[6] The name Bahri or Bahriyya means 'of the river', referring to the location of their original barracks on Roda Island in the Nile (Nahr al-Nil) in Cairo,[a] at the citadel of Al-Rodah which was built by the Ayyubid sultan as-Salih Ayyub.

[8][b] The Mamluks formed one of the most powerful and wealthiest empires of the time, lasting from 1250 to 1517 in Egypt, North Africa, and the Levant—Near East.

[citation needed] The Mamluks were powerful cavalry warriors mixing the practices of the Turkic steppe peoples from which they were drawn and the organizational and technological sophistication and horsemanship of the Arabs.

In 1260 the Mamluks defeated a Mongol army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in present-day Israel and eventually forced the invaders to retreat to the area of modern-day Iraq.

[17][e] In 1250 Baibars was one of the Mamluk commanders who defended Mansurah against the Crusade knights of Louis IX of France, who was later definitely defeated, captured in the Battle of Fariskur and ransomed.

In 1261, after he became a Sultan, he established a puppet Abbasid caliphate in Cairo,[f] and the Mamluks fought the remnants of the Crusader states in Palestine until they finally captured Acre in 1291.

[h][21] He defeated the Mongols at the battle of Elbistan[22] and sent the Abbasid Caliph with only 250 men to attempt to retake Baghdad, but was unsuccessful.

[31] The Egyptian Mamluk Sultans entered into relations with the Golden Horde who converted to Islam[l] and established a peace pact with the Mongols[33] in 1322.