The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land (71 page)

The Mamluks now faced a defining question: whether to confront or placate the Mongols. On this issue, at least, Qutuz and Baybars were in resolute agreement. Early that summer, an embassy from Hülegü arrived in Cairo demanding Mamluk surrender. The envoys were summarily butchered, their bodies cut in half and their heads hung from one of Cairo’s gates. With this extraordinarily defiant statement of intent the Mamluks went to war. Rather than wait in Egypt, in the hope of repelling an invasion on home ground, they chose to confront Kitbuqa head-on, while his army was still in a weakened state. If successful, this bold strategy promised to bring the Mamluks near-total dominion of the Near East. But the risks were colossal, for they involved direct battle with the Mongols–an invincible enemy, before which all other armies had fallen.

In midsummer 1260 the Mamluks marched out of Egypt, rallying some additional Muslim troops who had formerly served the Ayyubids. Baybars was appointed as commander of the Mamluk vanguard and, together with Qutuz, formulated a plan of attack. Some attempt was made to draw the Franks into an active alliance. They refused, holding to their policy of neutrality, but did permit the Muslim host to march north unhindered through Latin territory to Acre. News of this advance brought Kitbuqa, then based in Baalbek (Lebanon), south, with additional troops levied from Georgia, Cilician Armenia and Muslim Homs.

The great battle to decide the Near East’s fate took place at Ayn Jalut, in Galilee–where Saladin had sought to confront the Franks in 1183. Leading the vanguard, Baybars found the Mongol army camped beside this small settlement, at the foot of Mount Gilboa. He and Qutuz then led their Mamluk army south-east down the Jezreel valley and launched their attack on 3 September 1260. The opposing armies appear to have been roughly equal in terms of numbers–with somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 troops in each host–so, by the norms of medieval warfare, both sides were taking a perilous gamble. Qutuz and Baybars demonstrated skill and bravery in command, withstanding two massive charges, and, at a key moment, the Muslims from Homs positioned on the Mongol left wing fled the field. This turned the battle in the Mamluks’ favour, as they managed to surround the Mongols and slay Kitbuqa. In one of the epochal moments of history, the seemingly unstoppable tide of Mongol expansion was halted by the new champions of Islam.

Only one arm of the great Mongol Empire had been defeated, and the spectre of retaliation remained–as yet unable to return to the Near East, an incensed Hülegü responded to news of the setback by executing al-Nasir. But the victory at Ayn Jalut proved critical in sealing the future ascendancy of the Mamluk sultanate. In the immediate wake of the battle, Qutuz assumed control of Damascus and Aleppo, installing two of his allies as governors. Baybars’ ambitions and expectations were slighted by these arrangements, because Qutuz broke a promise to reward him with the rule of Aleppo (perhaps understandably judging that it would be folly to establish a rival in power so far from Egypt). Together, the sultan and his disgruntled general set out on the triumphant return journey to Egypt.
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Around 22 October 1260, Qutuz and his emirs were crossing the Egyptian desert en route to Cairo when the sultan called a pause to the march so that he might engage in one of his favourite pastimes–hare coursing. Baybars and a small group of
mamluks
agreed to accompany him on the hunt, but once away from the main camp, they murdered Qutuz. Numerous and varying accounts of the coup survive, but it appears that Baybars asked the sultan for a favour (probably the gift of a slave girl), and, when Qutuz acceded, reached out to kiss the sultan’s hand. At that moment, Baybars gripped Qutuz’s arms to prevent him from drawing a weapon, and another emir struck him in the neck with his sword. After that first attack, the other conspirators rushed in and the sultan died beneath a cascade of blows.

Baybars seems to have been the plot’s ringleader, but his position was not yet assured. Riding back to the camp, a council of all the leading Mamluk emirs was convened in the royal pavilion. Given their shared tribal Turkish roots, there was a strong sense of equality among these elite
mamluks
and an expectation that any new leader should be chosen from their ranks through election. Not to be denied, Baybars declared that, as Qutuz’s murderer, he had earned the right to power, while sweetening his demand with promises of reward and patronage for supporters. By these means–through blood and persuasion–Baybars emerged as the new Mamluk sultan, the man who would now be responsible for leading the Muslim Near East against the Mongols and the Latins.
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BAYBARS AND THE MAMLUK SULTANATE

In the autumn of 1260, Baybars was patently aware of the fragility of his hold on the sultanate. He moved swiftly to assume authority in Cairo, occupying the great citadel–the seat of power built by Saladin–and rewarding a wide circle of emirs with offices and wealth. In addition, the surviving Bahriyya
mamluks
were established as his personal bodyguards. Their old regimental barracks on the Nile were later rebuilt and placed under the command of the sultan’s most trusted emirs, including Qalawun.

