64 ISLAM AT WAR
moral obligation to remain as loyal retainers to their patrons, with whom
they had a blood obligation. Upon this bond of honor the Mamluk system
was founded.
This obligation to serve, however, did not necessarily transfer to the
son of the patron. Should the patron die, the Mamluk was free to sell his
services elsewhere. Nor did, once hired, this depth of loyalty transfer to
his new patron.
The numbers of Mamluks in Egypt grew from Saladin’s reign (1169–
1193) through the six successive successors to his Ayoubid Empire. In
1249 the French crusader army under Louis IX landed at Damietta and,
because of its military incompetence, found itself compelled to surrender
to the Mamluk army defending Egypt.
On February 28, 1250, Turan Shah, the last of the Ayoubid, arrived to
succeed his father as sultan of Egypt. His brash behavior and arrogance
soon cost him his life at the hands of enraged Mamluks. Emir Aibek, by
marrying the favorite wife of Al-Salih Ayoub, Turan Shah’s predecessor,
was proclaimed the first Mamluk sultan,establishing the Mamluk rule of
Egypt. In what would become a common process of succession, Emir
Aibek was murdered. He had been a prudent leader, brave in battle, but
addicted to bloodshed. He had assured a smooth transition to Mamluk rule
by maintaining the Ayoubid civil service in the hands of the educated
Egyptians and Syrians who had run the bureaucracies for many years.
This was doubly important, as the Mamluks spoke Turkish and would
otherwise have been unable to communicate with their Arabic-speaking
subjects.
On February 13, 1258, the Mongols capped their invasion of the Middle
East with the capture of Baghdad. The city was utterly destroyed and its
citizenry slaughtered or enslaved. Damascus was next on their list of tar-
gets and, knowing this, the city rulers called on the Mamluks of Egypt
for help. The Mongols besieged and broke into the city on March 1, 1260,
treating it in the same manner as they had Baghdad.
While Damascus was under siege, the Mamluks, under the Sultan Qu-
tuz, mobilized their army and advanced into Syria. They met the enemy
force on the morning of September 3, 1260, near Ain Jaloot (the Spring
of Goliath). The battlefield topography was such that the Mamluks would
ride downhill and the Mongols uphill.
The initial Mongol charge was so furious that the Mamluk advance
guard was swept aside and their left flank overrun. However, the well-
trained and disciplined Mamluks did not panic, so their center and right
flank stood firm. The Mamluks worked around the Mongols’ flanks, press-
ing the nomadic horsemen. At the decisive moment, the Sultan Qutuz