Muhammad al-Mutawakkil III (d. 1543) (Arabic: محمد المتوكل على الله), reigned 1509 to 1516, and again in 1517, was the last caliph of the later, Egyptian-based period of the Abbasid dynasty. Since the Mongol sack of Baghdad and execution of the Caliph Al-Musta'sim in 1258, the Abbasid caliphs resided in Egypt from 1261, nominal rulers used to legitimize the actual rule of the Mamelukes, their former slave army.

Al-Mutawakkil III was deposed briefly towards the end of his reign in 1516 by his predecessor Al-Mustamsik, but was briefly restored in the next year. In 1517, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I defeated the Mameluke Sultanate and made Egypt part of the Ottoman Empire. Al Mutawakkil was captured and transported to Constantinople, where he formally surrendered the title of caliph as well as its outward emblems, the sword and the mantle of Muhammed, to Selim.

1543 deaths | Caliphate | Islamic history

Al-Mutawakkil III