Battle of Ain Jalut 1260
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1260 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Medieval (500–1499) | derived from year |
| Location | Israel | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Mongol invasions of the Levant | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, Ayyubid dynasty, Ilkhanate, Kingdom of Georgia, Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 32.5500, 35.3570 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
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.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Ain Jalut (revision 1380893739), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Mongol invasions of the Levant
- Siege of Aleppo (1260) 1260
- Siege of Mosul (1261) 1261
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- Second Battle of Homs 1281
- Battle of Wadi al-Khaznadar 1299
- Battle of Marj al-Saffar (1303) 1303
All 7 battles of the Mongol invasions of the Levant →
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