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The Battle of La Forbie, known in Arabic as the Battle of Harbiyya, took place in Jumada al-Ula 642 AH (October 1244 CE) near the village of Harbiyya (La Forbie) northeast of Gaza. It stands as one of the most decisive Muslim victories of the Crusader era, shattering the military power of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and ensuring that al-Quds would never again fall under Crusader occupation.
By the mid-seventh century AH, the Ayyubid dynasty founded by Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi had fragmented into competing principalities across Egypt, Syria, and the Jazira. The Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, al-Malik al-Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub, faced opposition from his own kinsmen in Damascus and Kerak, who resisted Egyptian supremacy over the family confederation.
Jerusalem had been returned to the Crusaders in 628 AH (1229 CE) through a controversial treaty between al-Malik al-Kamil and the excommunicated Emperor Frederick II. This diplomatic concession, made without military defeat, caused outrage across the Muslim world. Scholars and preachers condemned the surrender of the third-holiest site in Islam without a fight.
Al-Salih Ayyub, determined to reunify the Ayyubid realm and reclaim Jerusalem, formed an alliance with the Khwarazmian Turks. These were remnants of the once-powerful Khwarazmian Empire, displaced westward by the Mongol invasions that had devastated their homeland. Thousands of these hardened warriors, led by their commander Berke Khan, roamed northern Syria as a formidable mercenary force seeking a patron and a purpose.
In the summer of 642 AH (1244 CE), the Khwarazmians swept south through Syria and descended upon Jerusalem. The city's meagre Crusader garrison could not withstand the assault. On 15 Jumada al-Ula 642 AH (23 August 1244 CE), the Khwarazmians stormed the city, and Jerusalem returned to Muslim hands. The Christian population fled or was killed, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was damaged in the fighting.
This recapture fulfilled what many Muslims had longed for since al-Kamil's treaty. The city that Salah al-Din had liberated at Hattin, only to see it bargained away by his descendants, was now firmly restored to Muslim sovereignty.
The fall of Jerusalem alarmed both the remaining Crusader states and the Syrian Ayyubid princes. An unusual coalition formed: the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Knights Templar, the Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights, and the forces of al-Mansur Ibrahim of Homs and al-Nasir Dawud of Kerak joined together against Egypt. The Syrian Ayyubids preferred Crusader neighbours to Egyptian domination, a calculation that revealed how deeply internal rivalries had fractured Salah al-Din's legacy.
The combined Crusader and Syrian force numbered roughly 11,000 men, including over 1,000 mounted knights. They marched south toward Gaza, confident in their numbers.
Al-Salih Ayyub dispatched his Egyptian army under the command of the mamluk general Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Salihi (not to be confused with the later Sultan Baybars al-Bunduqdari), reinforced by the Khwarazmian cavalry. The two armies met on the plain near Harbiyya on 17 Jumada al-Ula 642 AH (17 October 1244 CE).
The Khwarazmians launched a devastating charge against the Crusader right flank, while the Egyptian regulars engaged the Syrian Ayyubid forces on the left. The battle was fierce but brief in its decisive phase. The Syrian Ayyubid contingent broke first, and their flight exposed the Crusader centre. The Franks fought with determination but were surrounded and methodically destroyed.
The slaughter was immense. Of the Templar knights, only 33 survived. The Hospitallers lost all but 26 of their brothers. The Teutonic Knights were virtually wiped out. Al-Mansur Ibrahim of Homs fled the field, and the entire coalition army ceased to exist as a fighting force.
The Battle of Harbiyya was the most catastrophic Crusader defeat since Hattin in 583 AH (1187 CE). It permanently ended any realistic Crusader hope of recovering Jerusalem. The city would remain under Muslim control continuously until the modern period.
Al-Salih Ayyub consolidated his position as the preeminent Ayyubid ruler, and his investment in mamluk soldiers, the very force that fought at Harbiyya, would soon transform the political landscape of Egypt and Syria entirely. Within a decade, the Mamluk Sultanate would rise from these same ranks.
The defeat prompted King Louis IX of France to launch the Seventh Crusade in 647 AH (1249 CE), which targeted Egypt directly but ended in the king's capture at al-Mansura, another decisive Muslim victory.
From the Islamic historical perspective, the Battle of Harbiyya demonstrated that despite decades of Ayyubid infighting, the Muslim world retained the military capacity to defend its sacred sites. Jerusalem, liberated by Salah al-Din and briefly lost to diplomacy, was restored by force of arms and would not be surrendered again.