The Battle of Marj Dabiq and Selim's Entry into Egypt

وقعة مرج دابق ودخول سليم مصر

c. 24 August 1516 CE · c. Rajab 922 AH

In his colophon Suyuti's student Jaramard al-Nasiri names the ninth century's calamity: Selim Shah ibn Uthman — his wars on his brothers and their killing 'the worst of killings, leaving none great or small', his breaking of the lord of the East and killing of Ali Dawlat, then meeting Egypt's host and sultan at Marj Dabiq, killing the sultan and his great amirs, then entering Egypt 'in the swiftest state and shortest time' — a blow, he says, beside which the Tatars' and Timur's calamities seem small, for they never entered Egypt 1.

Depth

At a glance

Era
The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era
Region
Levant & Iraq · Egypt & Nile
Identifiers
Wikidata
Review
Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it

In time

1500151015201530 c.
The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks · The Gunpowder Empires · The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era

Overview

In 922 AH the Ottomans under Selim defeated the army of al-Ghawri at Marj Dabiq, north of Aleppo, and then entered Egypt. 2

The battle

Ibn al-Imad says that the battle was in a place called Marj Dabiq on the fifteenth of Rajab, and that al-Ghawri's army was routed by the stratagem of Khayr Bak, and al-Ghawri disappeared. 2

Afterwards

Selim stayed in Syria for months. Tuman Bay took command of Egypt, and wars took place between him and Selim; then he surrendered himself and was killed at Bab Zuwayla, and with him the Circassian state came to an end. 2

A contemporary's judgement

Jaramard al-Nasiri, a student of al-Suyuti, holds that the trial of the ninth century was the trial of Selim, and thinks it worse than the trials of the Tatars and of Timur, because they did not enter Egypt. 1

The opposing view needs an additional source.

Connections

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Had participant
السلطان سليم شاه بن عثمان

People and things also explored

Algiers enters Ottoman sovereignty (1519)· The battle of Chaldiran and the entry into Tabriz· Battle of Ridaniyya and the fall of the Mamluk state· Capture of Cairo· Selim I's accession, 918/1512· Submission of the Hijaz to the Ottomans· Abu al-Abbas Ahmad b. Qadi· Prince Ahmad, son of Bayezid II

Sources

  1. Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p. 798
  2. Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p. 518, 531
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “The Battle of Marj Dabiq and Selim's Entry into Egypt”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/marj-dabiq-922/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-22.

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Related

Algiers enters Ottoman sovereignty (1519)

In early Dhu'l-Qa'da 925/October–November 1519 the notables of Algiers, at Khayr al-Din's order, sent the jurist Ahmad b. Qadi to Sultan Selim I with a letter (Topkapı archive no. 4656) asking to bind the city to the Ottoman state. Selim answered with the rank of beylerbey, artillery and 2,000 Janissaries; his name entered the pulpits and the coinage, and Algiers became the first North African province under Ottoman sovereignty — an entry al-Salabi stresses was by the inhabitants' appeal, not against their will.