• The invasion of the Mongols
• The Mamluks
• The end of the Crusader states
• The fall of Acre
• Baybars's Note to Bohemond
• For More Information

By the middle of the thirteenth century the situation in the Middle East had grown completely chaotic. The Seljuk Empire, which ruled over western Asia, was beginning to fall apart, and in 1244 a new clan of Muslim Turks, the Khwarismians, sacked Jerusalem, leaving few Christian survivors. The remaining Franks (as Crusaders in the Middle East were called) tried to form an alliance with the Syrian Muslims to drive the Turks out, but the Turks decisively defeated a combined Crusader-Syrian army in the Battle of Harbiyah in October 1244. These events triggered the...