Ain Jalut A TURNING POINT IN WORLD HISTORY ¨ ¨ IERCE mounted warriors swept out of Hulegu, the Mongol general, demanded F Mongolia, laying waste every city that re- that Sultan al-Muzaffar Sayf al-Din Qutuz, fused to surrender. In February 1258, they the¨ Muslim¨ ruler of Egypt, also yield to them. unleashed their fury against Baghdad and Hulegu threatened that if he did not,¨ Egypt¨ breached its walls. They murdered and pil- would suffer dire consequences. Hulegu’s laged for a week. The whole Islamic world forces outnumbered the Egyptian army of trembled in fear of the Mongols. 20,000 by some 15 to 1. “The Muslim world In January 1260, as the Mongols moved stood face to face with extinction,” says Pro- westward, Aleppo, Syria, met the same fate fessor Nazeer Ahmed, a historian of Islam. as Baghdad. In March, Damascus opened its What was Sultan Qutuz to do? gates to the Mongols and surrendered. Short- Qutuz and the Mamluks ly afterward, the Mongols took the Palestin- Qutuz was a Mamluk, a slave of Turkish ian cities of Nablus (near the site of ancient origin. The Mamluks had served as soldier- Shechem) and Gaza. slaves for the Ayyubid sultans of Cairo, Egypt. In 1250, however, those slaves over- For more information on the Mongols and their con- quests, see the May 2008 issue of Awake! threw their masters and became the rulers of Damascus Site of the ancient city of Megiddo SYRIA Mt. Tabor Ain Jalut Plain of Esdraelon (near Megiddo) Nablus (Shechem) Jerusalem Gaza EGYPT Egypt. Qutuz, himself a former soldier-slave, tendom. From them, Qutuz sought safe pas- subsequently seized power and became sul- sage and the right to buy supplies in order to tanin1259.Hewasaskilledwarriorwho engage the Mongols in war in Palestine. The was not about to give up without a fight. His crusaders consented. Qutuz, after all, was the prospects for defeating the Mongols, how- only hope the crusaders had of ridding the ever, seemed bleak. But then began a series of area of the Mongols, who were as much of a events that would shape history. worry to them as they were to the Muslims. ¨ ¨ ¨ Word reached HuleguthatMongke, the As a result, the stage was set for a decisive Mongol great khan, had died in distant Mon- clash between the Mamluks and the Mongols. golia. Foreseeing a power struggle back ¨ ¨ home, Hulegu withdrew with most of his Ain Jalut in Palestine army. He left behind between 10,000 and 20,- ThearmiesoftheMamluksandtheMon- 000 troops—sufficient, he thought, to com- gols met in September 1260 at Ain Jalut on plete the conquest of Egypt. Qutuz now per- the Plain of Esdraelon. It is believed that Ain ceived that the tide had turned in his favor. He Jalut lay near the ancient city of Megiddo. determined that if he was to defeat the invad- Historian Rashid al-Din says that the ers, this was his opportunity to do so. MamluksdrewtheMongolsintoanambush Lying between Egypt and the Mongols, Because many decisive battles were fought in this area, the however, was another enemy of the Muslims word “Megiddo” became identified with the well-known bat- —the crusader forces that had come to Pal- tle called Armageddon—Hebrew Har–Magedon. The Bible asso- ciates Armageddon with “the battle of that great day of God estine to claim the “Holy Land” for Chris- Almighty.”—Revelation 16:14, 16, Authorized Version. ThearmiesoftheMamluksandtheMongolsmetin September 1260 at Ain Jalut, on the Plain of Esdraelon 13 ¨ ¨ at Megiddo. Qutuz hid most of his cavalry in again could they threaten Egypt. Hulegu’s de- the hills around the plain and ordered a small scendants settled in Persia, converted to Is- force forward in order to provoke a Mongol lam, and in time became patrons of Islamic attack. The Mongols believed that they had culture. Their territories came to be known the whole Mamluk army before them, so they as the Persian ilkhanate, that is, “subordinate charged. Qutuz then sprang his trap. He or- khanate.” dered reserve units to gallop out of their hid- Qutuz did not enjoy his victory for long. ing places and attack the Mongol flanks. The He was killed by his rivals shortly afterward. invaders were defeated. Among such rivals was Baybars I, the first This was the first Mongol defeat since they sultan of a reunited kingdom of Egypt and had launched their westward thrust out of Syria. Many considered him the ruler who Mongolia 43 years earlier. Though the num- was the real founder of the Mamluk regime. ber of troops involved was relatively small, His new state—well-run and wealthy—lasted Ain Jalut is considered to be one of history’s two and a half centuries, until 1517. most significant battles. It spared Muslims During that period of approximately 250 from annihilation, broke the perception of years, the Mamluks ousted the crusaders Mongol invincibility, and allowed the Mam- luk army to retake lost territories. from the Holy Land, encouraged trade and industry, patronized the arts, and built hospi- Ain Jalut’s Aftermath tals, mosques, and schools. Under their rule, The Mongols returned to the area of Syria Egypt became the unrivaled center of the and Palestine a number of times, but never Muslim world. The battle of Ain Jalut affect- ed more than the Middle East. The ruins of the ancient city of Shechem, It also set the course of Western with a portion of the modern city of Nablus in the background civilization. “Had the Mongols succeeded in conquering Egypt, they might have been able, fol- ¨ ¨ lowing the return of Hulegu, to carry on across North Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar,” says the magazine Saudi Aramco World. Since, in the meantime, the Mon- gols had also reached Poland, they would have held Europe in a giant pincer. “Under such circumstances, would the European Renaissance have occurred?” asks the same magazine. “The world today might have been a considerably different place.”.