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Conflict3 September 1260

Battle of Ain Jalut

The Mamluks of Egypt under Qutuz and Baybars defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut in Palestine, halting the Mongol advance to the west.

When Möngke Khan died in 1259, Hulagu took his main army back east, leaving his general Kitbuqa in Syria with a smaller force. The Mamluk sultan Qutuz seized the chance and marched north; on 3 September 1260 at Ain Jalut, Baybars drew the Mongols in with a feigned retreat and the Mamluks surrounded and destroyed them. Kitbuqa was killed. It was the first major Mongol defeat in open battle, and thereafter the Mamluks held Egypt and Syria. Qutuz was murdered on the way home and Baybars became sultan.

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States at the time
Mamluk Sultanate · victor
Ilkhanate · defeated
Places
Ain Jalut

People

  • Qutuz1260

    commander · Mamluk sultan who defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut in 1260 and was assassinated by Baybars and others on the way home

  • Baybars1223 – 1277

    commander · Mamluk sultan, vanguard commander at Ain Jalut, who as sultan held off both the Mongols and the crusaders

  • Hulagu Khan1217 – 1265

    related figure · Grandson of Genghis Khan who took Baghdad in 1258, ending the Abbasid Caliphate, and founded the Ilkhanate

Before and after

Earlier
1250 The Mamluk Sultanate
Later
1291 Fall of Acre

Themes that include this event

  • Turkic-Islamic Empires and Other Civilizations1000 – 1533

    From the Ghaznavid raids on India to the Mughal Empire and Suleiman I — five centuries in which Turkic-led Islamic empires took western Asia and India, while Africa, Southeast Asia and the Americas raised civilisations of their own

  • The Mongol Conquests1206 – 1294

    From the rise of Genghis Khan to the Yuan conquest of the Song — eighty years in which the Mongols swept Eurasia from Goryeo to Hungary