January 30, 1517

Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517)

Ottoman recapture of Cairo after Tumanbay's counterattack

Tumanbay slipped back into his own occupied capital at night and turned its streets into a battlefield for three days.

Cairo, 28 to 30 January 1517

After losing at Ridaniyya on 22 January 1517, Tumanbay secretly re-entered Ottoman-occupied Cairo during the night of 27–28 January and attacked the Ottoman garrison.

Mamluk soldiers and Cairene residents constructed barricades and trenches, and Ottoman units used cannon and firearms through several days of street fighting.

The numbers in the Ottoman log

On 30 January Selim's forces definitively retook Cairo, and Tumanbay escaped with a small group of followers.

The contemporary Ottoman log attributed to Haydar Çelebi reports 4,000 Egyptian soldiers and Arabs killed, and about 400 captured Circassians brought before Selim and beheaded.

Captured Mamluks were subjected to mass executions while the Ottoman government simultaneously proclaimed amnesties to induce others to surrender.

What 30 January did not end

Cairo's fall did not terminate Tumanbay's reign or Mamluk resistance. He remained at large until late March and was executed in April.

Al-Mutawakkil III was not deported that day. He was still active in Cairo after the fighting, and his forced journey toward Constantinople did not begin until 2 June 1517.

No contemporary evidence supports the later story that he ceremonially transferred the caliphate to Selim.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes

How this was checked

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What the sources leave uncertain

Narrative sources differ over the precise sequence between the initial Ottoman occupation, Tumanbay's counterattack, and Selim's ceremonial entry; 30 January is well supported as the definitive recapture.
Casualty accounts vary from thousands of combatants to a later claim of nearly 50,000 civilians. The latter is not treated here as a verified total.
Accounts differ over how much of the urban population participated; several early Ottoman historians nevertheless mention women and children among the resisters.