The Battle of Ain Jalut: The History and Legacy of the Decisive Mamluk Victory that Halted the Mongol Empire’s Expansion across the Middle East

From the vast grasslands of the Asian steppes arose what is perhaps one of the most unstoppable armies in the history of the world: the Mongol Empire. A loosely aligned horde of tribal pastoral nomads, these warring tribes were united under one banner by Genghis Khan. Under his legendary leadership, the Mongols left their ancestral home in Mongolia on a campaign of conquest. Turning their eyes south toward China, the Mongols eventually conquered the rich empire to establish the Mongol Yuan Dynasty of China, but this did not satisfy the Mongol quest for conquest. The Mongols pushed west into Central Asia, defeating a series of kingdoms and empires and leaving carnage in their wake. These armies of elite horse archers crushed every foe in their path, conquering land all the way to Poland and Austria.

The Middle East was not spared their wrath, as the Mongols staged some of their most devastating campaigns in Arab lands. In 1258, the Mongols sacked Baghdad, destroying the capital of the mighty Islamic Abbasid Caliphate, which was a major blow to the Islamic world. The Mongol armies continued west into the holy land of Syria and Palestine. There, the Mongols met the foe to rival them in war: the Mamluks.

Hailing from the Eurasian steppes, the Mamluks were not Arab, but ethnically Turkish, enslaved at a young age, and sold into military service in Egypt, where they underwent intense military training in Cairo. Thus, these Turkish warriors were utterly alien from the Arab populations they eventually ruled over in ethnicity, language, and culture, but they were remarkably skilled in the mounted warfare styles of the nomadic tribes of the Eurasian grasslands and other aspects of medieval warfare. As a result, the Mamluks were some of the finest professional soldiers of their time, which they proved on multiple occasions through their brilliant military campaigns against the numerous enemies of Egypt.