Mamluk sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri had spent the winter of 1515 and the spring of 1516 in preparations for an army with which he proposed marching to the disturbed confines of Asia Minor, and thus being ready for all contingencies.

When just about to start, an Embassy arrived from Selim I promising, still in friendly terms, to appoint, as he had been asked, an Egyptian vassal to the Dulkadirids, and reopen the frontier to the traffic of goods and slaves.

On May 18, 1516, Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri had started from Cairo with a numerous force (reportedly twenty thousand knights), well appointed in all respects save artillery.

Leaving Al-Ashraf Tuman bay II at the helm of government in Cairo, the sultan had marched in great pomp with music, singing and festivity.

There followed fifteen “emirs of a thousand”, besides many of less degree, plus five thousand of his own Mamluks, with the militia.

His forces had been supplemented along his route by Syrian and Bedouin contingents, so that the Mamluk forces does not lack numerical strength.

The high officers of state, Caliph Al-Mutawakkil III, sheikhs and courtiers, with muezzins, physicians and musicians, follows in the sultan’s train.

On the way he had received also Selim I's nephew Ahmed, son of the late pretender to the Ottoman throne, and had carried him along with courtly honors in the hope of drawing over his sympathizers from the Ottoman force.

Advancing slowly, Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri enters Damascus on June 9, with carpets spread in his pathway, while European merchants scatter gold among the crowd.

After a few days' stay, …

…the Mamluk sultan proceeds north at a leisurely pace, received with festivities at Homs and …

…Hama, towards Halab.

Another embassy meanwhile arrives from the Ottoman camp which, in deceptive guise, brings costly gifts to the Sultan and also to the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil III and Vizier, with the request of Selim I for a supply of Egyptian sugar and confectionery.

It is also intimated that legal pronouncements against the Shah of Persia Ismail I had forced him again to prepare for war and take the field.

The Chancellor Mughla Baig is sent with presents in return; but by the time he reaches the Ottoman camp, Selim I has shed his guise of peaceful intent: now, to show his contempt for the Egyptians, he treats the Embassy ignominiously, and sends back the Chancellor shaven and shorn, and mounted on a lame and wretched animal, with the rest on foot.

Hayır Bey, the Mamluk governor of Halab, who is secretly aligned with the Porte (though the Sultan, advised of this by the Governor of Damascus, discredits the report), in order to veil his treachery gives Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh all the more splendid a reception; but the inhabitants are greatly enraged against the Mamluks for the outrages they perpetrate in the city.

It is just now that Mughla Baig, returning in wretched form, brings tidings of the hostile attitude of Selim I, and the near approach of the Turkish host.

All doubt now removed as to what lies before them, a fresh oath of allegiance is taken by Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri from the Emirs, Qadis, and royal Mamluks; presents also are distributed to them, while those Mamluks not receiving gifts are much displeased.

The Sultan is again warned of Hayır Bey’s disloyalty, and advises that he be removed from office but is dissuaded by the Emir Janberdi Al-Ghazali.

The Mamluk army sets out to meet the Ottoman army, and encamps on August 20, 1516, on the plain of Dabiq, a day's journey north of Halab, awaiting the enemy's approach.

The Ottomans apparently outnumber the Mamluks by a factor of three to one.The Egyptians, except the royal Mamluks whom the Sultan seek to spare, fight well; and at one time the Turkish outlook is so bad that Selim I entertains thoughts of retreat.

In the end, the Ottomans, superior in artillery, gain the day.

Hayır Bey hastens the end by signaling retreat.

The Egyptians are soon in full flight towards Damascus, for the gates of Aleppo are closed against them but the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil III and some chief Emirs go over to the enemy.

Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri himself falls on the field of battle and his head was carried to the Ottoman sultan.

Accounts however vary to how Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri met his end.

It is said that Hayır Bey had spread the report of his death to precipitate the Egyptian flight.

According to some, the Sultan, felled by a stroke during the battle, had been found alive on the field, and his head cut off and buried to prevent its falling into the enemy's hands.

The Ottoman account is that he was beheaded by a Turk whom Sultan Selim I would have put to death, but afterwards pardoned.

Syria falls, with this single battle, under Ottoman rule.

Selim I, welcomed by the inhabitants as a deliverer from the excesses of the Mamluks, enters Aleppo in triumph.

He receives the Caliph kindly, but the judges and jurists are upbraided for their inability to check Mamluk misrule.

Joined by Hayır Bey and other Egyptian officers, Selim proceeds to the citadel.

Selim marches victoriously from Halab, to Damascus, where the utmost terror prevails.

However, beyond some attempts to protect the city by flooding the plain around it, nothing has been done to oppose the enemy.

Action is paralyzed as usual by discord among the emirs.

Some consider Emir Janberdi Al-Ghazali as Sultan, others champion Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri’s son, but as the Ottomans approach, all either go over to them, or flee to Egypt.

Selim I enters the city about the middle of October; and the inhabitants high and low, only too happy to escape the war, readily tender submission to the Ottoman conqueror.

Ottoman control, despite being often jeopardized by revolts, will last almost three centuries.

Janbirdi al-Ghazali, who had been the na'ib or "viceroy" of Hama under the Mamluk Sultanate, had fought alongside the latter at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.

The Mamluk cavalry forces led by al-Ghazali on October 28, 1516, attack the Ottomans who are trying to cross Gaza on their way to Egypt.

The Ottomans, led by Grand Vizier Hadım Sinan Pasha, are able to break the Egyptian Mamluk cavalry charge.

Al-Ghazali is wounded during the confrontation, and the remnant Mamluk forces and their commander retreat to Cairo.

The Ottomans take Gaza and …

…Jerusalem, beginning what will be four centuries of uninterrupted Turkish domination.

Sultan Selim, installing Ottoman governors in theses places, makes Lebanon’s princes his nominal vassals and offers peace to the new Mamluk sultan, Tuman Bey, on the condition that he accept Ottoman suzerainty.

Tuman Bay, having been in early youth a domestic slave of the palace, like his fellow Circassian predecessors, had gradually risen to be emir of a hundred, and then prime minister, an office he had held until the departure of Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri, who had left him in charge of Cairo.

The Caliph Muhammad Al-Mutawakkil III having remained behind with Selim I after defeat of Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri, Tuman Bay II has now been inaugurated as sultan, but without pomp or ceremony, the royal insignia having been lost in battle.

It is a dark and thankless dignity to which he has been called at the age of forty—Syria gone, the troops in disorder, the emirs distracted, the Mamluks a mercenary horde—yet he rules well, and is popular throughout the land.

The fugitive chiefs, with Emir Janberdi Al-Ghazali, arrive in due course from Damascus, but another month elapses before an army can be organized.