Mamluk Rule
The Ayyubid period of rule virtually ended in 1260, after the Mongols under Hulagu Khan completely destroyed Gaza—his southernmost point of conquest. Hulagu left his army in Gaza after being recalled due to the death of the Mongol emperor, and the Mamluk general Baibars subsequently drove the Mongols out of the city and again defeated them at Baysan in the Galilee. He was proclaimed Sultan of Egypt on his way back from the battlefield after the assassination of Sultan Qutuz. Baibars passed through Gaza six times during his expeditions against the remnants of the Crusader states and the Mongols from 1263 to 1269. The domination of the Mamluks started in 1277, with Gaza being a mere village in the territory of Ramla. In 1279 Sultan Qalawun encamped in Gaza for fifty days while on a march against the Mongols.
In 1293 his son al-Nasir Muhammad instituted Gaza as the capital of the province that bore its name, Mamlakat Ghazzah ("the Governorship of Gaza"). This province covered the coastal plain from Rafah in the south to just north of Caesarea, extending in the east to the western slopes of Samaria and the Hebron Hills; its major towns were Qaqun, Ludd, and Ramla. In 1294, an earthquake devastated Gaza, and five years later the Mongols again destroyed all that was restored by the Mamluks. That same year Gaza was the center of a conspiracy against the Sultan of Egypt, which was detected and crushed before being carried out.
The Syrian geographer al-Dimashqi described the city in 1300 as "so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land." He accounted to Gaza the cities and towns of Ascalon, Jaffa, Caesarea, Arsuf, Deir al-Balah, al-Arish (in the northern center of the Sinai Peninsula), Bayt Jibrin, Karatiyya, Hebron and Jerusalem—all of which had their own governors. The Bahri emir Baybars al-Ala'i ruled between 1307-1310, during the reign of al-Nasir Muhammad before the latter was briefly ousted by Baibars II. Gaza was one of the places returned to the allegiance of the exiled sultan; in 1310, al-Nasir Muhammad defeated the Sultan Baibars II at Gaza, forcing the latter to surrender his throne to him. Baibars II was imprisoned in the city.
Sanjar al-Jawli acquired the governorship of Gaza and central Palestine in 1311. He highly favored Gaza and transformed it into a flourishing city, having built for it a horse-race course, a madrasa ("college"), a mosque, a khan ("caravansary"), a maristan ("hospital"), and a castle. In late 1332, coinciding with the appointment of Taynal al-Ashrafi as governor, some of the provincial privileges of Gaza, such as the governor's direct subordination to the sultan in Cairo, were removed by an-Nasir Muhammad's decree. From then, and until 1341 when Sanjar al-Jawli served a second term as governor, Gaza became subordinate to the Na'ib al-Saltana ("Viceroy") of Syria, Tankiz al-Husami.
In 1348 the Bubonic Plague spread to the city, killing the majority of its inhabitants, and in 1352, Gaza suffered a destructive flood—which was rare in that arid part of Palestine. However, by 1355, the Berber traveler Ibn Batutta visited the city and noted that it was "large and populous, and has many mosques. But there were no walls round it. There was here of old a fine Jami' Mosque (the Great Mosque), but the one present used was built by Amir Jawli ."
In the early 1380s, the governor of Gaza, Akboga Safawi, plotted to commit treason against Sultan Barquq. He was detected and exiled to Karak, and replaced by Husam al-Din ibn Bakish. Soon after, the city fell into the hands of Ilboga Nasiri who revolted against Barquq. Gaza was retaken without violence, as Ibn Bakish met Nasiri at its gates with gifts and proposals of peace. The unseated Barquq regained his throne in 1388, and retook Gaza the next year. In 1401 a swarm of locusts destroyed Gaza's crops. A battle between the rival Mamluk rulers Akberdy and Kansowah Khamsieh occurred in Gaza; Khamsieh had failed in usurping the Mamluk throne and fled to Gaza where he made his unsuccessful final stand. Between 1428 to 1433, Gaza was ruled by Sayf ad-Din Inal, who would later become sultan in 1453. During his sultanate, in 1455, Inal's dawadar ("executive secretary") had the Madrasa of Birdibak built in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood.
Read more about this topic: History Of Gaza
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