ABSTRACT
The fate of the realm of the Ilkhans was decided by its enemy, Islam. As soon as Bibars the Mameluke Sultan and Bereke the Khan of the Golden Horde had come to an understanding, Hulagu and his successors were faced by Mohammedans on all their frontiers, on the Euphrates, in the Caucasus, and on the Oxus. Any success on one border was more than undone by increased pressure on the others, and superadded was the stubborn resistance of the Moslem subjects of the Ilkhans—which from time to time passed from the passive form to the active form of revolt. The empire of the Ilkhans was confined within fixed frontiers. An end had come to the expansile tendency of all previous Mongolian realms— the tendency which had continually reanimated their energies. Egypt country was to be attacked from two sides, by the Mongols and the Crusaders, and could then be annihilated.
