But the Mamluk system was also a closed loop of perpetual foreignness. A Mamluk could never pass his status to his son. His son would be born a free Muslim—and thus not a Mamluk. To renew the elite, they had to keep importing new slaves, who then overthrew the old guard, generation after generation. The system was a circulatory system of violence. It ended in 1517 when the Ottoman Sultan Selim the Grim marched into Cairo, hanged the last Mamluk sultan, and claimed the title "Servant of the Two Holy Sanctuaries."
"Mamluqi 1958" would then describe a moment when (bribery, assassination, blood loyalty) briefly collided with modern, mass politics (radio, revolution, flags)—and lost. mamluqi 1958
What was "Mamluqi 1958"? Was it a political faction? A failed coup? A lost film? Or something else entirely? But the Mamluk system was also a closed
It is to be, in other words, a ghost who doesn't know he's dead. I asked an old Lebanese antique dealer in Hamra Street about "Mamluqi 1958." He was cleaning a rusted Ottoman-era yatalaghan sword. He paused. To renew the elite, they had to keep
He laughed. But he didn't sell me one. Because they don't exist anymore. Or maybe they never did.
But did it lose?
Look at the Arab world today. Look at the officer corps of Egypt under Sisi. Look at the security apparatus of Syria after Assad. Look at the militias of Lebanon. Are these not Mamluk systems? Foreign-born? Check. Paranoia as governance? Check. A perpetual circulation of violent elites who cannot build a civil state? Check.