One useful way to examine the category of Empire as applied to the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria is to investigate the nature of its control and influence over peripheral regions. A large variety of political structures have been called empires, a practice that has complicated the problem of definition. The resultant discussion has led scholars to identify a number of characteristic features of empire, not necessarily with unanimous agreement but with some benefit since the concepts mobilized in these discussions are a useful means to understand how things worked, how they changed, and why. In this paper, the view from the periphery allows us to evaluate the Mamluk center’s formal claims of control and to distinguish other modes of power, such as indirect rule and hegemonic influence. The approach to the concept of empire adopted here is limited to three interrelated features: territorial range, political drive, and nested sovereignties. The starting point of this project is to accept that while empires can consist of a carefully arranged and controlled political structure they may also incorporate intersecting, and sometimes contentious, systems of political control. Because this is a dynamic process, it seems more useful to approach the topic of empire in a processual, rather than a structural, way. This may result in a more flexible notion of empire, to the point of achieving conceptual fuzziness rather than clarity, but it should also allow for a more nuanced understanding of Mamluk imperialism. Some attention has been directed at Mamluk rule over peripheral regions, but this has not been done in a comparative way. This project examines the issue of territorial expansion into the regions of Cyprus, Lebanon, and the Hijaz, three distinct geographical units subjugated at different times and in different ways by the Mamluk center. An examination of the Mamluk role in these regions allows us to isolate a number of factors that impelled the Mamluk center to control these regions, the troubles it faced in doing so, and whether, indeed, control of these regions was essential to the existence of the Mamluk Sultanate. In brief, we see the interplay of political legacy, economic expedience, and ideological prestige in shaping the Mamluk project, what might be described as an intermittent empire, capable, in some places, of projecting its hegemony without dominance while, in other places, of extending its dominance without hegemony.