News about an old event: the Ottoman conquest of Egypt, 1517
Nicolas Michel
On the occasion of the publication by Brill of Conquête ottomane de l’Égypte (1517), which he co-edited with Benjamin Lellouch, Nicolas Michel reviews the recent developments in the research on this major event. For a long time the Ottoman conquest has been seen almost almost exclusively through the Cairene chronicler Ibn Iyas's eyes. Though a witness to the event, Ibn Iyas's vivid narrative expresses a sole point of view, the one of an individual horrified by events over which he had no hold. Fortunately a variety of sources, including Ottoman and Venetian ones, allow us to reconstruct more accurately the course of events and understand the Ottoman conquerors' motivations. Subsequent echoes of the event show how it was perceived, explained, justified or condemned in all countries concerned. Muslim court records as well as administrative archives from Cairo, of which the oldest remains date back to the years following the conquest, shed light on the ways by which the new Ottoman masters endeavoured to establish effectively their control over the country. All these sources renew our understanding of Egypt's ottomanization and subsequent provincialization in the early decades following the conquest.