great administrator responsible for canals, harbour improve- ments, swift postal service and public works — renovation of mosques including the Dome of the Rock, restoration of citadels such as that of Aleppo and establishment of philan- thropic endowments. His mausoleum at Damascus is now the library of the Arab Academy, which boasts one of the oldest manuscripts on paper (880).
A second Mongol invasion in 1280 was met by another Turkish ex-slave sultan, Qalawun (1279-1290), who seized power after two sons of Baybars had reigned briefly. After defeating at Horns the numerically superior invaders, re- inforced by Armenians, Georgians and Persians, Qalawun proceeded with the reduction of Crusader fortresses — a task completed in 1291, as previously mentioned, by his son al- Ashraf. Another son, al-Nasir, was defeated in 1299 by a third Mongol host, which proceeded to devastate northern Syria. Early in 1300 the invaders occupied Damascus, utterly destroying a large part of the city. By 1303 the Egyptian army was strong enough to defeat the Mongols south of Damascus and to expel them permanently from the stricken land. The Mamluks had beaten the most persistent and dangerous enemy Syria and Egypt had to face since the beginning of Islam. As in the case of the Crusades, the Mongol invasions had disastrous consequences for the minorities. The Druzes of Lebanon, whose 12,000 bowmen harassed the Egyptian army on its retreat before the Mongols in 1300, were brought to a severe reckoning. The Armenians saw their unhappy land vengefully devastated by al-Nasir, who also made his own Christian and Jewish subjects suffer.
Al-Nasir was followed in a period of forty-two years (1340-1382) by twelve descendants, none of whom dis- tinguished himself in any field of endeavour. The last among them was a child whose reign was first interrupted and then terminated by a Circassian, Barquq. Barquq founded the second Mamluk series, called Burji after the towers of the citadel in Cairo, where they were first quartered
