from the South Russian steppe. Caucasian slaves consequently became more prominent, especially the Circassians stationed in the towers of Cairo’s citadel and known as Burjis. In 1382 Barquq deposed the child-sultan al-Salih Hajji, ending the Bahri line and inaugurating the Burji line, which remained predominantly Circassian and rejected hereditary succession as a governing principle.

The Mamluk position was initially strengthened by the absence of a comparable external rival after the expulsion of the last Crusaders and the decline of the Il-Khans. This balance changed as the Ottoman state expanded through the Balkans and Anatolia and as Timur led new Central Asian armies into the Islamic world. Timur’s forces invaded Asia Minor in 1387, captured Baghdad in 1391, and later threatened Syria, while revolts among Mamluk governors weakened the state’s regional position.

At the end of 1400 Timur invaded northern Syria and devastated its principal cities. A Mamluk army led by Sultan Faraj was defeated near Damascus, which capitulated after a short siege. Syria suffered extensive destruction, depopulation, and the deportation of craftsmen to Central Asia; the resulting fiscal burden encouraged new taxation, attacks on waqf property, currency debasement, and further political instability within the Mamluk realm.

Barsbay attempted to strengthen the treasury by controlling strategic commercial flows. Egypt gained firmer control of the Hejaz, and merchants increasingly used Jeddah and other Egyptian-controlled ports instead of Aden. Yet the sultan imposed state monopolies on sugar and spices, especially pepper, forcing merchants and consumers to accept prices dictated by the government and undermining the Kārimī merchant networks that had previously supported Egypt’s commercial prosperity.

The monopoly system produced conflict with European merchants and governments. Venice and Aragon protested against the restrictions, while Venetian naval demonstrations and Catalan attacks on Syrian coasts compelled Barsbay to negotiate without abandoning the monopoly. The policy contributed to the departure of Kārimī merchants toward India and encouraged European efforts to reach the sources of eastern goods directly, a process accelerated by the Portuguese sea route to the Indian Ocean at the end of the fifteenth century.

Currency intervention deepened the crisis. Barsbay temporarily prohibited European gold coins, recalled them, issued questionable replacement dinars, and manipulated the gold-silver relationship. Repeated debasement of silver and copper currency contributed to inflation, falling purchasing power, the closure of workshops, and the decline of Egyptian textiles. At the same time, the military land-tenure system fragmented as iqṭāʿ holdings were converted into waqf, riqāʿ, and mulk estates, reducing taxable revenues and weakening the fiscal foundations of the state.