Two recent monographs provide a general overview of the Mamluks and the Mamluk system: Loiseau’s, Julien, Les mamelouks. XIIIe–XVIe siècle (Paris, 2014) and Eychenne’s, Mathieu, Liens personnels, clientélisme et réseaux de pouvoir dans le sultanat mamelouk (milieu XIIIe–fin XIVe siècles) (Damas-Beyrouth, 2013). In English, there is a series of articles by Koby Yosef based on his 2011 Ph.D. thesis, “Ethnic Groups, Social Relationships and Dynasty in the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517),” 2 vols., in Hebrew (Tel Aviv University). They include: “Dawlat al-atrak or dawlat al-mamalik? Ethnic Origin or Slave Origin as the Defining Characteristic of the Ruling Elite in the Mamluk Sultanate,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 39 (2012): 387–410; “Mamluks and Their Relatives in the Period of the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517),” Mamluk Studies Review, 16 (2012): 55–69; “Ikhwa, Muwakhun and Khushdashiyya in the Mamluk Sultanate,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 40 (2013): 335–362; “The Term Mamluk and Slave Status during the Mamluk Sultanate,” Al-Qantara 19 (2013): 7–34; “Masters and Slaves: Substitute Kinship in the Mamluk Sultanate,” in Vermeulen, Urbain, D’hulster, Kristof, and Van Steenbergen, Jo (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras VIII (Leuven, 2016), pp. 557–579; “Usages of Kinship Terminology during the Mamluk Sultanate and the Notion of the ‘Mamluk Family,’” in Ben-Bassat, Yuval (ed.), Developing Perspectives in Mamluk History. Essays in Honor of Amalia Levanoni (Leiden, 2017), pp. 16–75; “Cross-Boundary Hatred: (Changing) Attitudes towards Mongol and ‘Christian’ mamlūks in the Mamluk Sultanate,” in Amitai, Reuven and Conermann, Stephan (eds.), The Mamluk Sultanate from the Perspective of Regional and World History: Economic, Social and Cultural Development in an Era of Increasing International Interaction and Competition (Göttingen, 2019), pp. 149–214.

Ayalon’s, David work is still essential reading. See “L’esclavage du mamelouk,” The Israel Oriental Society, 1 (1951): 1–66; “Aspects of the Mamluk Phenomenon. Part I: The Importance of the Mamluk Institution,” Der Islam, 53 (1976): 44–58; “Aspects of the Mamluk Phenomenon. Part II: Ayyubids, Kurds, and Turks,” Der Islam, 54 (1977): 1–32. See also Northrup, Linda S., “The Bahri Mamluk Sultanate, 1250–1390,” in Petry, Carl (ed.), The Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol. 1, Islamic Egypt, 640–1517 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 242–289, and Jean-Claude Garcin, “The Regime of the Circassian Mamluks,” in Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol. 1, pp. 290–317.

Hassanein Rabie studies the education and training of new Mamluks in “The Training of the Mamluk Faris,” in Parry, V. J. and Yapp, M. E. (eds.), War, Technology and Society in the Middle East (London, 1975), pp. 153–163. David Ayalon gives a good overview of the essential arts of horseback-riding and armed combat in Mamluk-era literature in “Notes on the Furusiyya Exercises and Games in the Mamluk Sultanate,” Scripta Hierosolymitana, 9 (1961): 31–62. See also Haarmann, Ulrich, “The Late Triumph of the Persian Bow: Critical Voices on the Mamluk Monopoly on Weaponry,” in Parry, V. J. and Yapp, M. E. (eds.), The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 174–187, and al-Sarraf, Shihab, “Mamluk Furusiyah Literature and its Antecedents,” Mamluk Studies Review, 8 (2004): 141–200.

