Brotherhood of the Mamluks

Book 1 - Chains of Nobility

Duyal, a teenage nomad living on the vast Russian steppe, is captured during a Mongol invasion and forced on a long, deadly journey into the war-torn Middle East. Purchased by a Kurdish prince in eastern Turkey, his destination is an Islamic citadel, filled with similarly enslaved strangers and one merciless instructor—a man determined to purge the weaklings from his ranks and forge the survivors into Mamluks, Islamic Knights unmatched in wielding sword, arrows, and lance from atop Arabian steeds.

When Duyal becomes entangled in his instructor’s schemes and his mates witness another comrade’s unjust execution, the recruits can take it no longer. Their wrath is unleashed.

Chains of Nobility is the first book in the Brotherhood of the Mamluks trilogy. Set during the 13th century, the book is an immersive dive into the world of military slavery—a Muslim institution largely unheard of in the West, whose ranks ousted the Crusaders and Mongols from the Levant, preserving Islam.

Book 2 - A Lion's Share

A Lion’s Share is the second book in the Brotherhood of the Mamluks trilogy. The story is set in the 13th Century Middle East, during the Seventh Crusade. Told from the Egyptian perspective, it is a rare view of life among the Mamluks—elite Muslim warriors largely unheralded in the West—whose ranks ousted the Crusaders and Mongols from the Levant, preserving Islam.

On the eve of a historic battle, Leander, a disenchanted Crusader, surrenders to Muslim amirs with the intent of joining the revered Bahri Mamluks. His move seems fated. The young Frenchman avoids the mass slaughter suffered by the Christian alliance and earns himself a place with the elite cavalry regiment, serving the Sultan of Egypt. Yet once King Louis IX of France seeks vengeance and sets Cairo as the objective of his campaign, Leander is faced with warfare against his native people as he defends his new home, comrades, and religion.

When the Bahri’s adored sultan dies and Leander becomes tangled in forbidden love with an Egyptian woman, his world unravels further. As the Mamluks seize rule for themselves, a rivalry between opposing regiments turns bloody and the newly-formed Mamluk Sultanate tumbles into chaos, with Leander and his mates scrambling not only for position within the realigned empire, but also for their lives.

Mongols in the Islamic World

Peter Jackson, emeritus professor of medieval history at Keele University, came out with his magisterial The Mongols and the West, 1221-1410 in 2005, detailing the epic clash between the forces of 13th century Christendom and the waves of Mongol invasion threatening to engulf it. The standard account of that invasion has been the stuff of films and historical melodrama for 600 years: the brutish Mongols slaughtered whole populations of city and countryside with comprehensive gusto, sparing an assortment of accountants and clerks to run the administrative tasks to which they themselves were indifferent. The signature of the great Mongol warlord, Genghis Khan, was one of ruthless bloodshed.

In his earlier book, Jackson sought to add nuance to that standard account, using a wide array of sources to reinforce a more balanced picture of what might at first seem the least-reclaimable item in all of human history – the conquering Mongol horde. And his deeply impressive new book, The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion, continues that reclamation process, following the forces of Genghis Khan as they enter and overrun Central Asia in the early 13th century, quickly conquering virtually all Muslim territories east of Syria. Present-day Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan – huge tracts of Western Asia fell under Mongol domination in the years that followed.

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