A mamluk (or mameluke) was a slave soldier serving the Islamic dynasties, later making up a military knightly caste. Many of them were Turks, Circassians, Abkhazians, Georgians, and Copts (later Albanians, Greeks, and Slavs during the time of the Ottoman Empire). From the 9th to 19th centuries, mamelukes ruled over various dynasties such as the Qutuzids of Egypt and the Delhi Sultanate, but their power would be crushed by Muhammad Ali in Egypt in the early 19th century and by Ali Ridha Pasha ib Baghdad, Iraq in 1831. Afterwards, the mamluk caste ceased to exist.
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