Sultan al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari was the fourth sultan of the Bahri line of the Mamluk sultanate, in the count of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. A Kipchak Turkish slave soldier who rose through the ranks of the last Ayyubid rulers, he took the throne in 658 AH, answered the Mongol threat, brought most of the Frankish coast of Syria under Mamluk control, and gave the Cairo sultanate a caliph. The same article calls him a legend in his own lifetime. 1 2
Sultan al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari, lord of Egypt and Syria, was born around 620 AH 3. The amir Ala al-Din al-Bunduqdari bought him, then he became one of al-Malik al-Salih's mamluks, witnessed the battle of al-Mansura and became a leading man of the Bahriyya 3. He led the vanguard of the army of al-Muzaffar Qutuz at Ayn Jalut, and pursued the Tatars to Aleppo 4. Ibn al-Imad and al-Suyuti say that Qutuz promised him Aleppo and then went back on his promise, and estrangement began between them 4 5. Al-Suyuti says he agreed with a group of amirs to kill Qutuz and they killed him on the road in 658 AH, and he took the sultanate and was titled al-Malik al-Zahir 6. He set up the caliphate in Egypt in Rajab 659 AH, when al-Mustansir received the pledge, and in 674 AH sent an army to Nubia, whose king was captured, and the jizya was imposed on the people of Dongola 7 8 9.
In Ibn al-Imad he took the sultanate on 17 Dhu al-Qa'da 658 AH, took forty fortresses from the Franks, and died in Damascus on 28 Muharram 676 AH 3. Ibn al-Imad quotes from al-'Ibar that but for his injustice and tyranny at times he would have been counted among the just kings 3. Yeomans counts him, after Salah al-Din, the strongest leader to emerge from Egypt, and in many respects the founder of the Bahri Mamluk dynasty 10. His buildings in Cairo include his mosque (1266-1269) and his madrasa (1262) 10 11.
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