The Mamluks and Ain Jalut

The Mamluks — soldiers bought as boys, converted to Islam and raised for the army — overthrew their masters and took power in Egypt themselves. In 1260, at the spring of Ain Jalut in the Jezreel valley, their army deals the Mongols their first serious defeat and halts their advance westward. The Mamluks then finish off the crusader states: in 1291 Acre falls, and the Latin presence in the Levant is over. Their realm rules Egypt, Syria and Jerusalem for two and a half centuries, adorning its cities with mosques and schools, until in 1517 the Ottomans take its place.