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Originally Posted by M.carter
I do certainly believe that there were some turkish elements in saladin's army, but regarding the mamluks, I still stand to my point that these were only a few, and were employed as Saladin's personal guard. I mean, logically, why would Saladin, in Egypt or southern Syria, go all the way to far eastern anatolia to recruit soldiers, when he certainly had a lot of them in the lands he was in, the caliph certainly could send him some troops..
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I re-quote Bernard Lewis " As early as 766 a Christian clergyman writing in Syriac spoke of the "locust swarm" of unconverted barbarians -- Sindhis, Alans, Khazars, Turks, and others -- who served in the caliph's army."
On Caliph's black army vs. Saladin:
"Moved, according to a chronicler, by "racial solidarity" (jinsiyya), they prepared for battle. In two hot August days, an estimated fifty thousand blacks fought against Saladin's army in the area between the two palaces, of the caliph and the vizier."
"Ahmad b. Tulun (d. 884), the first independent ruler of Muslim Egypt, relied very heavily on black slaves, probably Nubians, for his armed forces; at his death he is said to have left, among other possessions, twenty-four thousand white mamluks and forty-five thousand blacks. "
Caliph would gladly give Saladin "arab units". Unfortunately at this point for centuries already (776 and 884) the army of Egypt consisted at least to the great extent from black and white mamluks.
Unfortunately Saladin pervceived Caliph's army (especially his 50,000 black mamluks, truly loyal to Caliph) as an obstacle in front of Saladin's ascention. He killed them.
Why they used turkomans and later caucasians instead of arabs ? Ibn-Khaldan on a different ocasion talks about islamic states succumbing to luxury and decadence. Again, I would recommend Bernard Lewis "Race and Slavery in the Middle East" - he gives all the reasons - turks and nubian mamluks were loyal to their employer, they were readily available in large numbers, qualified commanders and trainers were also readily available among turks.
One should also mention that since 11th century every year lords from caucasus had to supply hundreds of mamluk-able slave boys to seljuks (mostly shipped to Mosul and Damascus). These were very cheap soldiers.
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Originally Posted by M.carter
Yes, there was certainly turkish soldiers in saladins army other than mamluks, I believe mainly baltajis, but most of it i believe would be consisted of arabs. Saying that his armies were only made up of turks sounds very illogical.
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There were some arabs, and even some caucasians (however the latter ones really play important role only since 1250). There were also black nubian mamluks and "other" mamluks. But most of the army were turks and turkish mamluks. Seljuks, kipchaks etc. etc.
That's what the western historical science thinks today (the quotes above).