After the execution of Tuman Bay, the people of Cairo fell into deep mourning for their sultan, and a state of unrest spread throughout the country as the situation had not yet become clear. Why had the Ottomans waged war against us? And what about the Mamluks who had lived among us for three whole centuries—would they be executed or exiled?

The Ottoman Sultan Selim I remained in Cairo for a period to ensure the stability of affairs. Throughout that time, he did not announce the appointment of Khayr Bey as governor of Egypt.

Khayr Bey was nearly driven mad with impatience. He had been waiting eagerly for the moment when he would become the governor of Ottoman Egypt. Yet the sultan completed his stay, left behind an Ottoman garrison, did not appoint him, and returned to Istanbul. Only from there did he finally send the imperial decree announcing the appointment of Khayr Bey as governor of Egypt, and Janbirdi al-Ghazali—his partner in betrayal—as governor of Aleppo.

Not much time passed before Janbirdi al-Ghazali began to feel that his status was far below what it had been during the Mamluk sultanate. He could not bear the feeling of being subordinate to the Ottomans. This pushed him to contact Khayr Bey and plot with him an uprising against the Ottomans. Khayr Bey replied that Janbirdi should first solidify his position, and that if he succeeded, he would send him military support from Egypt.

Indeed, Janbirdi betrayed the Ottoman garrison in Aleppo and slaughtered them. Immediately, he wrote to Khayr Bey in Egypt, announcing that he had successfully seized full control of the city. Ironically, as Khayr Bey was reading the letter, he was simultaneously writing a dispatch to Sultan Selim informing him of what was happening in Aleppo and urging him to send reinforcements to crush Janbirdi.

Sultan Selim thanked Khayr Bey and dispatched a fierce campaign against Aleppo to discipline Janbirdi. Janbirdi took refuge in the citadel of Aleppo, and when he realized defeat was inevitable, he fled. Some accounts say he died in the wilderness, while other narratives confirm that he was captured and executed by the Ottoman soldiers.

From that time on, Khayr Bey became known among the Mamluks and the common people as “the faithful in betrayal,” or “Khayn Bey” (a popular distortion of his name meaning “the traitor”).

Toward the end of his days, Khayr Bey felt as though the curse of betrayal was haunting him. Egyptians boycotted prayers in his mosque, and the common people refused to drink from the public water fountain he had built beside it. He began distributing silver coins to children in the streets, asking them to pray for him, and he released the elderly men and the shaykhs from prison—those who had opposed him during his rule.

Khayr Bey departed this world in the year 1518, only one year after assuming the governorship of Egypt, leaving behind an architectural legacy that bears his name… yet stands abandoned.

The End. Khayr bey story, the final part