Battle of Forbie
1244 battle
The Battle of Forbie, also known as the Battle of La Forbie or the Battle of Hiribya, was fought on October 17–18, 1244 between the allied armies (drawn from the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Crusading orders, the breakaway Ayyubids of Damascus, Homs, and Kerak) and the Egyptian army of the Ayyubid Sultan as-Salih Ayyub, reinforced with Khwarezmian mercenaries. The resulting Ayyubid victory led to the call for the Seventh Crusade and marked the collapse of Christian power in the Holy Land.
Prelude
The capture of Jerusalem by the Khwarezmians in August had caused great alarm among both the Christian and the Muslim states. Al-Mansur, the Emir of Homs and an-Nasir Dawud, ruling Kerak, joined the Templars, the Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights, the Order of Saint Lazarus, and the remaining forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to take the field against the Egyptian Sultanate.
The two armies met near Forbie, a small village northeast of Gaza. On the allied side, Al-Mansur was present in person, commanding about 2,000 cavalry and a detachment of troops from Damascus. The overall Christian command was given to Walter IV of Brienne, Count of Jaffa and Ascalon, although Robert of Nantes, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Philip of Montfort, Constable of Jerusalem, were also present. The Christian army consisted of about 1,000 cavalry and 6,000 foot soldiers. The Transjordanian forces were under the command of Sunqur al-Zahiri and al-Waziri, and consisted of about 2,000 mounted Bedouin. The Egyptian army was commanded by a Mamluk officer named Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Salihi which was slightly inferior in strength to its opponents.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q578201. Authority coordinates are 31.606, 34.546. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1244.
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