An army led by the Mamluk Sultan Nasir-ad-Din Faraj was defeated by Timur outside Damascus leaving the city at the mercy of the Mongol besiegers. With his army defeated, the Mamluk sultan dispatched a deputation from Cairo, including Ibn Khaldun, who negotiated with him, but after their withdrawal he put the city to sack. Timur's soldiers also committed mass rape against the women of Damascus and tortured the people of the city by burning them, using bastinados and crushing them in wine presses. Children died of starvation. Timur carried out these rapes and atrocities in Syria against his own Muslim co-religionists.