Pada pertengahan abad ke-13, Tentara Salib menjadi yakin bahwa Mesir, jantung pasukan dan gudang senjata Islam,[5] merupakan hambatan bagi ambisi mereka untuk merebut Yerusalem, yang telah lepas dari genggaman mereka untuk kedua kalinya pada tahun 1244. Pada tahun 1245, selama Konsili Lyon Pertama, Paus Innosensius IV memberikan dukungan penuhnya bagi Perang Salib Ketujuh yang sedang dipersiapkan oleh Louis IX, Raja Prancis.
Tujuan Perang Salib Ketujuh adalah untuk menghancurkan Dinasti Ayyubiyah di Mesir dan Suriah, dan merebut kembali Yerusalem. Tentara Salib meminta Mongol untuk menjadi sekutu mereka melawan kaum Muslim,[6] Tentara Salib menyerang dunia Islam dari barat, dan pasukan Mongol menyerang dari timur. Güyük, Khan Agung Mongol, mengatakan kepada utusan Paus bahwa Paus dan raja-raja Eropa harus tunduk kepada Kekaisaran Mongol.[7]
Kapal-kapal Perang Salib Ketujuh, dipimpin oleh saudara-saudara Raja Louis, Charles d'Anjou dan Robert d'Artois, berlayar dari Aigues-Mortes dan Marseille menuju Siprus selama musim gugur 1248, dan kemudian ke Mesir. Kapal-kapal memasuki perairan Mesir dan pasukan Perang Salib Ketujuh mendarat di Damietta pada Juni 1249. Louis IX mengirim sepucuk surat kepada as-Salih Ayyub.[8] Emir Fakhr ad-Din Yusuf, komandan garnisun Ayyubiyah di Damietta, mundur ke kamp Sultan di Ashmum-Tanah,[9] menyebabkan kepanikan besar di kalangan penduduk Damietta, yang melarikan diri dari kota, meninggalkan jembatan yang menghubungkan tepi barat Sungai Nil dengan Damietta tetap utuh. Jatuhnya Damietta menyebabkan keadaan darurat umum (disebut al-Nafir al-Am النفير العام) diumumkan, dan penduduk setempat dari Kairo dan dari seluruh Mesir pindah ke zona pertempuran.[10][11] Selama berminggu-minggu, kaum Muslim menggunakan taktik gerilya melawan kamp-kamp Tentara Salib; banyak Tentara Salib ditangkap dan dikirim ke Kairo.[12] Ketika pasukan Tentara Salib diperkuat dengan kedatangan Alphonse de Poitiers, saudara ketiga Raja Louis IX, di Damietta, Tentara Salib disemangati oleh berita kematian Sultan Ayyubiyah, as-Salih Ayyub. Tentara Salib memulai pawai mereka menuju Kairo. Shajar al-Durr, janda sultan, menyembunyikan berita tersebut selama beberapa waktu dan mengirim Faris ad-Din Aktai ke Hasankeyf untuk memerintahkan Turanshah pulang, putra dan pewaris, untuk naik takhta dan memimpin pasukan Mesir.
↑Runciman, pp. 260-263. D. Wilkinson, Paragraph: THE MONGOLS AND THE WEST. Lihat pula Persekutuan Franka-Mongol.
↑The message was handed to the pope's Franciscan emissary Giovanni da Pian del Carpine. The document is preserved in the Vatican secret archive.Diarsipkan 2007-02-02 di Wayback Machine. You must say with a sincere heart: "We will be your subjects; we will give you our strength". You must in person come with your kings, all together, without exception, to render us service and pay us homage. Only then will we acknowledge your submission. And if you do not follow the order of God, and go against our orders, we will know you as our enemy."—Letter from Güyük to Pope Innocent IV, 1246. Lord of Joinville, pp. 249-259.
↑"As you know I am the ruler of the Christian nation I do know you are the ruler of the Muhammadan nation. The people of Andalusia give me money and gifts while we drive them like cattle. We kill their men and we make their women widows. We take the boys and the girls as prisoners and we make houses empty. I have told you enough and I have advised you to the end, so now if you make the strongest oath to me and if you go to christian priests and monks and if you carry kindles before my eyes as a sign of obeying the cross, all these will not persuade me from reaching you and killing you at your dearest spot on earth. If the land will be mine then it is a gift to me. If the land will be yours and you defeat me then you will have the upper hand. I have told you and I have warned you about my soldiers who obey me. They can fill open fields and mountains, their number like pebbles. They will be sent to you with swords of destruction." Letter from Louis IV to as-Salih Ayyub - (Al-Maqrizi, p. 436/vol.1).
↑Ashmum-Tanah, now town of Dakahlia - Al-Maqrizi, note p. 434/vol. 1.
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