Baybars’ most urgent concerns were the legitimisation of his own rule and the wider entrenchment of Mamluk power in Egypt. But the new sultan also possessed the political and strategic vision to recognise, and adapt to, the new Levantine world order. In decades past, Muslim leaders had sought to unite Islam and, in some cases, tried actively to combat the Franks in the Holy Land. Now, the imperative had changed and a different paradigm had been created. After 1260, the critical frontiers lay to the north and east of Syria, whence the primary enemy–the Mongol Empire–might once again seek to destroy Islam. To combat this threat, these borders must be protected and the Near East transformed into a united and impervious fortress state.

The Latin Christians were a secondary danger. Geographically their remaining settlements lay within the Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian territory that Baybars now wished to unify and secure against the Mongols. He rightly judged that, in the wake of setbacks like the Battle of La Forbie, the Franks of Outremer were effectively emasculated. On their own, they posed little concern. But as allies to an external force–be it in the form of a Mongol horde or a western crusade–they might open a troublesome and distracting second front within the confines of the Near East. As such, the crusader states were embedded irritants that had to be neutralised.

Aware of these challenges, Baybars dedicated much of the early 1260s to radically reshaping the Muslim Near East, founding a potent, authoritarian regime. At the same time, he set out to ready the Mamluk state for the onset of war–be it against Mongol or Christian enemies. By these means, the new sultan spent his first years in power assiduously preparing for what he hoped would be ultimate victory in the struggle for control of the Holy Land.

The protector of Islam

At first, Baybars’ hold on power was relatively precarious: he inherited a Mamluk state that was only partially formed; and he had been involved in the assassination of two former sultans, Turanshah and Qutuz. Against this somewhat tainted background, civil insurrection or counter-coup threatened, and the loyalty of his fellow
mamluk
emirs was by no means assured. But in late 1260, the new sultan also stood to benefit from some significant advantages. In the aftermath of the Mongol invasion and the Battle of Ayn Jalut, the remaining vestiges of Ayyubid power in Syria and Palestine were all but shattered, and the Holy Land was ripe for Mamluk domination. Thus, in contrast to the likes of Nur al-Din and Saladin, who laboured for decades to unite the Near East, Baybars was able to assert control of Damascus and Aleppo within the first years of his reign, installing regional governors who answered to Cairo.

In addition, Baybars was able to draw upon the triumph achieved at Ayn Jalut to legitimate his claim to power. Presenting himself as the saviour of Islam, he had a monument erected on the battlefield, and demolished Qutuz’s grave to downplay any suggestion that the late sultan also might have played a ‘heroic’ role in the confrontation. In later years, Baybars’ chancellor and official biographer, Abd al-Zahir, reconfigured the history of the battle in his account of the sultan’s life, presenting it as a victory won almost single-handedly by Baybars. The sultan also sought to promote his own cult of personality, embodied in his lion emblem (depicting a lion walking to the left, with a raised forepaw). This distinctive heraldic device was placed on Baybars’ coinage and used to mark public buildings and bridges constructed in his name. And while it is true that the Mamluk state was threatened by potent enemy forces in the 1260s, these evident dangers enabled Baybars to enact an unprecedented programme of militarisation and to enjoy unparalleled autocratic authority.
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Baybars took a number of masterful steps to consolidate his hold on the sultanate. To ground the new Mamluk regime within the framework of Islam’s traditional legal and spiritual hierarchy, he reestablished the Sunni Abbasid caliphate. In June 1261, Baybars claimed to have found one of the few surviving members of the Abbasid dynasty. The man’s pedigree was carefully assessed by a hand-picked committee of Cairene jurists, theologians and emirs and then confirmed as the new Caliph al-Mustansir. Baybars then made a ritual oath of allegiance to the caliph, swearing to uphold and defend the faith; to rule justly, according to the law; to serve as a protector of Sunni orthodoxy; and to wage
jihad
against the enemies of Islam. In return, al-Mustansir invested Baybars as the sole, all-powerful sultan of the entire Muslim world, an act that not only confirmed his rights to Egypt, Palestine and Syria, but also provided tacit authorisation for a massive campaign of expansion. In a final public affirmation of his regime’s legitimacy, Baybars was invested with sultanly apparel: a black rounded turban of the sort customarily worn by the Abbasids; a violet robe; shoes adorned with golden buckles; and a ceremonial sword. Dressed in this finery, he and the caliph rode, in state procession, through the heart of Cairo. From this point onwards, Baybars took great care to endorse caliphal authority, so long as it did not impinge upon his own power. Both the caliph and sultan were named in the Friday prayer; likewise, Mamluk coinage bore both their names.

