Al-Mutawakkil III explained

Al-Mutawakkil III
Succession:Abbasid caliph (Amir al-Mu'minin)
Reign-Type:1st period
Reign:1508–1516
Predecessor:Al-Mustamsik
Successor:Al-Mustamsik
Reign-Type1:2nd period
Reign1:22 January 1517
Predecessor1:al-Mustamsik
Successor1:Selim I (Ottoman caliph)
Birth Date:Unknown
Death Date:1543
Death Place:Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Father:Al-Mustamsik
Religion:Sunni Islam

Al-Mutawakkil III (; 1508–1543) was the seventeenth Abbasid caliph of Cairo for the Mamluk Sultanate from 1508 to 1516, and again in 1517.

Life

He was the last caliph of the later Egyptian-based Caliphate. Since the Mongol sack of Baghdad and the execution of Caliph Al-Musta'sim in 1258, these Cairene Caliphs had resided in Cairo as nominal rulers used to legitimize the actual rule of the Mamluk sultans.

Al-Mutawakkil III was deposed briefly in 1516 by his predecessor Al-Mustamsik, but was restored to the office the following year. In 1517, Ottoman Sultan Selim I had managed to defeat the Mamluk Sultanate, and made Egypt part of the Ottoman Empire. Al-Mutawakkil III was captured together with his family and transported to Constantinople.

According to traditional history, at this time he formally surrendered the title of caliph as well as its outward emblems—the sword and mantle of Muhammad—to Ottoman sultan Selim I.[1] This story does not appear in the literature until the 1780s and was advanced to bolster the claims of caliphal jurisdiction over Muslims outside of the empire, as asserted in the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca.[2]

Bibliography

Notes and References

  1. Book: Drews, Robert . https://my.vanderbilt.edu/robertdrews/files/2014/01/Chapter-Thirty.-The-Ottoman-Empire-Judaism-and-Eastern-Europe-to-1648.pdf . Chapter Thirty – The Ottoman Empire, Judaism, and Eastern Europe to 1648 . Coursebook: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, to the Beginnings of Modern Civilization . August 2011 . Vanderbilt University .
  2. Book: Lewis, Bernard . 1961 . The Emergence of Modern Turkey . Oxford University Press. p. 324 .