Hi everyone today we are going to start most asked series named Sultan Ruknuddin Baybars a name of fear for mongols & Hulagu Khan.

Baybars I, in full al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Rukn al-Dīn Baybars al-Bunduqdārī, or Al-Ṣāliḥī, Baybars also spelled Baibars, (born 1223, north of the Black Sea—died July 1, 1277, Damascus, Syria), most eminent of the Mamlūk sultans of Egypt and Syria, which he ruled from 1260 to 1277. He is noted both for his military campaigns against Mongols and crusaders and for his internal administrative reforms. The Sirat Baybars, a folk account purporting to be his life story, is still popular in the Arabic-speaking world.

Baybars was born in the country of the Kipchak Turks on the northern shores of the Black Sea. After the Mongol invasion of their country in about 1242, Baybars was one of a number of Kipchak Turks sold as slaves. Turkish-speaking slaves, who had become the military backbone of most Islamic states, were highly prized, and eventually Baybars came into the possession of Sultan al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb of the Ayyūbid dynasty of Egypt. Sent, like all the sultan’s newly acquired slaves, for military training to an island in the Nile, Baybars demonstrated outstanding military abilities. Upon his graduation and emancipation, he was appointed commander of a group of the sultan’s bodyguard.
Baybars gained his first major military victory as commander of the Ayyūbid army at the city of Al-Manṣūrah in February 1250 against the crusaders’ army led by Louis IX of France, who was captured and later released for a large ransom. Filled with a sense of their military strength and growing importance in Egypt, a group of Mamlūk officers, led by Baybars, in the same year murdered the new sultan, Tūrān Shāh. The death of the last Ayyūbid sultan was followed by a period of confusion that continued throughout the first years of the Mamlūk sultanate.Having angered the first Mamlūk sultan, Aybak, Baybars fled with other Mamlūk leaders to Syria and stayed there until 1260, when they were welcomed back to Egypt by the third sultan, al-Muẓaffar Sayf al-Dīn Quṭuz. He restored them to their place in the army and conferred a village upon Baybars.

Within a few months of Baybars’s arrival, in September 1260, the Mamlūk troops defeated a Mongol army near Nāblus in Palestine. Baybars distinguished himself as the leader of the vanguard, and many Mongol leaders were slain on the field.

For his military achievement, Baybars expected to be rewarded with the town of Aleppo; but Sultan Quṭuz disappointed him. On the way home through Syria, Baybars approached Quṭuz and asked him for the gift of a captive Mongol girl. The sultan agreed, and Baybars kissed his hand. On this prearranged signal the Mamlūks fell upon Quṭuz, while Baybars stabbed him in the neck with a sword. Baybars seized the throne to become the fourth Mamlūk sultan.

Baybars’s ambition was to emulate Saladin, the founder of the Ayyūbid dynasty, in the holy war against the crusaders in Syria. As soon as he was acknowledged as sultan, Baybars set about consolidating and strengthening his military position. He rebuilt all the Syrian citadels and fortresses that had been destroyed by the Mongols and built new arsenals, warships, and cargo vessels. To achieve unity of command against the crusaders, Baybars united Muslim Syria and Egypt into a single state. He seized three important towns from the Ayyūbid princes, thus ending their rule in Syria. From 1265 to 1271, Baybars conducted almost annual raids against the crusaders. In 1265 he received the surrender of Arsūf from the Knights Hospitalers. He occupied ʿAtlit and Haifa, and in July 1266 he received the town of Safed from the Knights Templar garrison after a heavy siege. Two years later, Baybars turned toward Jaffa, which he captured without resistance. The most important town taken by Baybars was Antioch (May 1268). His seizure of additional strongholds in 1271 sealed the crusaders’ fate; they were never able to recover from their territorial losses. Baybars’s campaigns made possible the final victories won by his successors.

Baybars’s permanent goal was to contain the continued Mongol attacks on Syria from both north and east that threatened the very heart of the Islamic East. During the 17 years of his reign, he engaged the Mongols of Persia in nine battles. Within Syria, Baybars dealt with the Assassins, a fanatical Islamic sect. After seizing their major strongholds between 1271 and 1273, he wiped out the Syrian members of the group.


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