Al-Mutawakkil III () (died 1543) was the seventeenth
Abbasid caliph
The Abbasid caliphs were the holders of the Islamic title of caliph who were members of the Abbasid dynasty, a branch of the Quraysh tribe descended from the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib.
The family came ...
of
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...
for the
Mamluk Sultanate from 1508 to 1516, and again in 1517.
Life
He was the last caliph of the later
Egyptian-based Caliphate. Since the
Mongol sack of Baghdad and the execution of Caliph
Al-Musta'sim in 1258, these Cairene Caliphs had resided in Cairo as nominal rulers used to legitimize the actual rule of the
Mamluk sultans.
Al-Mutawakkil III was deposed briefly in 1516 by his predecessor
Al-Mustamsik, but was restored to the office the following year. In 1517,
Ottoman Sultan
Selim I
Selim I ( ota, سليم الأول; tr, I. Selim; 10 October 1470 – 22 September 1520), known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute ( tr, links=no, Yavuz Sultan Selim), was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Despite las ...
had managed to
defeat the Mamluk Sultanate, and made Egypt part of the Ottoman Empire. Al-Mutawakkil III was captured together with his family and transported to
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
.
According to traditional history, at this time he formally surrendered the title of caliph as well as its outward emblems—the
sword and mantle of
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mon ...
—to Ottoman sultan Selim I. This story does not appear in the literature until the 1780s and was advanced to bolster the claims of caliphal jurisdiction over Muslims outside of the empire, as asserted in the 1774
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
1543 deaths
16th-century caliphs
16th-century monarchs in Africa
Cairo-era Abbasid caliphs
Year of birth unknown
{{MEast-royal-stub