The rise of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt during the thirteenth century represented a significant shift in the governance of the Islamic world. Born out of the military slave system of the Ayyubids, the Mamluks established a highly centralized regime. While their political system was marked by factionalism and struggles for succession among the military elite, the Sultanate proved remarkably resilient. It halted the Mongol advance at Ayn Jalut, expelled the remaining Crusader states from the Levant, and positioned Cairo as a premier cultural and intellectual center. The Mamluk state demonstrated that the decentralization of caliphal authority did not equate to a decline in state capacity or cultural dynamism; rather, it allowed for regional specialization and the institutionalization of military power that sustained and expanded Islamic rule.
—Modern historical analysis of medieval Islamic governance
Which of the following developments in the post-Abbasid Islamic world is best illustrated by the political survival and achievements of the Mamluk Sultanate described in the passage?
- The emergence of new Turkic-ruled political entities that defended Islamic territories and sponsored intellectual institutions despite the division of caliphal authorityCevap
- BA general decline in scientific innovation and cultural production as regional military states prioritized warfare and defense over intellectual pursuits
- CThe complete dismantling of traditional Middle Eastern bureaucracies and their replacement with decentralized feudal estates modeled on Western Europe
- DThe implementation of a hereditary system of chattel slavery that prevented social mobility and isolated Egypt from trans-regional trade networks