ival candidates, and the Ottoman sultan Mahommed II. supported
the claim of his candidate with force of arms, obtaining as the price of
his assistance several towns in which the suzerainty of the Egyptian
sultan had been acknowledged. Open war did not, however, break out
between the two states in Khoshkadam's time. This sultan is said to have
taken money to permit innocent persons to be ill-treated or executed. He
died on the 9th of October 1467, when the Atabeg _Yelbai_ was selected
by the Mamelukes to succeed him, and was proclaimed sultan with the
title of _Malik al-Zahir_. This person, proving incompetent, was deposed
by a revolution of the Mamelukes on the 4th of December 1467, when the
Atabeg _Timurbogha_ was proclaimed with the title _Malik al-Zahir_. In
a month's time, however, there was another palace revolution, and the
new Atabeg _Kait Bey_ or _Kaietbai_ (January 31st, 1468) was proclaimed
sultan, the dethroned Timurbogha being, however, permitted to go free
whither he pleased. Much of Kait Bey's reign was spent in struggles with
Uzun Hasan, prince of Diarbekr, and Shah Siwar, chief of the
Dhu'l-Kadiri Turkomans. He also offended the Ottoman sultan Bayezid
II. by entertaining his brother Jem, who was afterwards poisoned in
Europe. Owing to this, and also to the fact that an Indian embassy to
the Ottoman sultan was intercepted by the agents of Kait Bey, Bayezid
II. declared war against Egypt, and seized Adana, Tarsus and other
places within Egyptian territory; extraordinary efforts were made by
Kait Bey, whose generals inflicted a severe defeat on the Ottoman
invaders. In 1491, however, after the Egyptians had repeatedly defeated
the Ottoman troops, Kait Bey made proposals of peace which were
accepted, the keys of the towns which the Ottomans had seized being
restored to the Egyptian sultan. Kait Bey endeavoured to assist his
co-religionists in Spain who were threatened by King Ferdinand, by
threatening the pope with reprisals on Syrian Christians, but without
effect. As the consequence of a palace intrigue, which Kait Bey was too
old to quell, on the 7th of August 1496, a day before his death, his son
_Mahommed_ was proclaimed sultan with the title _Malik al-Nasir_; this
was in order to put the supreme power into the hands of the Atabeg
Kansuh, since the new sultan was only fourteen years old. An attempt of
the Atabeg to oust the new sultan, however, failed. After a reign of
little more than two years, filled m