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 Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and the Ilkhanate on 3 September 1260 near the spring of Ain Jalut in southeastern Galilee in the Jezreel Valley. It marks the first major halt to Mongolian advances and paused their expansion into Arabia and Europe.

Continuing the westward expansion of the Ilkhanate, the armies of Hulegu Khan captured and sacked Baghdad in 1258, along with the Ayyubid capital of Damascus sometime later. Hulegu 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. Hulegu 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 toward Ain Jalut to meet Qutuz' forces. Using hit-and-run tactics and a feigned retreat by Mamluk general Baybars, combined with a final flanking maneuver by Qutuz, the Mamluks forced the Mongol army 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.