Early in the twelfth century two . Kurdish brothers made their way to
Mesopotamia from their hometown near Tiflis, in what is today the Republic of
Georgia. The elder, Ayyub, won favor at the sultan's court in Baghdad and was
placed in charge of Tikrit, a small town midway between Baghdad and Mosul.
At Tikrit, Ayyub helped the ruler of Mosul, Imad al-Din Zangi, in an abortive
coup against the sultan. This cost Ayyub his job, but it proved to be a blessing
in disguise, for it was his alliance with Zangi, and Zangi's son Nur al-Din,
that was to project Ayyub and his family to power and fame. On the eve of his
departure from Tikrit to take up service with Zangi, a son was born to Ayyub. He
was named Yusuf, and given the honorific Salah al-Din, or "Righteousness of
the Faith"—a name that was to be immortalized in the West as
"Saladin."
Saladin was to become one of Islam's greatest heroes, uniter of the divided
lands of western Asia, scourge of the Crusaders and liberator of Jerusalem. In
the West his image has been distorted by the 19th-century romantic revival,
which focused on his battles with the Crusaders, casting him as a "parfait
gentil knight" dressed up in Arab robes, full of mighty sword-blows and
chivalric gestures. That the Crusaders were impressed by him as a military
adversary and for his honor and magnanimity is evident from their chronicles.
But Saladin could not have waged his successful campaign against them had he not
spent the previous 25 years in a tireless struggle to unify the feudal
principalities of western Asia into one host. And he could not have done that
without superior political as well as military skills.
Indeed, as Saladin was growing to manhood, conditions in western Asia could
not have been much worse. A century previously, an energetic new people, the
Seljuk Turks, had descended on the Middle East from central Asia, "with
their thousands of nomadic horsemen sporting braided hair," as Amin Maalouf
has written. But within 50 years the Seljuks' central authority had begun to
disintegrate, leaving a mosaic of independent fiefdoms. These were based in the
principal cities of the region, each ruled by a Seljuk emir or, increasingly, by
the Turkmen officers who became the guardians, or atabegs , of young emirs.
The Crusaders, at the end of the 11th century, plunged into this enfeebled
polity with relative ease. So self-interested were the Turkmen rulers, and so
bitter their rivalries, that as the Crusaders advanced down the coast of Syria
and Palestine there were virtually no instances when one Muslim ruler came to
the assistance of another. In 1099 Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders, and within a
few decades the Franks controlled all of the eastern Mediterranean coast.
The Muslim world was slow to respond. One of the first leaders who began to
mobilize widespread support for a response to the Crusaders in the name of Islam
was Zangi, atabeg of Mosul. An even more remarkable figure was Zangi's son Nur
al-Din, ruler of Syria. Devoutly religious, austere in his personal habits, a
capable administrator as well as military commander, Nur al-Din was also, in the
words of a modern biographer, "a political genius" who created a
propaganda apparatus to appeal to public opinion over the heads of rival rulers.
It was a lesson that the young Saladin was to absorb well.
Saladin grew up in Baalbek (now in Lebanon) and at Nur al-Din's court in
Damascus. Little is known about his early life beyond his taste for religious
studies, hunting and playing polo. As an adult he was described as short and
dark. He was given some administrative responsibilities as a young man, but his
first big opportunity came in 1164, when Nur al-Din decided to send a military
expedition to Egypt in response to the appeal of the deposed vizier of the
Fatimid caliph in Cairo (See Aramco World, March-April 1993). Egypt's wealth,
combined with the political weakness of the decaying Fatimid dynasty, drew both
the Syrians and the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem like a magnet. Each sought to
extend its influence there, or at least prevent the other from achieving a
commanding position.
Nur al-Din's three expeditions to Egypt between 1164 and 1168 were commanded
by Saladin's uncle Shirkuh, with Saladin going along as one of his lieutenants.
They were to be the proving ground for Saladin's growing military and political
talents. Most impressive was Saladin's role during the second campaign, when
Shirkuh left him in command of Alexandria. There, with only a small Syrian
fighting force, and with wavering support from the city's population, he
withstood a 75-day siege by a superior Crusader force.
By the end of the third expedition the Franks had withdrawn from Egypt,
Fatimid resistance had collapsed and the Syrians had made up their minds to
stay. The teenaged caliph, who had been the puppet of his powerful Egyptian
viziers, now had little choice but to accept the Syrians as the ruling force in
Egypt, with Shirkuh as his new vizier.
Saladin now had the reputation of a young man of promise, but it was at this
point that chance intervened, in the form of three advantageous deaths, to
greatly widen the stage for his ambitions. First, Shirkuh died, and Saladin was
chosen to succeed him as vizier. Once in this position, Saladin moved with
characteristic energy and efficiency to build his own power base in Egypt. He
suppressed a revolt by Egyptian Nubian infantry regiments, fortified Alexandria,
installed his kinsmen in key positions, won public favor by abrogating unpopular
taxes and, by prompt deterrent military moves, forced a Sicilian-Byzantine
expedition to abandon an intended invasion attempt.
