The Mamluk sultanate was founded in Cairo in 1250 with the defeat of the Ayyubid dynasty and the consolidation of control of Egypt and Syria. The Mamluks were Turkish slave soldiers and existed as regimental groups throughout the Ayyubid dynastic area, and were purchased as servants of the state and the overthrow of the Ayyubids by the Mamluks marks the supremacy of the military slave state in the Islamic world. Mamluk society and government were largely non-hereditary and supposedly implemented to reduce factionalism, but actually strengthened it as each sultan's death raised questions of succession and legitimacy. Sultans were at the mercy of their Amirs, or commanders, both for legitimacy through military loyalty and fidelity, and for the authority to rule. As a result, the Mamluk state was largely decentralized, with the Iqta system representing the primary means of income alongside taxation, and a largely disenfranchised native population who, due to their non-slave status, were excluded from administrative or military participation. In 1250 the Mamluk rebellion overthrew the Ayyubid house for control of Egypt and appointed Aybeg, one of the leaders of the Mamluk regiment. , as Sultan. The Mamluks, being a slave-holding military society, were able to defend Syria from the Mongols in 1260 and also absorb the remaining Syrian principalities and expel the Crusaders by 1291.1 The unity between Egypt and Syria that the Mamluks were able to achieve was the reason why the Mamluk state was the largest Islamic state between the time of the Abbasids and the Ottoman Empire.2 Furthermore, t... half of paper... by the method by which the military elite treated factionalism as a result of the slave state system in which they lived. The Sultan was more of a factional leader defined by the popular support he brought and was in constant danger of being overthrown. Consequently, the implemented economic system, which involved a hybridization between the Egyptian bureaucratic system and the Syrian Iqta system, was based on the pacification of the ruling elite class. Tax distributions and land grants were given to Amir to both ensure loyalty and codify the legitimacy of the sultanate. Although local participation was limited, the Mamluk state was based on a Sunni religious conceptualization of legitimacy and therefore the Ulama offered local Muslim Arab populations the opportunity to exercise some measure of power through religious education and spiritual leadership of the community..