In 1250, he supported the defeat of the Seventh Crusade of Louis IX of France in two major battles. The first was the Battle of Al Mansurah, where he employed an ingenious strategy in ordering the opening of a gate to let the crusader knights enter the town; the crusaders rushed into the town that they thought was deserted to find themselves trapped inside. They were besieged from all directions by the Egyptian forces and the town population, and suffered heavy losses. The second was the Battle of Fariskur which essentially ended the Seventh Crusade and led to the capture of Louis IX.

In 1254, a power shift occurred in Egypt, as Aybak killed Faris ad-Din Aktai, the leader of the Bahri Mamluks. Some of his Mamluks, among them Baybars and Qalawun al-Alfi, fled to an-Nasir Yusuf in Syria, persuading him to break the accord and invade Egypt. Aybak wrote to an-Nassir Yusuf warning him of the danger of these Mamluks who took refuge in Syria, and agreed to grant him their territorial domains on the coast, but an-Nasir Yusuf refused to expel them and instead returned to them the domains which Aybak had granted. In 1255, an-Nasir Yusuf sent new forces to the Egyptian border, this time with many of Aktai's Mamluks, among them Baybars, and Qalawun al-Alfi, but he was defeated again. In 1257, Baybars and other Bahri Mamluks left Damascus to Jerusalem, where they deposed its governor Kütük and plundered its markets, then they did the same in Gaza.
Baybars then sent 'Ala al-Din Taybars al-Waziri to discuss with Qutuz his return to Egypt, which was eagerly accepted.[27] He was still a commander under sultan Qutuz at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, when he decisively defeated the Mongols. After the battle, Sultan Qutuz (aka Koetoez) was assassinated while on a hunting expedition. It was said that Baybars was involved in the assassination because he expected to be rewarded with the governorship of Aleppo for his military success, but Qutuz, fearing his ambition, refused to give him the post. Baybars succeeded Qutuz as Sultan of Egypt.


Soon after Baybars had ascended to the Sultanate, his authority was confirmed without any serious resistance, except from Alam al-Din Sinjar al-Halabi, another Mamluk amir who was popular and powerful enough to claim Damascus. Also, the threat from the Mongols was still serious enough to be considered as a threat to Baybars' authority. However, Baybars first chose to deal with Sinjar, and marched on Damascus. At the same time the princes of Hama and Homs proved able to defeat the Mongols in the First Battle of Homs, which lifted the Mongol threat for a while. On 17 January 1261, Baibars' forces were able to rout the troops of Sinjar outside Damascus, and pursued the attack to the city, where the citizens were loyal to Sinjar and resisted Baibars, although their resistance was soon crushed.

After suppressing the revolt of Sinjar, Baibars then managed to deal with the Ayyubids, while quietly eliminating the prince of Kerak. Ayyubids such as Al-Ashraf Musa, Emir of Homs and the Ayyubid Emir Dynasty of Hama Al-Mansur Muhammad II, who had earlier staved off the Mongol threat, were permitted to continue their rule in exchange for their recognizing Baibars' authority as Sultan.[33]

After the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq was overthrown by the Mongols in 1258 when they conquered and sacked Baghdad, the Muslim world lacked a caliph, a theoretically supreme leader who had sometimes used his office to endow distant Muslim rulers with legitimacy by sending them writs of investiture. Thus, when the Abbasid refugee Abu al-Qasim Ahmad, the uncle of the last Abbasid caliph al-Musta‘sim, arrived in Cairo in 1261, Baibars had him proclaimed caliph as al-Mustansir II and duly received investiture as sultan from him. Unfortunately, al-Mustansir II was killed by the Mongols during an ill-advised expedition to recapture Baghdad from the Mongols later in the same year. In 1262, another Abbasid, allegedly the great-great-great grandson of the Caliph al-Mustarshid, Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad, who had survived from the defeated expedition, was proclaimed caliph as al-Hakim I, inaugurating the line of Abbasid caliphs of Cairo that continued as long as the Mamluk sultanate, until 1517. Like his unfortunate predecessor, al-Hakim I also received the formal oath of allegiance of Baibars and provided him with legitimation. While most of the Muslim world did not take these caliphs seriously, as they were mere instruments of the sultans, they still lent a certain legitimation as well as a decorative element to their rule
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