(born &circa; 1223, north of the Black Sea—died July 1, 1277, Damascus, Syria) Most eminent sultan of the Mamlūk dynasty. A Kipchak Turk, he was sold as a slave (mamlūk) after a Mongol invasion in the 1240s. He ended up in the service of the sultan of Egypt's Ayyūbid dynasty, who gave him military training. In 1250 his army captured the Crusader king Louis IX, and he and other mamlūk officers murdered the last Ayyūbid sultan, establishing the Mamlūk dynasty. He distinguished himself against an invading Mongol force at the Battle of &ayn;Ayn Jālūt (1260) and soon thereafter took the throne, when he murdered the third Mamlūk sultan.
As sultan, he rebuilt the Syrian fortresses that had been destroyed by the Mongols and built up the sultanate's armaments. He seized territory from the Crusaders that they were never to recover. He harried the Mongols in Persia, attacking their allies (the Christian Armenians) and forging an alliance with the Mongols of the Golden Horde against them. He sent military expeditions into Nubia and Libya. He had diplomatic relations with James I of Aragon, Alfonso X of León and Castile, and Charles of Anjou, as well as with the Byzantine emperor. At home he built canals and the great mosque in Cairo that bears his name and established efficient postal service between Cairo and Damascus. The Sīrat Baybars, a folk account purporting to be his life story, is still popular in the Arabic-speaking world.
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