[1] In the autumn 1244, Yisaur concentrated the Mongol forces in the upper Tigris valley where they subjugated the Kurdish province of Akhlat.

In Egypt, Sultan as-Salih Ayyub decided to acquiesce to the results and made no attempt to raise an army to encounter the Mongols who had invaded his dominions in Syria.

In 1251, as an expediency to buy peace, Sultan an-Nasir Yusuf sent his representatives to Mongolia for the election of Möngke and agreed to make Syria a vassal state of the Mongol Empire.

In 1255, Hulagu sought to further expand the Empire into the Middle East under orders from his older brother, the Great Khan Möngke.

Hulagu's forces subjugated multiple peoples along the way, most notably the center of the Islamic Empire, Baghdad, which was completely sacked in 1258, destroying the Abbasid Caliphate.

In what is described by the 20th-century historians René Grousset and Lev Gumilev as the "yellow crusade" (Croisade Jaune),[3][4] the combined forces captured the city of Aleppo in January, and then on March 1, 1260, under the Mongol Christian general Kitbuqa, took Damascus.

Some of Kitbuqa's forces engaged in raids southwards towards Egypt, reaching as far as Gaza, where a Mongol garrison was established with 1,000 troops.

The Mamluks achieved a decisive victory, Kitbuqa was executed, and the battle established a high-water mark for the Mongol conquests.

The Mongol protectorate and ruler of Mosul, Badr al-Din's sons sided with the Mamluks and rebelled against the rule of Hulagu.

Both the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate sought to strengthen their position via trade agreements or other types of alliances with other powers in the area.

Berke, the leader of the Golden Horde, could not tolerate this infringement of his inheritance,[14] and a drawn-out conflict between the two Mongol realms continued well into the 14th century.

The Mamluks' Empire had been founded by former slaves bought from the Kipchak territory of southern Russia, which was now an important segment of the Mongol Golden Horde.

[18] On the other hand, the Il-Khan rulers were highly favourable to Christianity, and did not commit to Islam until 1295, when the Ilkhan Ghazan, a descendant of Tolui, formerly converted when he took the throne.

[19] Even after his conversion though, he continued to battle the Mamluks for control of Syria, while simultaneously seeking an alliance with Christian Europe.

The Golden Horde entered into a defensive alliance with the Mamluks in Egypt, with the agreement being that each realm would intervene if the other was attacked by the Ilkhanate.

Arghun (r. 1284–1291) took power, and as directed by the Great Khan Kublai (r. 1260–1294) continued Mongol attempts to conquer Syria.

In late 1299, the Mongol Ilkhan Mahmud Ghazan, son of Arghun, took his army and crossed the Euphrates river to again invade Syria.

One group of Mongols also split off from Ghazan's army, and pursued the retreating Mamluk troops as far as Gaza,[26] pushing them back to Egypt.

[29] The reason for the withdrawal is believed to be either the Chagatai Mongols invading their eastern borders, or the need to retreat to areas where there was better grazing room for the horses.

Also in early 1300, two Frankish rulers, Guy d'Ibelin and Jean II de Giblet, had moved in with their troops from Cyprus in response to Ghazan's earlier call.

They had established a base in the castle of Nephin in the lordship of Gibelet (Byblos) on the Syrian coast with the intention of joining him, but Ghazan was already gone.

In late 1300, Ghazan's forces had dealt with the distraction of the Chagatai invasion on their northern border, and once again turned their attention to Syria.

Again, the Mamluk army in Syria withdrew without engaging in combat, which resulted in a panic in Damascus when they heard of the new threat from the Mongols.

In 1312, the new khan of the Ilkhanate, Öljaitü, pursued an aggressive policy to consolidate his rule, subduing the Caspian Province of Gilan and destroying the autonomous principality of Herat.

Aleppine historian Ibn Shaddad confirms this, providing additional details for the aftermath of the battle of Ain Jalut.