To reinforce the aura of tradition and continuity developing around the sultanate, Baybars consciously sought to connect himself with two Muslim rulers. The first, al-Salih Ayyub (Baybars’ own former master), was now presented as the last legitimate Ayyubid sultan, with Baybars as his direct and rightful heir–an agile manipulation of the past that conveniently ignored the bloody turmoil of the 1250s. The sultan also modelled himself upon Saladin, the conqueror of the Franks and idealised
mujahid
. Imitating his famed generosity as a patron of the faith, Baybars set about restoring Cairo’s now dilapidated al-Azhar mosque. In addition, he established a new mosque in Cairo and a
madrasa
beside al-Salih’s tomb. The sultan also visited Jerusalem and there restored the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa mosque–both of which had become somewhat run down under later Ayyubid rule.

Similar echoes were present in a number of civil measures adopted in these early years. Styling himself as the archetypal ‘just ruler’, Baybars abolished the war taxes imposed by Qutuz, established palaces of justice in Cairo and Damascus and also ordered fair prices to be paid to merchants for goods sequestered by the state. By these diverse means, the sultan engendered widespread popular support among his subjects in the Near East and this helped to insulate his position against other
mamluk
challengers.
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Centralised power in the Mamluk state

While working to legitimise the Mamluk sultanate and his own claim to power, Baybars also took bold steps towards governmental and administrative centralisation. Mamluk Cairo was turned into the unquestioned capital of the Muslim Near East, and the office of sultan was imbued with a degree of despotic authority never before witnessed in the medieval era. In stark contrast to many of his predecessors, Baybars carefully monitored state finances and controlled the Mamluk treasury–measures that gave him the wealth to pay for critical reforms.

As sultan, Baybars expected his will to be obeyed without hesitation across the Mamluk world, and he made ready use of both direct force and propaganda to ensure submission and compliance on the part of regional governors. Emirs who failed to levy troops for war in short order, for example, were hung by their hands for three days. Anyone foolish enough to attempt insurrection could expect summary punishment, with torments ranging from blinding or dismemberment to crucifixion. Like other rulers before him–including Nur al-Din and Saladin–Baybars drew upon the fear of external threats to justify his autocratic behaviour, but new emphasis was placed upon the Mongols as the prime enemy of the state. Thus, when the sultan wished to remove the petty Ayyubid princeling al-Mughith from power in Transjordan in 1263, accusations of consorting with the Ilkhanate of Persia were levelled, and letters supposedly from Hülegü to al-Mughith were produced as evidence.

But even beyond guile and brutality, the true cornerstone of Baybars’ authority in the Near East was communication. He was the first Muslim in the Middle Ages to master the business of ruling a pan-Levantine empire from Egypt because he made huge investments in message-carrying networks. Many centuries earlier, the Byzantines and early Abbasids had made use of a courier-based postal structure, but this had long since fallen out of use. Baybars created his own
barid
, or postal system, using relays of horse-borne messengers, hand-picked and well rewarded for their reliability. Changing mounts at carefully maintained post stations positioned along key routes through the Mamluk realm, these men could routinely bring a message from Damascus to Cairo in four days, or three in an emergency. Use of the
barid
was strictly limited to the sultan, and letters were always brought directly to Baybars, no matter what he was doing–on one occasion he even had a messenger report to him in the bath. To ensure the smooth and swift transfer of information, major roads and bridges were carefully repaired, and the
barid
was also supplemented by pigeon post and a system of signal fires. This remarkable (and admittedly costly) feat of organisation allowed Baybars to maintain contact with the far reaches of the Mamluk state–in particular the northern and eastern borders with the Mongols–and meant that he could react to both military threats and civil disorder with unprecedented speed.
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