Cairo, capital of the Mamluk sultans

The Mamluks were Kipchak Turks brought from the Black Sea steppe. In 1250 they took power in Egypt and in 1260 stopped the Mongols at Ain Jalut. Under the Bahri (Kipchak) and later the Burji (mostly Circassian) Mamluks, Cairo became one of the largest cities of the Islamic world.

Many of the finest monuments of historic Cairo date from the Mamluk era: the Qalawun complex (1285), the Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan (1356-1363), and the mausoleums of Barquq and Qaitbay. Kipchak Turkic was spoken at the Mamluk court, and dictionaries and books were written in it. In 1517 the Ottoman sultan Selim I took Egypt.