Battle of Ain Jalut
The Battle of Ain Jalut (Arabic: معركة عين جالوت, romanized: Ma'rakat ‘Ayn Jālūt), also spelled Ayn Jalut, was fought between the Bahri Mamluks of Egypt and the Mongol Empire on 3 September 1260 (25 Ramadan 658 AH) near the spring of Ain Jalut in southeastern Galilee in the Jezreel Valley.
| Battle of Ain Jalut | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Mongol invasions of the Levant | |||||||||
Map showing movements of both forces, meeting eventually at Ain Jalut | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Mamluk Sultanate Ayyubid emirs of Kerak and Hamah | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Kitbuqa † | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
| Light cavalry and horse archers, heavy cavalry, infantry | Mongol lancers and horse archers | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 15,000–20,000 | 10,000–20,000 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | High | ||||||||
Continuing the westward expansion of the Mongol Empire, the armies of Hulagu Khan captured and sacked Baghdad in 1258, along with the Ayyubid capital of Damascus sometime later. Hulagu sent envoys to Cairo demanding Qutuz surrender Egypt, to which Qutuz responded by killing the envoys and displaying their heads on the Bab Zuweila gate of Cairo. Shortly after this, Möngke Khan was slain in battle against the Southern Song. Hulagu returned to Mongolia with the bulk of his army to attend the kurultai in accordance with Mongol customs, leaving approximately 10,000 troops west of the Euphrates under the command of Kitbuqa.
Learning of these developments, Qutuz quickly advanced his army from Cairo towards Palestine. Kitbuqa sacked Sidon, before turning his army south towards the Spring of Harod to meet Qutuz' forces. Using hit-and-run tactics and a feigned retreat by Mamluk general Baibars, combined with a final flanking maneuver by Qutuz, the Mongol army was forced to retreat toward Bisan, after which the Mamluks led a final counterattack, which resulted in the deaths of many Mongols, including Kitbuqa himself.
The battle has been cited as the first time the Mongols were permanently prevented from expanding their influence; It also marked the first of two defeats the Mongols would face in their attempts to invade Egypt and the Levant, the other being the Battle of Marj al-Saffar in 1303. The earliest known use of the hand cannon in any military conflict is also documented to have taken place in this battle by the Mamluks, who used it to frighten the Mongol armies, according to Arabic military treatises of the 13th and 14th centuries.