The Seventh Crusade of European Christian force

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On February 8, 1250 AD, the Seventh Crusade of a strong European Christian force led by Louis IX, King of France, after invading Egypt in June 1249 and occupying the port city of Damietta, clashed at a place called al-Mansurah with the Ayyubid forces led by Amir Fakhr od-Din Yusuf, and the Turkic Mamluk (slave) general Farres od-Din Aktai and Baibars al-Bunduqdari, resulting in a resounding victory three days later for the Muslim defenders.
The goals of the Crusaders were to destroy the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt and Syria and capture Bayt al-Moqaddas. To achieve their goals, the Christian invaders tried to convince the Buddhist Mongols to be their allies against the Muslims so that they would be able to encircle and attack the Islamic world from west and east at the same time. Encouraged by the news of the death of the Ayyubid Sultan as-Salih Ayyub the Crusaders began their march towards Cairo. Shajar ad-Durr, the Turkic widow of the dead Kurdish Sultan of Egypt concealed the news for a while until Turanshah, the son and heir of the dead sultan, would come and lead the army. The rest is history.
The invaders suffered a resounding defeat as some thirty thousand French and other European soldiers fell on the battlefield while thousands of others were taken prisoners, along with King Louis IX who was captured in the nearby village of Moniat Abdullah (now Meniat an-Nasr), while trying to escape. He was chained and confined in the house of Ibrahim Ibn Loqman, while the king's brothers, Charles d'Anjou and Alphonse de Poitiers, were made prisoners at the same time, and carried to the same house with other French nobles. A camp was set up outside the town to shelter the rest of the prisoners. Louis IX was ransomed for 400,000 dinars. After pledging not to return to Egypt, the French king surrendered Damietta and left with his brothers and 12,000 war prisoners whom the Egyptian Muslims agreed to release. The Battle of Mansurah became a source of inspiration for Muslim writers and poets. One poem ended with the following verses: "If they (the Franks) decide to return to take revenge or to commit a wicked deed, tell them: The house of Ibn Loqman is intact, the chains still there as well as the eunuch Sobih".