Abstract EN:

This work on the history and historiography of the establishment of Ottoman power in Egypt is based essentially on the little known and unpublished history written in turkish, in the 1540s, by 'Abdussamad Diyarbekri for the Governor of Cairo. The work starts with a presentation of the manuscripts of this chronicle, together with a survey of Turkish and Arab chronicles. Chapter I concentrates on how the Ottomans, following their victory over the Mamluks, conquered Egypt in 1517, and gradually consolidated their control over the region. Chapter II shows, however, that this war waged against an age-old center of the Muslim world left doubts in the minds of contemporaries, and that the Ottoman government tried to obtain the consent of the people through a "policy of memory". The life of Diyarbekri -a man of letters of non-Ottoman origin who settled in Egypt where he became kadi- is relocated in the context of the promotion of men with new profiles to positions of power and knowledge in structures in full reshuffling. For his description of the first years of Ottoman presence in Egypt, the historian uses widely an arab text, the Bada'i' al-zuhur of Ibn Iyas, the last section of which - lost in its original version - can be found here in its turkish adaptation (chapter III). Motivated by a desire to appease tension, he justifies war, even though not without difficulty. However, he also avoids to accuse the Mamluks, whose military system he admires (chapter IV). This chronicle shows that the impact of the Ottoman conquest of Egypt on historical writing was far from being entirely negative. The narrative of the war reveals the legitimation strategies of an Ottoman power on the defensive which wishes to benefit from the Mamluk heritage. A transcription and translation of the pages relating to the conquest are given in appendix.