Two years after Shirkuh's death, the Fatimid caliph also died, just short of
his 21st birthday. Saladin seized the opportunity to announce the end of the
Fatimid dynasty and the restoration of the spiritual authority of the Abbasid
caliphate in Baghdad.
By any measure, the 33-year-old Saladin, now outright ruler of Egypt, was as
powerful as his nominal suzerain, the atabeg Nur al-Din in Damascus. Over the
next three years, the correspondence between them shows clearly that Nur al-Din
was uncomfortably aware of this. But before a showdown could occur Nur al-Din
himself died in 1174, leaving his 11-year-old son, al-Salih, as heir, and
leaving also a power vacuum into which Saladin was bound to move.
But Saladin was conscious of the proprieties, and waited for a suitable
pretext. This came several months later, in the form of dissension among the
Damascene emirs contending for influence over the young ruler. In October that
year Saladin made a rapid march north, with only a small fighting force but with
lots of money, hoping to win his objective with gold instead of blood. The
strategy worked and, with al-Salih away in Aleppo, Damascus opened its gates to
Saladin.
Saladin had hoped that he would now be accepted as the ruler's guardian, but
in Aleppo the young atabeg made an impassioned plea to his assembled emirs to
stand by him and resist the usurper. To the Zangid loyalists, Saladin was not
only an ungrateful upstart, but an ungrateful Kurdish upstart who threatened the
monopoly of power that the Turks enjoyed. Saladin marched north, but though he
took Horns and Hama, he was checked at Aleppo. Its massive citadel was too
strong to assault by force, and the obdurate Zangids proved impervious to
Saladin's attempts at diplomacy.
Saladin now faced a difficult dilemma. He wanted to be accepted as the leader
of Muslim forces against the Franks and to be anointed in this role by the
caliph. But he knew that, so long as the Muslims were divided, he could not
fight an effective campaign against the Franks; furthermore, his flank would be
continually threatened by the Zangids. He also knew that it would take time to
reduce the Zangids, and that if he concentrated on that goal without fighting
the Franks he would be vulnerable to the charge that he was using Islam to cloak
his own ambitions.
Over the next decade Saladin dealt with these difficulties with both energy
and patience. Using his abundant revenues and manpower from Egypt, he placed an
army in the field each year to keep the pressure on both the Franks and his
Muslim rivals. Against Zangid forces from Aleppo and Mosul he won notable
battlefield victories—but farsight-edly did not press his advantage against
his fleeing adversaries. Against the Franks his results were more variable, but
on the whole he harassed them effectively and kept them bottled up in their
fortresses. During this period Saladin also survived two attempts on his
life—one of them a very close call—by the Assassins, who had probably been
hired by the Zangids.
Finally, in 1181, al-Salih too died, and Saladin moved rapidly to exploit the
moment. In a masterful campaign combining military power, diplomacy, largesse,
and siegecraft, Saladin cut communications between Aleppo and Mosul and either
captured or won over the towns surrounding Aleppo. Aleppo itself negotiated a
surrender in 1183, and in 1186 he struck a truce with the Mosulis by which Mosul
accepted Saladin's authority and promised to send troops to serve under his
command against the Franks.
Saladin was now ready to confront the Crusaders. Assembling a large army in
the spring of 1187, he moved into Palestine in the hopes of bringing the Franks
to battle. The Muslims had learned that, man-for-man, their lightly armed
Turkoman cavalry was no match for the chain-mailed knights: It was "like
attacking a block of iron," in the words of one contemporary Muslim
chronicler. Muslim battlefield tactics therefore sought to use the advantages of
mobility—giving way before the heavy Frankish charges, then returning to
harass the knights as they regrouped, hoping to draw them out of their tight
formations. The Muslims usually outnumbered the Franks, but even so they
generally needed some further advantage, such as surprise or favorable terrain,
to prevail.
Now, in an effort to draw the main Frankish force into the field, Saladin
laid siege to the Crusader fortress at Tiberius. The tactic worked. Under the
banner of Guy de Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, a Frankish force of some 30,000
knights and infantry set out to relieve the siege. Saladin caught them on the
march, on a boiling hot day in July, with inadequate water supplies, at a place
called Hattin. The Franks were surrounded, and to add to the distress of the
thirst-crazed knights the Muslims set fire to brush, so that the smoke blew down
c>n them. Except for a handful of knights who broke out and escaped, the
victory was complete.
After the battle Saladin had his two most important prisoners—the king and
Reynaud de Chatillon, lord of Kerak— brought to his tent. He treated the king
kindly but, after he refused an offer to convert to Islam, executed the
duplicitous Reynaud, who had twice violated truces. King Guy no doubt feared he
was next, but Saladin calmed him, saying, "It is not the custom of kings to
kill each other, but that man exceeded all bounds."
Numerous other Frankish prisoners were either held for ransom or sold into
slavery. The 200 captured knights of the military orders—Templars and
Hospitallers—were even less fortunate. These were the shock troops of the
Crusades; the Muslims feared them for their fighting ability, disliked them for
their fanaticism and knew that no one would ransom them. Those who refused
conversion to Islam—and most did—were also executed.
