ABSTRACT
Although the Mamluk sultanate was historically and geographically the successor to the Ayyubid confederacy, and although there was some continuity of institutions between the two polities, there were certain important differences. The most fundamental ofthese was the nature of the ruling group. During the first halfofthe seventh/thirteenth century, Egypt and Muslim Syria were ruled by the Ayyubid clan. Its members quarrelled and conspired among themselves, but they were undisturbed by usurpers from outside the clan until al-Mu'azzarn Tfiran-Shah was murdered by the Mamluks in 648/1250. Even then a shred oflegitimacy was preserved for a while in Egypt by the recognition as sultan, first of all of al-Salih Ayyub's widow, Shajar al-Durr, then of the infant Ayyubid, aI-Ashraf Musa. The repercussions of the Mamluk coup in Egypt rather strengthened the Ayyubid regime in Syria, since it enabled al-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo to become lord of Damascus, and thereby assured him a paramountcy in the region which was only ended by the Mongol invasion.
