i66 THE PROGRESS THROUGH EGYPT ii. 2. xviii.

served his master well usually acquired his freedom and received valuable

court appointments. "The caliphs, who were often unable to appease the

turbulent spirits of the native emirs, except by granting them special

privileges and territorial rights, W'ere gradually led into the opposite error

of alienating the most powerful of their subjects, and in giving all their

confidence to those foreign slaves, who thus acquired the entire control of

the interior of the palace. These illiterate and barbarous white slaves (or

inamluks), now incorporated into the society of the educated rulers of a

great empire, soon became conversant with the law of the Koran. They

adopted the language and religion of their masters. They studied science and politics; and when any of them became capable of undertaking the more difficult tasks or of occupying the more eminent posts in the court,

they were emancipated, and appointed to the various government offices

according to the talents they displayed.

Thus manumitted Turks were appointed not only to the chief offices

in the palace, but to the governorships of some of the most important

provinces in the Empire."

In the Sudan the Mamluks are generally known as the Ghuzz^.

Egypt had naturally been affected by this revolution, and from

about 836 the successive governors held it in fee for Turks at

Baghdad.

XIX Till 856 they w^ere Arabs, but in that year 'Anbasa was recalled,

and in September, 868, after a series of Turkish governors had ruled

for a space, a Mamluk succeeded in founding a dynasty which was

to direct the affairs of Egypt for fifty-seven years 2. This man, Abu el 'Abbas Ahmad ibn Tulun, was a remarkably capable ad-

ministrator, but ruthless in his methods, and with the new order of

things the Arabs, who had fallen into entire disfavour, became

extremely discontented and began to emigrate south and west to the Sudan and the Berber countries, to escape the heavy hand of the

alien.

XX Within three months of his accession Ibn Tulun was involved

in a Nubian expedition^. Its leader was Abu 'Abd el Rahman ibn

'Abdulla ibn 'Abd el Hami'd el 'Amri, and his force consisted chiefly

of Rab^'a and Guhayna. As soon as affairs in Nubia had been dealt

with el 'Amri turned eastwards towards the mines*, where since the

^ Cp. Burckhardt, Niihia, p. 138; el Tunisi, Voy. ou Ouaddy, p. 319; and el Mas'udi, Ch. xvn, who speaks of "the Nomadic Turks, who are the Ghuzz." Sprenger deals exhaustively with this word in his edition of el Mas'udi (l Vol.). They are properly the Seljuk Turks. The word Ghuzz is etymologically the same as " Scythian," and it occurs again in " Getes," " Massagetes," " Kirghiz," " Tunghiz "

(Sprenger, loc. cit. pp. 238-240). The word is also used for the 'Ayyubite Kurds;

see Bouriant (Makrfzi), pp. 75 and 107.

'^ Lane-Poole, Hist. pp. 42, 61. ^ Makrfzi, Khetdt, 11, 569, 575.

* It is said that 6o,coo camels were employed transporting his provisions from Aswan.