ABSTRACT
This chapter opens with a Muslim victory, that of the Mamluks over the Mongols at Ayn Jalut in 1260, and closes in 1699, the date of a widely recognized Muslim defeat, when the Ottomans ceded Hungary to Habsburg Austria. The spread of gunpowder and firearms was as momentous a technological change at that time as the proliferation of nuclear weapons has been since 1945. Slavery in early Islam enabled some gifted youths to rise to power through the army or the bureaucracy. The popes of this era sent missions to contact the Mongol empires, open trade with them if possible, convert them. Even before they became Muslims, the Il-Khanids patronized architects, artists, poets, and scholars. In time favoritism replaced advancement by ability, the rigor of the mamluks training declined, and the quality of Mamluk rule deteriorated. A petty prince, Timur Leng, or "Tamerlane," was born in 1336 in Transoxiana, an area often disputed between Turkic and Mongol tribes.
