Tuman bay II

Al-Ashraf Abu Al-Nasr Tuman bay (Arabic: الأشرف أبو النصر طومان باي), better known as Tuman bay II (طومان باي; c. 1476 – 15 April 1517) was the final Mamluk Sultan of Egypt before the country's conquest by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. He ascended to the sultanic throne during the final period of Mamluk rule in Egypt, after the defeat of his predecessor, Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri, by Ottoman Sultan Selim I at the Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516. He was the last person to hold the title of Sultan of Egypt prior to the re-establishment of the sultanate 397 years later under Hussein Kamel in 1914.

A Circassian, who, like his predecessors, had been in early youth a domestic slave of the palace, gradually rose to be “emir of a hundred,” then prime minister, an office he held until the departure of Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri, who left him in charge of Cairo. The Caliph Muhammad Al-Mutawakkil III having remained behind with Selim I after the defeat of Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri, Tuman bay II was inaugurated as sultan at the age of 40, following a loss of the royal insignia in battle. His rise to power was clouded by conflict in Syria, disordered troops, distracted emirs, and a mercenary horde of Mamluks. Despite the troubled context, he was popular throughout his brief reign. In the course of time, the fugitive chiefs, with Emir Janberdi Al-Ghazali, arrived from Damascus; but another month elapsed before an army could be organized.