The Mamluks Stop the Mongols at Ain Jalut
Egypt's slave-soldiers hand the Mongol Empire its first major defeat, and Baibars murders his own sultan on the way home
Quick facts
- Location
- Ain Jalut, Palestine
- Mamluk sultan
- Qutuz (killed shortly after by Baibars)
- Mongol commander
- Kitbuqa (captured and executed)
- Aftermath
- Baibars becomes Mamluk sultan and later conquers Antioch (1268)
What happened
After Hulagu's Mongols captured Baghdad, Aleppo, and Damascus, Hulagu sent envoys to Cairo demanding the Mamluk sultan Qutuz submit. Qutuz had the envoys killed and their heads displayed on the city gates. Hulagu then withdrew most of his army back east to contest the succession after the death of the Great Khan Mongke, leaving a reduced force under his deputy Kitbuqa to continue the campaign. Roughly 20,000 Mamluk troops, including the general Baibars, met a similarly sized Mongol force at Ain Jalut in Palestine on 3 September 1260. The Mamluks drew the Mongol cavalry into a feigned retreat, nearly buckled under the resulting counterattack, then rallied with cavalry hidden in the surrounding valleys. Kitbuqa was captured and executed. On the return march to Cairo, Baibars murdered Qutuz and took the sultanate for himself.
Why it matters
Ain Jalut was the first major battle the Mongol Empire lost after decades of westward conquest, and it stopped their advance into Egypt permanently. Baibars, its new sultan, would spend the next decade methodically conquering the remaining Crusader States, including Antioch in 1268.
How we know
The battle is recorded in Persian chronicle material hosted at deremilitari.org, and corroborated by the World History Encyclopedia's account of Baibars's subsequent seizure of power and campaigns against the Latin East. The two sources give the battle date as either 3 or 8 September 1260, a minor discrepancy in an otherwise consistent record.
Sources
- De Re Militari, Society for Medieval Military History. The Battle of 'Ayn Jalut (1260) · Primary source (author-declared)deremilitari.org · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Eighth Crusade · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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