Mongols · 1260

Battle of Ain Jalut

On 3 September 1260 the Mamluks used a feigned retreat to trap the Mongol army, and Kitbuqa was killed. It was the first great Mongol defeat, and it saved Egypt and the holy cities.

The site of the battle on the 1260 map. Shaded: Mongol Empire, 1260, Mamluk Sultanate.

Key facts

When: 1260
Where: Jezreel Valley, Palestine
Sides: Mamluk Sultanate vs Mongols
Commanders: Qutuz and Baybars vs Kitbuqa
Result: Decisive Mamluk victory
Type: Mongols
Chapter: 3. The Abbasids, the Crusades and the Mongols

Who led it

Qutuzdied 1260
Mamluk sultan of Egypt who refused to submit to Hulagu and led the army that beat the Mongols at Ain Jalut.
Baybarsc. 1223 to 1277
A Kipchak Turk sold as a slave who rose to command the Mamluk vanguard at Ain Jalut.

The wider picture: The Mongol storm

Genghis Khan destroyed the Khwarazmian empire between 1219 and 1221. His grandson Hulagu took the fortress of Alamut in 1256 and Baghdad in February 1258. The last Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, al-Musta'sim, was put to death on Hulagu's orders, by most accounts rolled in a carpet and trampled.

See the 1260 map Read chapter 3

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All 7 mongol invasions of the muslim world battles · Battle explorer

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