Aṣalbāy: Difference between revisions
←Created page with ''''Aṣalbāy''' (died 1509) was a Mamluk consort. She was the concubine of sultan Sayf ad-Din Qa'itbay (r. 1468-1496), mother of sultan An-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qaitbay (r. 1496-1498), sister of sultan Abu Sa'id Qansuh (r. 1498-1500), and wife of sultan Al-Ashraf Janbalat (r. 1500-1501). ==Life== Aṣalbāy was a Circassian and fell victim to the Black Sea slave trade, as did her brother. She was either directly purchased, or purchased an...' |
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Revision as of 01:02, 19 September 2024
Aṣalbāy (died 1509) was a Mamluk consort. She was the concubine of sultan Sayf ad-Din Qa'itbay (r. 1468-1496), mother of sultan An-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qaitbay (r. 1496-1498), sister of sultan Abu Sa'id Qansuh (r. 1498-1500), and wife of sultan Al-Ashraf Janbalat (r. 1500-1501).
Life
Aṣalbāy was a Circassian and fell victim to the Black Sea slave trade, as did her brother. She was either directly purchased, or purchased and given as gift, to the sultan Sayf ad-Din Qa'itbay. She was placed in his harem and used as a concubine. When it was discovered that her brother was also in the possession of the sultan, he was promoted and able to make a successful career as a Mamluk. She apparently became the favorite concubine of the sultan, and the mother of An-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qaitbay. Since the sultan acknowledged paternity of her son as his, she became manumitted as an Umm walad after the death of Qa'itbay.
The Mamluk Sultanate was not in fact an actual monarchy passed from father to son. However, after the death of Qaitbay in 1496, she supported her son's ambitions to conquer the throne. In cooperation with her brother, she succesfully supported her son when he defeated the powerful Grand Dawādār Aqbardī and conquered power.
When a conflict ocurred between her son and her brother in February 1498, she called both to the Cairo Citadel and asked them to given an oath not to fight against each other. In September 1498 she herself came in to conflict with her son when she oposed his wish to marry Miṣirbāy (d. 1522), the Circassian former slave of Kurtbāy, Guvernor of Gaza. Her son was deposed in 1498 and succeeded by her brother sultan Abu Sa'id Qansuh (r. 1498-1500).
In 1500, she married sultan Al-Ashraf Janbalat (r. 1500-1501), who succeeded her brother on the throne the same year.[1] Her spouse was deposed in 1501, and she left the harem of the Cairo Citadel for a private residence in the city of Cairo. In 1508, she performed a pilgrimage to Mecca; she remained in Mecca for the rest of her life, since sultan Qānsūh al-Ghawrī (r. 1501-1516) refused to give her permission to return to Egypt.[1]
References
- ^ a b Albrecht Fuess, “How to marry right: Searching for a royal spouse at the Mamluk court of Cairo in the fifteenth century”, DYNTRAN Working Papers, n° 21, online edition, February 2017, available at: http://dyntran.hypotheses.org/1761