Bab Zuweila

Bab Zuweila means “Gate of the Zuwayla.” In the tenth century, the Fatimid commander Jawhar al-Siqilli brought warriors of the Zuwayla tribe from North Africa and settled them by the southern entrance to the Cairo he founded. Later, Badr al-Jamali moved the city wall and built the present stone passage in ten ninety-two, but the gate retained the name of the soldiers once stationed here.

Four centuries later, a man who had himself begun as a purchased warrior was hanged beneath this vault. Tumanbay was purchased by his uncle, Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri, and transferred to the military household of Sultan Qaitbay. After being freed, Tumanbay continued his service, became an emir, and in the autumn of fifteen sixteen was offered the Mamluk throne.

At first, he refused to take it. The Ottoman army had already defeated the Mamluks in Syria, Qansuh al-Ghuri had been killed, the treasury was exhausted, and some of the emirs were seeking an agreement with the victors. Tumanbay agreed only after the emirs swore neither to rebel against him nor to betray him. He was becoming sultan for a war that was almost impossible to win.

The Ottoman sultan Selim I occupied Cairo, but Tumanbay continued to resist. He gathered the surviving warriors, returned to the city, and for several days drove Ottoman units out of a large part of Cairo. After another defeat, he went beyond the Nile, recruited men again, and tried to negotiate peace. In the end, he was betrayed to the Ottomans where he had expected to find refuge.

Selim received the prisoner as a sovereign, and contemporaries expected Tumanbay to be sent into exile. Khayr Bey and Janbirdi al-Ghazali opposed this—former Mamluk emirs who had gone over to the Ottomans and sought the final destruction of the resistance. They explained to Selim that Cairenes did not believe Tumanbay had been captured, prayed for him, and would await his return as long as he lived. The sultan ordered the prisoner to be shown to the city and executed where everyone could see the outcome.

Bab Zuweila was chosen for this. The main city route passed through the southern gate, and the heads of executed enemies were displayed above the passage. Tumanbay was taken through Cairo bound and surrounded by Ottoman warriors. On the way, he greeted the people, still not knowing that he was being led to the gallows.

At the gate, he was taken down from his horse. Seeing the rope beneath the vault, Tumanbay asked those gathered to recite the first sura of the Quran together with him three times. When he was raised up, the rope broke and he fell onto the threshold. Contemporaries reported that this happened twice; the only certain fact is that the executioner continued the execution and Tumanbay died here.

The body was left hanging for three days. It was then taken down, washed, and buried at the Madrasa of Qansuh al-Ghuri. Khayr Bey received the governorship of Egypt from Selim, and Janbirdi al-Ghazali received Damascus. After Tumanbay’s death, the Mamluks no longer had a sultan around whom an army could be gathered.

The execution took place not in front of the gate, but inside the surviving arched passage between the two round towers. This is exactly where Tumanbay fell when the first rope broke.