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8 - Baybars's posthumous victory: the second battle of Homs (680/1281)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2009

Reuven Amitai-Preiss
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Summary

Mengü Temür [brother of Abagha] was wounded at the battle [of Homs in AH 680], and he was greatly saddened for what had happened to him and his army, when he had been so close to victory.

Ibn al-Furāt

Baybars did not live to see the long-expected Mongol invasion of Syria, which led to the confrontation north of Homs in Rajab 680/October 1281. Professor Ayalon has written: “Though this battle was won by Ḳalāwūn, the real architect of the victory was undoubtedly Sultan Baybars, who, in the seventeen years of his rule … built a war-machine which, in spite of the decline it underwent during the four years following his death, proved to be strong enough to beat one of the mightiest armies which the Mongol Īlkhāns ever put into the field.”

The Mamluks after Baybars's death

The Mamluk-Īlkhānid front was relatively quiet in the first years after Baybars's death. The lack of an external danger meant that the Mamluk elite could indulge in factional squabbling and jockeying for power with relative impunity. When the Mongol threat again became a reality in 679/1280, the Mamluk factions were able, if not to reconcile their differences, at least to find a modus vivendi. Those members of the military society who persisted in plotting against Qalawun were eliminated.

Baybars's son al-Malik al-Saʿīd Berke Khan succeeded his father without any problems. Once on the throne, al-Saʿīd set about limiting the power of the Ṣāliḥī amirs, that is, his father's khushdāshiyya, and other senior amirs, including those of the Ẓāhiriyya (the mamluks of Baybars).

Type
Chapter
Information
Mongols and Mamluks
The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260–1281
, pp. 179 - 201
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

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