Al-Mutawakkil III

Al-Mutawakkil III المتوكل على الله الثالث
54th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate Last Abbasid Caliph in Cairo (first period)
Reign	1508–1516
Predecessor	Al-Mustamsik
Successor	Al-Mustamsik
(second period)
Reign	1517
Predecessor	Al-Mustamsik
Successor	Selim I as Ottoman Caliph
Died	1543
Father	Al-Mustamsik
Religion	Islam

Al-Mutawakkil III (Arabic: المتوكل على الله الثالث‎) (died 1543) was caliph from 1508 to 1516, and again in 1517. He was the last caliph of the later, Egyptian-based period of the Abbasid dynasty. Since the Mongol sack of Baghdad and the execution of Caliph Al-Musta'sim in 1258, the Abbasid caliphs had resided in Cairo, nominal rulers used to legitimize the actual rule of the Mamluk sultans.

Al-Mutawakkil III was deposed briefly in 1516 by his predecessor Al-Mustamsik, but was restored to the caliphate the following year. In 1517, Ottoman sultan Selim I had managed to defeat the Mamluk Sultanate, and made Egypt part of the Ottoman Empire. Al-Mutawakkil III was captured together with his family and transported to Constantinople. He formally surrendered the title of caliph as well as its outward emblems—the sword and mantle of Muhammad—to Ottoman sultan Selim I.^[1] Ottoman rulers before him, beginning with Fatih Sultan Mehmed however, had already begun to claim caliphal authority.

References

1. https://my.vanderbilt.edu/robertdrews/files/2014/01/Chapter-Thirty.-The-Ottoman-Empire-Judaism-and-Eastern-Europe-to-1648.pdf p.1

• "Biography of Al-Mutawakkil III" (in Arabic). Islampedia.com. Archived from the original on 2008-06-11.

Bibliography

• Garcin, Jean-Claude (1967). "Histoire, opposition, politique et piétisme traditionaliste dans le Ḥusn al Muḥādarat de Suyûti" [History, opposition, politics and traditionalistic pietism in Suyuti's Ḥusn al Muḥādarat] (PDF, 14.62 MB). Annales Islamologiques (in French) (Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale) 7: 33–90. Retrieved 2010-07-22.
• Holt, P. M. (1984). "Some Observations on the 'Abbāsid Caliphate of Cairo". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) 47 (3): 501–507. doi:10.1017/s0041977x00113710. JSTOR 618882. (subscription required (help)).