The lingua franca of the Mamluk sultanate during both the Bahri and Burgi(Circassian) periods was Qipchaq, a Turkic language. It is for this reason that the Arabophone natives of the Sultanate in Egypt and Greater Syria referred to the Mamluks as "Dawlat al-Atrak," the regime of the Turks. Turkic mamluks hailed from the Qipchaq Steppe. Their homeland since the early middle ages was the basin of the Irtish River, which separates Siberia from Kazakstan. A group of them migrated south to the Syr Darya (Sayhun) basin in the 12th c., while another group relocated to eastern Europe. Both groups came under the direct rule of Genghis Khan, especially after Batu Khan moved north and subjegated the Qipchaqs, Circassians, and Russians. The kingdom of Batu Khan extended from Khwarizm in the east to the outskirts of Constantinople in the west, and from the Russia in the north to the Caucasus in the south. His capital was Saray on the Volga. It was during this time that mamluk slave trade burgeoned, with the emergence of an active class of slave merchants. The Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil saw in the Turkic mamluks a substitute for the Khwarizmians who by then had proven to be unreliable and corrupt.These newcomers were ensconced in his citadel on the Rawda Island on the Nile (Qalat al-Bahr), hence the name Bahri. This explains why most of the Bahri Mamluks who ran the first Mamluk state were Qipchaq. Sultan Aybak (1250-57) was of a Turkish descent and was therefore known as al-Turkumani (Maqrizi, Suluk, 1:368). Sultan Qutuz (1259-60) was Mongol despite his claim to be the nephew of Khwarizm Shah (Ibn Taghri Bardi, Nujum, 7: 3, 85). Sultan Baybars I (1260-77) was born on the north of the Caspian Sea and brought to Cairo via the slave (mamluk) market in Sivas(Nujum, 7:96, 145). Sultan Qalawun (1280-90) was also a Qipchaq (Nujum, Suluk, 1: 663). It was a standard practice of sultans of Qipchaq descent to recruit or purchase mamluks of their Qipchaq ethnicity. Baybars was not satisfied with the large numbers of mamluks who were brought to him in Cairo as prisoners of his wars in Asia Minor against the Seljuqs and Mongols. He dispatched slave merchants to the lands of the "Tatar" (Maqrizi, Suluk, 2:89; Ayni, Aqd al-Juman, 56: 11) to purchase mamluks to shore up his forces. Qalawun continued Baybars's legacy of purchasing mamluks directly from lands under Mongol rule (Ayni, 56: 724; Ibn al-Furat, Tarikh al-Duwal wa al-Muluk, 8: 97). While earlier Ayyubi Sultans had Turkish Mamluks, it is generally said that it was al-Salih Ayyub, last of the Ayyubi Sultans of Cairo, who greatly augmented his military slave corps, because he no longer trusted the hereditary cavalry of Turks and Kurds who beefed up Ayyubi armies in Egypt and Greater Syria. Once the Mamluk element took control of the state at his death, they continued to recruit slaves from the Black Sea area, many of whom are described as Qipchaqs (Tatars). Also Mongol women and children came into Mamluk hands in the wars with the Il-Khan Mongols across the Euphrates river. There were no Mamluk wars in the Volga steppes or the Caucasus. On the contrary, the Mamluks had an alliance with the Golden Horde Mongols, who were Muslims (apparently acknowledging the Abbasi Caliph in Cairo), against the Il-Khans. However, Qalawun seemed to have had a leaning towards the Circassian element, which he had housed in the towers (Abraj, pl. of Burj) of the Citadel (Qalat al-Jabal), hence the name Burji (Nujum, 7: 330; Suluk: 1:755-56;Maqrizi's Khitat, 3: 348). It was also during this period that the Genoese merchants took an active role in this trade and sought to secure large numbers of Tatar children to be sold in the Crimea (Children acquired by raiding the rivalry qipchaq clans). This prompted Tuqtuq Khan of the Qipchaqs to raid the slave markets in the Crimea in an attempt to stiffle the trade.(Zubdat, 9: 460).
A bit later the nominally Christian Circassians sold their excess children into slavery as a practical form of birth control/cash crop, knowing well that they would have wider horizons in Egypt than in the Caucasus. As for the Qipchaqs, it is said that many of them had blue eyes and blond or brown hair. In reality those children were just captive Slav children, captured in raids or raised in slave-stockades, who were not Qipchaqs but were taught Qipchaq-Turkish and sold as valuable export commodities, also known as "Saqaliba".

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