The killing of the Mamluk amirs at the Citadel, 1226 AH (1811)

Among the events of 1226 AH, al-Jabarti in Aja'ib al-athar describes how the troops of Muhammad Ali Pasha killed the Egyptian Mamluk amirs and their followers in the Citadel of Cairo on Friday 6 Safar, and then hunted them through the houses of the city. Some manuscripts carry a marginal heading for the passage: "account of the killing of the Egyptian amirs and their followers". ^{1 2}

Al-Jabarti relates that the Pasha appointed his son Tusun Pasha commander of the force bound for the Hijaz, made a show of haste, asked the astrologers to choose an hour for investing his son with the robe of departure, and put it about that he was sending troops to Syria under Shahin Bey al-Alfi; al-Jabarti calls this "among the deceptions". ¹ On Thursday the alay chavush went round the markets proclaiming the procession "in the old style", and notices were taken round to the senior officers and the Egyptian amirs summoning them to the Citadel early in the day in their finery. ^{1 2}

The amirs went up with their Mamluks and followers, called on the Pasha, drank coffee and laughed with him; then the procession moved off: the Delis, then the governor, the market inspector, the agha and the regiments, then the Egyptian amirs, then the troops. ² Al-Jabarti says that the Pasha had planned it overnight with Hasan Pasha, Salih Quch and the kethüda only, and told Ibrahim Agha, agha of the gate, in the morning. When the Delis and those behind them had passed out of the Azab gate, Salih Quch ordered the gate shut; the amirs were trapped in the steep passage cut in the rock above the Azab gate, with soldiers stationed on the walls above, and they were shot from below and above, unable to turn back for the horses packed in the defile. ² Shahin Bey, Sulayman Bey al-Bawwab and others dismounted and climbed back with drawn swords to the middle court facing the Hall of Columns; Shahin Bey was hit, his head cut off and taken to the Pasha; Sulayman Bey climbed the wall of the great tower and was fired on until he fell. ²

Al-Jabarti records that the troops spared none of the "sons of notables" and townsmen who had dressed like the amirs to grace the procession, though they cried "I am no soldier and no Mamluk"; those taken alive were imprisoned and then beheaded one after another in the court of the Diwan until well into the night. ^{2 3}

At the uproar people fled the shops; then the troops spread to the houses of the amirs and their neighbours to plunder them, dragged off women and slave-girls and stripped their jewellery; al-Jabarti relates that one soldier cut off a woman's hand when he could not get her bracelet off quickly. ³ Many houses of notables who were not among the targeted amirs were also plundered, including some in the Pasha's own service. ⁴ On Saturday the Pasha came down from the Citadel and rebuked the police officers for the looting; al-Jabarti comments that they were the first to loot. ⁴

Al-Jabarti writes: "more than a thousand people were killed in this event, amirs, soldiers, kashifs and Mamluks"; their bodies were carried on planks and thrown into pits at al-Rumayla one on another, the amir indistinguishable from the rest, and he calls it "among the most hideous events, the like of which never happened". ⁵ Of the Alfi household only Ahmad Bey escaped, being away near Bush, and Amin Bey, who climbed down from the Citadel and fled to Syria; Umar Bey al-Alfi was killed in the Fayyum and his head sent, and the governor of Minya sent thirty-five heads. ⁵