Cruel revenge
In the year 1425, there was an Egyptian merchant named Ahmed bin Al-Hameem, carrying his goods and transporting them in ships from the city of Tripoli in the Levant to Egypt, loaded with soap and other materials.
Before Ibn al-Humaim's ships arrived at Damietta port, they were met by foreign Cypriot ships that seized the ships, stole them, and took them to Cyprus.
After that, Ahmed Ibn Al-Humaim went to Cairo to meet with the Sultan of Egypt, Al-Ashraf Barsbay, and he actually met the Sultan in the Council of Grievances and told him what had happened to him. When Sultan Al-Ashraf Sayif Al-Din Barsbay heard about this, his blood boiled in his veins and he considered that the attack on the simple Egyptian merchant was an attack on the prestige and pride of the Sultanate. Egyptian.
Immediately, the Sultan of Egypt gave orders to the Egyptian fleet to be on alert and with maximum readiness to invade the entire island of Cyprus and bring the King of Cyprus and his soldiers shackled in iron to Cairo.
Despite all the mediations, pleas, and gifts sent by the Cypriots, the Byzantine Emperor, and the Pope of the Vatican, Sultan Barsbay was determined to give the world a lesson in not attacking any Egyptian, and in fact the Egyptian fleet moved, carrying thousands of Egyptians in a majestic scene in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, the island of Cyprus was conquered in the year 1426 AD, and it was completely controlled. Egyptian flags were raised over it and it was annexed to the Egyptian Sultanate. The Egyptian leader Ibn Bint Al-Iqsrai raised the Islamic call to prayer at the palace of the King of Cyprus for the first time in the history of the island. The King of Cyprus, Janos Lusignan, and the entire Cypriot army were brought as prisoners, shackled in iron, and a military parade was performed on them in the capital of the Egyptian Sultanate, the city of Cairo, in a great Egyptian epic.
Sources :
The book “The Complete History of Damietta,” page 43
Book of the History of the Islamic Navy in Egypt and the Levant, page 329
Book of the Tanukh tribes and their famous days, page 206
Egyptian Navy History Book, page 602