Hattin was the most devastating blow the Crusaders had ever suffered in the
Holy Land. Now, one by one, the Frankish garrisons surrendered—Nazareth,
Nablus, Acre, Haifa, Jaffa—knowing no help would come once the Muslims
invested their forts. Finally, in October 1187, Saladin's army appeared before
the walls of Jerusalem. The defenders' position was hopeless, and after
negotiations the city surrendered on terms that allowed the Christian population
to leave in peace in return for a per-head ransom. Saladin's treatment of the
city's Christians was in marked contrast to the indiscriminate slaughter of
Muslims that had occurred when the Crusaders first took the city 88 years
previously.
This was the high point of Saladin's career, but it was also the moment when
he made his worst strategic error. He had earlier laid siege to Tyre, knowing
its importance, but had abandoned the siege when he found his troops tired of
battle and eager to go home. Under the redoubtable Conrad de Montferrat,
however, Tyre became the rallying point for the Third Crusade. By the spring of
1189, reinforcements were already beginning to arrive, and later that summer the
Crusaders felt strong enough to move south to lay siege in their turn to the
Muslim garrison in Acre. Saladin moved up forces to relieve the siege, but with
fresh troops arriving daily from Europe, the Crusaders proved too strong.
They were further reinforced by the arrival, in the spring of 1191, of large
contingents under King Philip of France and King Richard of England. Richard the
Lionheart's formidable reputation had preceded him: "The foremost man of
his time for courage and guile," the contemporary Muslim historian Ibn
al-Athir called him.
Richard's reputation as a fighter and his outstanding generalship indeed made
a difference. Under his energetic leadership the siege of Acre was intensified,
and in July, after holding out for 18 months, the Muslim garrison capitulated.
Later that summer a Crusader force under Richard, moving south along the coast,
defeated Saladin's army at Arsouf. The loss of Acre and the reverse at Arsouf
were serious blows to Saladin's prestige, but they were not strategic defeats,
and Richard knew it. With the coastline at their backs the Franks could thwart
the Muslim tactic of encirclement and could benefit from their command of the
sea, but as soon as they tried to move inland toward Jerusalem, it would be a
different story. Richard was also receiving increasingly urgent messages about
what was happening to his throne in England, and opened negotiations with
Saladin. He proved an artful and creative negotiator, but the two sides were too
far apart to reach agreement in 1191.
Saladin suffered another blow as the campaigning season opened in 1192:
Richard, with expert timing, captured a large caravan from Egypt that was
bringing the Muslims badly needed supplies, money and pack animals. Richard
reconnoitered Jerusalem, but found the defenses too strong and embarked instead
on an expedition against Beirut. Saladin sought to exploit his absence by laying
siege to Jaffa, but the Franks' spirited resistance, Richard's timely return,
and unmistakable signs of fatigue and lack of discipline among Saladin's troops
foiled the effort.
Both leaders now recognized they were at an impasse. Saladin could not deal
the Franks a decisive blow as long as they stayed on the coast, and Richard did
not have the manpower, the money or the unity within his command to reconquer
the hinterland. Eager to return to Europe, Richard dropped his earlier demands
for Jerusalem and on September 1 gave his hand to the Muslim negotiators on a
truce. It left the Franks in control of the coast from Tyre to Jaffa, but
recognized Muslim control everywhere inland. Among its provisions, the agreement
gave the Franks the right to visit Christian shrines in Jerusalem, a promise
which Saladin scrupulously honored.
Saladin then had but six months to live. Undermined by constant campaigning,
his health deteriorated, and he died in Damascus on March 4,1193. He was buried
in the Umayyad Mosque, where his tomb can be seen to this day.
Saladin ended the possibility of Latin hegemony in Palestine, a momentous
achievement in historical terms. But he did not have time to institutionalize
his unification of Muslim west Asia, and none of his sons or surviving kinsmen
had the leadership abilities he had demonstrated. Within a few decades, the
Muslim lands slipped back into division, dynastic quarreling and political
weakness. Even Saladin's own house in Egypt lasted barely 50 years before being
overthrown by Mamluk mercenaries.
Yet Saladin remains an exceptionally attractive figure, one who has captured
the imagination of generations of Muslims ever since. He was, above all,
successful in unifying the Muslims so that they could more effectively face
external challenges. He achieved this, moreover, at least as much by political
skill and personal charisma as by force of arms. Saladin's undeniable military
and organizational abilities would not have been sufficient for the task had
they not been married to excellent judgment, energetic application, resilience
in the face of setbacks, and generosity of spirit. He respected the Crusaders as
warriors, and because they were fighting for an ideal, but he never wavered in
his conviction that his life work was to expel these foreigners from "the
House of Islam."
Above all, Saladin had personal qualities that drew men to him throughout his
life. His career presents an astonishing record—particularly for the
times—of defeated adversaries who later became his loyal friends and allies.
His friend and biographer Ibn Shaddad wrote, "I have heard people say that
they would like to ransom those dear to them with their own lives, but this has
usually been a figure of speech, except on the day of his death. For I
know that had our sacrifice been accepted, I and others would have given our
lives for him."
