![[Mamluk_Sultanate_of_Cairo_1317_AD.jpg]] Between China and Europe, the Mongols and the Black Death rearranged the Islamic world, wiping out old empires and setting the scene for new ones. The Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt, which overthrew the Abuyyid dynasty, defended the region against the Mongols and in 1260 won the first ever victory in which a Mongol army was destroyed. From the 1270s onward, Mamluk Egypt and Syria became the richest and most militarized Sunni state. They defeated the final Crusader State, Acre, in 1291. ![[Asia_in_1335.svg.png]] In Persia and Mesopotamia, the Ilkhanate conquered Baghdad in 1258 and in 1295 Ghazan Khan converted to Islam. West of this empire, beginning in 1324, Osman I began raiding the Byzantine province, Bythynia, on the southern shoreline of the Black Sea. Over the next half-century, the *Osmanli* (Ottoman) principality continued to grow into the power vacuum created by the collapse of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rüm. In the 1330s, the Ottomans captured Nicaea and Nicomedia, and in 1354 they gained their first foothold in Europe when they conquered Galllipoli, taking advantage of an earthquake that damaged the city's walls. During this period, the Ottomans began training Christian boys taken as tribute in the Balkans, to create an elite infantry force known as janissaries. ![[960px-GhazanConversionToIslam.jpg]] *Ghazan's conversion to Islam* ----- Next: [[14.1]] Back: [[13.13 - Hongwu]]