SIXTH SIEGE, A.D. 1171.
Egypt belonged for three centuries to the Fatimite caliphs; but this race degenerated: divided among themselves for the possession of power, one of its two branches had the imprudence to call in the sultan of Damascus to its aid. After several battles, the latter was the conqueror, but he kept his conquest for himself. Saladin, his son, became, in 1171, sultan of Egypt. The descendants of this great man were, in their turn, displaced by the Mamelukes and their beys, a singular kind of militia, continually recruited by slaves from Mount Caucasus; themselves choosing their sultans, as the prætorian guards had done, and, like them, disposing of power. Egypt was conquered by the Ottomans. Selim I. contented himself with weakening, for the time, the influence of the Mamelukes; but, always ambitious, they resumed, by degrees, their authority under his weak successors, and only left the Ottoman Porte a shadow of power in the provinces over which they tyrannized.