page_title: Battle of Fariskur
section_title: Historical consequence
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Fariskur / Historical consequence
caption_attribution_description: Ascelin of Lombardy receiving a letter from Innocent IV, and remitting it to the Mongol general Baiju.
context_page_description: The Battle of Fariskur was the last major battle of the Seventh Crusade. The battle was fought on April 6, 1250, between the Crusaders led by King Louis IX of France and Egyptian forces led by Turanshah of the Ayyubid dynasty. Following an earlier Crusader defeat at the Battle of Al Mansurah, Fariskur resulted in the complete defeat of the crusader army and the capture of Louis IX.
context_section_description: The Seventh Crusade met its end at Fariskur in 1250, marking a historical turning point for all the regional parties existing at that time. Egypt defeated Louis's crusade and proved to be Islam's citadel and arsenal. The Seventh Crusade was the last major offensive undertaken by the crusaders against Egypt. The crusaders never could recover Jerusalem and the kings of Europe, except Louis IX, began to lose their interest in launching new crusades. But shortly after the battle of Fariskur, the Ayyubid Sultan Turanshah was assassinated at Fariskur itself and the Mamluks, the same victorious champions of Al Mansurah, became the new rulers of Egypt. The power map of the southern and eastern Mediterranean basin became divided among four main dominions: Mamluk Egypt, Ayyubid Syria, the Franks of Acre and Syrian Christian beach-heads and the Levantine Christian state of Cilician Armenia. While the Mamluks of Egypt and the Ayyubids of Syria turned into conflicting rivals, the Franks and the Cilician Armenians in addition to the Principality of Antioch were allied. The Mongols, who suddenly erupted out of the Eurasian Steppe, had their armies by 1241 riding westwards as far as the river Oder and the northeastern shore of the Adriatic and during the Battle of Fariskur they were penetrating deep into all adjoining regions.
   The Western Christians and the Cilician Armenians always hoped to have a grand alliance with the Mongols against the Islamic World. The Cilician Armenians submitted themselves to Mongol suzerainty in 1247, and in 1254 their King Hetoum visited the Mongols' capital. In 1246, Pope Innocent IV, who fully supported the Seventh Crusade against Egypt, sent his Franciscan emissary Giovanni da Pian del Carpine to the Great Khan of the Mongols in Qaraqorum to seek an alliance against the Muslims. However, he received a disappointing answer from Güyük Khan who told him that he and the kings of Europe should submit to the Mongols. In 1253, after his defeat in Egypt, King Louis IX sent from Acre another emissary, the Franciscan friar William of Rubruck who accompanied him earlier in his Egyptian expedition, but the outcome of this trip was also not followed by effective action.
  
  In 1258 the Mongol army led by Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad and liquidated the Abbasid Caliphate, then advanced to Syria and captured Damascus. The path to Egypt was then open. The Mongols sent a threatening message to Egypt asking it to submit to the Mongols. In 1260 an Egyptian army led by the Mamluks Sultan Qutuz and commander Baibars al-Bunduqdari – the same champions of Al Mansurah – annihilated a Mongol army at Ain Jalut. The commander of the Mongol army who was killed at the battle was Kitbuqa, a Nestorian Christian who was accompanied by the Christian king of Cilician Armenia and by the Christian prince of Antioch. The Franks of Acre who stood neutral, and who were warned by Qutuz not to commit an act of treachery, gave passage to the Egyptian army. The triumphant army took Damascus and Syria became part of the Mamluks' dominion.
  
   Later, during the era of Sultan al-Zahir Baibars al-Bunduqdari, the Cilician Armanians and the Principality of Antioch had to pay a huge price for their alliance with the Mongols. After the Battle of Ain Jalut the Mamluks repulsed three more invasions of Syria by the Mongols. Islam survived the combined crusaders and Mongol invasions though it had never been in such great jeopardy at any date since its birth. 
  In 1257, the Mongol Empire suffered a serious split when Mongols of the Golden Horde, in the western half of the Eurasian steppe, converted to Islam and allied with the Mamluks (see Berke–Hulagu war), followed, in later years by other Mongols. In 1270 Louis IX made his last attempt and organized a new crusade (the Eighth Crusade) against Tunis, hoping to be able to  attack Egypt again from there, but he died in Tunis. During the reign of Sultan Baibars the number of the Franks dominions on the Syrian coast were reduced drastically. Acre and the last Frankish strongholds were captured by the Mamluk Sultan al-Ash
caption: The pope sent emissaries to the Mongols. Ascelin of Lombardia receiving (left) and remitting (right) a letter to the Mongol general Baiju.
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