Murad Bey

Murad Bey was one of the two leading Mamluk amirs who shared power in Egypt in the last years before the French invasion; he died in 1801 while the French still occupied the country. ¹ The Encyclopaedia of Islam has no article under his name, so what follows gathers what several of its articles say about him, together with the museum's record of the battle of Imbaba.

Murad belonged to the mamluk household of Muhammad Bey Abu'l-Dhahab, and, as lieutenant, led the army back to Egypt when Abu'l-Dhahab died on campaign in Syria in 1775. ² The article on the Mamluks names Ibrahim Bey al-Kabir and Murad Bey as two of Abu'l-Dhahab's mamluks, whose uneasy duumvirate was threatened by an Ottoman expedition in 1786-7 and ended with Bonaparte's occupation in 1798. ³ The article on the Kazdughliyya adds that after Ismail Bey died of plague in 1791 Ibrahim and Murad set up that uneasy duumvirate, and that it was a period of risings by the people of Cairo, backed by members of the ulama. ¹

Another article records that in 1791 the banished amirs Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey returned to power with the mediation of the Cairo popular leader al-Sayyid Umar Makram, with whom they kept a long and friendly relationship. ⁴

An article on poetry calls him a generous Mamluk amir who encouraged poets to join his assembly and rewarded those who praised him, and says poetesses and women singers composed laments when he died. ⁵

In the battle of Imbaba, 1798, as the museum's record of al-Jabarti's account has it, Murad Bey commanded the western bank, his army broke before the French, and he fled to Upper Egypt. ⁶ The Kazdughliyya article calls the occupation a fatal blow to the whole neo-Mamluk regime and says Ibrahim Bey never regained power after fleeing to Syria in 1798. ¹

Murad Bey died during the occupation, on 4 Dhu'l-Hijja 1215, which the article gives as 18 April, the year being cut off in the scan; another article gives his death as 1215/1801. ^{1 5} After the French left, two of his mamluks, Uthman Bey al-Bardisi and Muhammad Bey al-Alfi, were among the contenders for power, and both died by early 1807 resisting Muhammad Ali. ¹

A Tunisian bey of the same name who ruled in 1699-1702 and a Young Turk journalist known as Mizanci Murad Bey appear in other articles; they are different men. ^{7 8}