The killing of Sultan Qutuz

Sultan al-Muzaffar Sayf al-Din Qutuz, hero of ʿAyn Jalut, was treacherously killed as he returned victorious to Cairo, less than two months after his immortal triumph, and Baybars assumed the sultanate after him.

After ʿAyn Jalut and the cleansing of Syria of the Mongols, Qutuz set out returning to Egypt to enter it as a conqueror. On the way, near al-Salihiyya in the eastern Delta, he went out to hunt with a party of the emirs.

Between him and Baybars and a group of emirs was a grievance over promises and fiefs — some say old feuds going back to the killing of Faris al-Din Aqtay — so they assassinated him on 16 Dhu'l-Qaʿda 658 AH, only about fifty days separating his death from his great victory.

The emirs pledged the sultanate to Baybars, who — despite the tragedy in his accession — became one of the greatest sultans of Islam in jihad and building. Qutuz remained in the Ummah's memory a hero who rescued it in its darkest hour and whose life was taken at the peak of his glory.