821 AH, 05/09:
An inspection by the sultan was announced to the soldiers of the ḥalqa, and they were inspected by him on Friday 06/09. First those in the service of the amirs were inspected, and he let them chose between remaining one of the ḥalqa but leaving the service of the amirs or staying in the service of the amirs and leaving the khubz of the ḥalqa. Some of them chose the service of the amirs and gave up their khubz of the ḥalqa, and others chose the opposite. The sultan vacated the ʾiqṭāʿ of those that had chosen the service to the amirs and removed from the service of the amirs those who wished to keep their ʾiqṭāʿ of the ḥalqa. Some of them complained about the little income they obtained from their ʾiqṭāʿ, so he increased those. This was considered as an element of the good government of al-Malik al-Muʾayyad and his way of acting was based on old principles. The custom had been in this state of the Turks that the army of Egypt consisted of three sections. One is called the soldiers of the ḥalqa, whose place was in the service of the sultan, and everyone of them had an ʾiqṭāʿ in the districts of Egypt. Each thousand of them was attached to an amir of 100, that’s why an Egyptian amir was called amir of 100, because he had 100 mamluks in his service and 1000 of those soldiers of the ḥalqa. To each amir of 100 was also attached an amir of 40, an amir of 20, an amir of 10 and a commander of the ḥalqa. When the sultan assigned an amir to go to a region, that amir descended immediately and started his preparations, after having advised those attached to him and they all left immediately. End. The equivalent of those in the day of the caliphs were the ʾahl al-ʿaṭāʾ and the ʾahl al-dīwān.
The second division is called the mamluks of the sultan and they received pay and rations, each month charged to the dīwan of the sultan, and clothing each year.
The third division is called the mamluks of the amirs, and they are in the service of the amirs. Nobody shared with those of another department the conditions of his services. For this reason the number of armies of Egypt was the double of what it is now. This refers to others than the amirs.
Then all of this changed in the days al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Barqūq, when he seized the government, as the amirs started to buy the ʾiqṭāʿs of the ḥalqa or received them form the sultan in name of their own mamluks or eunuchs. Then this was not enough and they entered them also in the household of the sultan with a stipend, and each of the mamluks of the amirs became soldiers of the ḥalqa and mamluks of the sultan and in service of an amir and the livelihood of the three men went to one. So the income of some increased and that of others decreased and so the army of Egypt became weaker. At this rate the army would be now a third of what it was first, and this without that what was taken from the ʾiqṭāʿ as provision and estates and other things, that also exceeded all bounds. So somebody who examines what we have reported, will know the size of the Egyptian army first and what it is now. All of this in addition to the regions, who were ruined by the many taxes and the successive exactions, as well as by the insufficient concern of the rulers for the state of the country. Were it not for this, no enemy could stand against the Egyptian army and no other army would approach it. End.