The battle of Ain Jalut which was fought on 3 September 1260 was one of the most important battles and a turning point in history. In 1250, only ten years before the battle of Ain Jalut, the same Bahariyya Mamluks (Qutuz, Baibars and Qalawun) led Egypt against the Seventh Crusade of King Louis IX of France. The Mongol army at Ain Jalut that was led by Kitbuqa, a Nestorian Christian Naiman Turk, was accompanied by the Christian king of Cilician Armenia and by the Christian prince of Antioch. After the fall of Khawarezm, Baghdad and Syria, Egypt was the last citadel of Islam in the Middle East, and the existence of crusade beach-heads along the coast of the Levant were forming a serious menace to the Islamic World. Therefore, the future of Islam and of the Christian west as well depended on the outcome of that battle which was fought between two of the most powerful fighters of the Middle Ages, the Mamluks and the Mongols accompanied by some Christian crusaders.