His only
rivals among Sunite princes were the Sultan el Hind, or, as we call him,
the Great Mogul, the Sultan el Gharb, or Emperor of Morocco, and the
Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, then known to the world as _par excellence_
the Sultan.
With the two former, as rulers of what were remote lands of Islam,
Selim seems to have troubled himself little; but he made war on Egypt.
In 1516 he invaded Syria, its outlying province, and in 1517 he entered
Cairo. There he made prisoner the reigning Mameluke, Kansaw el Ghouri,
and had him publicly beheaded, or according to another account, received
his head from a soldier, who had killed him where he lay on the ground
after falling (for the Sultan was an old man) from his horse. He then,
in virtue of a very doubtful cession made to him of his rights by one
Motawakkel Ibn Omar el Hakim, a descendant of the house of Abbas, whom
he found living as titular Caliph in Cairo, took to himself the
following style and title: Sultan es Salatin, wa Hakan el Hawakin, Malek
el Bahreyn, wa Hami el Barreyn, Khalifeh Rasul Allah, Emir el Mumenin,
wa Sultan, wa Khan--titles which may be thus interpreted: King of Kings
and Lord of Lords, Monarch of the two seas (the Mediterranean and the
Red Sea), and Protector of the two lands (Hejaz and Syria, the holy
lands of Islam), Successor of the Apostle of God, Prince of the
Faithful, and Emperor.
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