 By 1516, the Ottomans were free from other concerns—Sultan Selim I had just vanquished the Safavid Persians at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514—and turned their full might against the Mamluks, who ruled in Syria and Egypt, to complete the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East.The war consisted of several battles.The Mamluk army was rather traditional, mainly consisting of cavalry using bows and arrows, whereas the Ottoman army, and especially the Janissaries, was quite modern, using arquebus.