The Nubian kingdoms had proven their resilience in maintaining political independence and their commitment to Christianity until the thirteenth century.

Nubian kings had led armies into Egypt in the early eighth century and again in the tenth century, to force the release of the imprisoned Coptic patriarch and to relieve fellow Christians suffering persecution under Muslim rulers.

In 1276, however, the Mamluks (Arabic for "owned"), who are an elite but frequently disorderly caste of soldier-administrators composed largely of Turkish, Kurdish, and Circassian slaves, intervene in a dynastic dispute, oust Dongola's reigning monarch and delivered the crown and silver cross that symbolize Nubian kingship to a rival claimant.

Hereafter, Dongola becomes a satellite of Egypt.