For additional information about eunuchs, see Ayalon, David, “The Eunuchs in the Mamluk Sultanate,” in Rosen-Ayalon, Myriam (ed.), Studies in Memory of Gaston Wiet (Jerusalem, 1977), pp. 267–295; Ayalon, , “On the Eunuchs in Islam,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 1 (1979): 67–124; Ayalon, , “On the Term Khadim in the Sense of ‘Eunuch’ in the Early Muslim Sources,” Arabica, 32 (1985): 289–308; Ayalon, , Eunuchs, Caliphs and Sultans: A Study of Power Relationships (Jerusalem, 1999), and Shaun Marmon, Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries in Islamic Society (New York, 1995).

For the situation of women, and especially female slaves in Mamluk society, see al-Raziq, Ahmad Abd, La femme au temps des Mamlouks en Égypte (Cairo, 1973); Chapoutot-Remadi, Mounira, “Femmes dans la ville mamlūke,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 38 (1995): 145–164, and Frenkel, Yehoshua, “Slave Girls and Learned Teachers: Women in Mamluk Sources,” in Ben-Bassat, Yuval (ed.), Developing Perspectives in Mamluk History. Essays in Honor of Amalia Levanoni (Leiden, 2017), pp. 158–176. The chronicler al-Biqaʿi and the notary Aḥmad Ibn Ṭawq provide valuable insights from the domestic sphere in Guo, Li, “Tales of a Medieval Cairene Harem: Domestic Life in al-Biqāʿī’s Autobiographical Chronicle,” Mamluk Studies Review, 9 (2005): 101–121, and Wollina, Torsten, Zwanzig Jahre Alltag. Lebens-, Welt- und Selbstbild im Journal des Aḥmad Ibn Ṭawq (Göttingen, 2014), pp. 64–69.

Work on the scarce extant documents pertaining to slavery has been done by al-Raziq, Ahmad Abd, “Un document concernant le mariage des esclaves au temps des Mamlūks,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 13 (1970): 309–314; Little, Donald, “Six Fourteenth Century Purchase Deeds for Slaves from al-Ḥaram aš-Šarīf,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 131 (1981): 297–337; Little, , “Two Fourteenth-Century Court Records from Jerusalem Concerning the Disposition of Slaves by Minors,” Arabica, 29 (1982): 16–49; Ragib, Yusuf, Actes de vente d’esclaves et d’animaux d’Egypte médiévale, 2 vols. (Cairo, 2002, 2006).

On the slave trade there is Hannah Barker, ‘That Most Precious Merchandise’: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260–1500 (Philadelphia, 2019), as well as the highly recommended work by Amitai, Reuven, “Diplomacy and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean: A Re-examination of the Mamluk-Byzantine-Genoese Triangle in the Late Thirteenth Century in Light of the Existing Early Correspondence,” Oriente modern, 88 (2008): 349–368; Ehrenkreutz, Andrew, “Strategic Implications of the Slave Trade between Genoa and Mamluk Egypt in the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century,” in Udovitch, Abraham (ed.), The Islamic Middle East, 700–1900 (Princeton, NJ, 1981), pp. 335–345; Kedar, Benjamin, “Segurano-Sakran Salvaygo: un mercante genovese al servizio dei sultani mamalucchi, c. 1303–1322,” in Dini, Bruno (ed.), Fatti e idee di storia economica nei secoli XII–XX: Studi dedicati a Franco Borlandi (Bologna, 1977), pp. 75–91, and Sato, Tsugitaka, “Slave Traders and Kārīmī Merchants during the Mamluk Period: A Comparative Study,” Mamlūk Studies Review, 10 (2006): 141–56. Yusuf Ragib has valuable descriptions on slave markets, see “Les marchés aux esclaves en terre d’Islam,” in Italiano di, Centro Medioevo, Studi sull’Alto (ed.), Mercati et mercanti nell’alto medioevo. L’area Euroasiatica e l’area Mediterranea (Spoleto, 1993), pp. 721–66. For an overview of the Mamluk slave trade in other Mediterranean markets see Amitai, Reuven and Cluse, Christoph (eds.), Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean (c. 1000–1500 CE) (Turnhout, 2017).