Who Were the Mamluks?
If you're interested in this kind of history stuff, I recommend reading The Silk Roads, by Peter Frankopan. It's a recent (2015) epic-scope history book, from the beginning of written history to the present day, based on the idea that the Middle East, rather than Europe, is the true center of civilization - that the area stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to western India has been foremost, and remains foremost. (In particular, he argues that northern/western Europe was basically an uninteresting, barbarian backwater until 1500 or so.)Great book, totally fascinating reading, with the hottest geopolitical issues of today traced back through thousands of years of history.