Saladin: Sultan of Egypt and Syria and Foe of the Crusaders

Saladin (Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub) was a Kurdish Muslim commander who became sultan of Egypt and Syria and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. Starting as an officer in the service of Nur ad-Din, he became vizier of Egypt in 1169, united Egypt and much of Syria and Mesopotamia, and in 1187 destroyed the army of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and recaptured the holy city. His defence against the Third Crusade and his reputation for generosity made him one of the best-known figures of the Middle Ages in both the Islamic world and Europe.

Early life and family

Saladin was born in 1137 or 1138 in Tikrit, on the Tigris in modern Iraq, where his father Najm ad-Din Ayyub commanded the citadel. The family were Kurds originally from Dvin in Armenia. Soon after his birth the family left Tikrit and entered the service of Zengi, ruler of Mosul and Aleppo, who made Ayyub governor of Baalbek.

Saladin grew up in Baalbek and Damascus, where his father and his uncle Asad ad-Din Shirkuh became senior officers of Zengi’s son Nur ad-Din. Arabic sources describe him as a pious young man with an education in religion and letters, though there is little reliable detail about his early years. His name, an honorific, means “Righteousness of the Faith”; Yusuf (Joseph) was his given name.

Egypt and the end of the Fatimids

In the 1160s Egypt, ruled by the Shi’i Fatimid caliphs, was weak and torn by rival viziers. Both Nur ad-Din and King Amalric of Jerusalem intervened. Nur ad-Din sent Shirkuh on three expeditions, in 1164, 1167 and 1168–1169, and Saladin accompanied his uncle, distinguishing himself in the defence of Alexandria in 1167.

In January 1169 Shirkuh became vizier of the Fatimid caliph al-Adid but died on 23 March. Saladin, then about 31, was appointed vizier in his place. He crushed a revolt by the Fatimid army’s Black African regiments in August 1169 and repelled a joint Frankish and Byzantine attack on Damietta later that year.

In September 1171, on Nur ad-Din’s instructions, Saladin had the Friday sermon in Cairo pronounced in the name of the Sunni Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. The last Fatimid caliph, al-Adid, died days later, and the Fatimid Caliphate ended after more than two and a half centuries. Saladin promoted Sunni Islam by founding madrasas and gave Egypt’s administration to trusted family members and officials such as the gifted secretary al-Qadi al-Fadil.

Building an empire

Saladin’s relationship with Nur ad-Din grew tense, as the Syrian ruler suspected his lieutenant of building an independent power in Egypt. The conflict ended with Nur ad-Din’s death on 15 May 1174. His heir, as-Salih Ismail, was a boy of eleven, and Nur ad-Din’s emirs quarrelled over his guardianship.

Saladin marched into Syria and took Damascus in late 1174, presenting himself as the protector of Nur ad-Din’s legacy. Over the next twelve years he extended his authority across Syria and northern Mesopotamia: Aleppo submitted in 1183, and Mosul accepted his overlordship by treaty in 1186. In 1175 the Abbasid caliph recognised him as sultan over Egypt and Syria. He also sent his brother Turan-Shah to conquer Yemen in 1174.

These years were spent mostly fighting fellow Muslims, which critics at the time noted. Saladin justified his campaigns as necessary to unite Islam for the holy war, or jihad, against the crusaders. His own setbacks included a heavy defeat by King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem at Montgisard on 25 November 1177, from which he barely escaped.

In Cairo he began the great Citadel on the Muqattam hills in 1176 and extended the city walls. The citadel remained the seat of Egypt’s rulers for almost seven hundred years.

Hattin and the recapture of Jerusalem

By 1186 Saladin controlled lands surrounding the crusader states on three sides. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was divided by quarrels over the succession to Baldwin IV and Baldwin V, which brought Guy of Lusignan to the throne in 1186. Reynald of Châtillon, lord of Kerak, attacked Muslim caravans in breach of truces, giving Saladin a cause for war.

In summer 1187 Saladin invaded with one of the largest armies he ever assembled, often estimated at around 30,000 men. He besieged Tiberias to draw the Frankish army out from its water supply at Sephoria. At the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187, the exhausted and thirsty crusader army was surrounded and destroyed. King Guy was captured and treated with courtesy, but Saladin personally killed Reynald, and around 200 captured Templars and Hospitallers were executed.

With the kingdom’s field army gone, Acre, Sidon, Beirut, Ascalon and many other places fell within weeks. Saladin then turned on Jerusalem, defended by Balian of Ibelin. The siege began on 20 September, and the city surrendered on 2 October 1187, by tradition the anniversary of the Prophet’s Night Journey. In contrast to the crusaders’ massacre in 1099, Saladin allowed the inhabitants to leave on payment of a ransom, and many who could not pay were freed, though thousands of the poor were enslaved. The story of these events is told in Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem.

The Third Crusade

Tyre, held by Conrad of Montferrat, survived and became the base for a Christian counter-attack. Europe responded with the Third Crusade, led by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who drowned in Anatolia in 1190, Philip II of France and Richard I of England. From August 1189 crusaders besieged Acre, while Saladin’s army in turn surrounded them; the city surrendered on 12 July 1191.

When negotiations over the prisoners of Acre broke down, Richard had an estimated 2,600 to 3,000 Muslim captives executed in August 1191. On 7 September 1191 Richard defeated Saladin at Arsuf, and the crusaders retook Jaffa and the coast. Twice Richard approached Jerusalem but withdrew, judging that he could not hold it once the crusaders went home. After further fighting at Jaffa in August 1192, the two sides agreed the Treaty of Jaffa on 2 September 1192: a three-year truce left the coast from Tyre to Jaffa to the Franks, Jerusalem to Saladin, and allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the holy places.

Death and succession

Saladin died of a fever in Damascus on 4 March 1193, aged about 55. His biographer and adviser Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad records that he had given away so much of his wealth that he left very little money behind. He was buried in a mausoleum beside the Umayyad Mosque; in 1898 the German emperor Wilhelm II visited the tomb and donated a marble sarcophagus, which stands next to the original wooden one.

Saladin had divided his lands among his sons, al-Afdal in Damascus, al-Aziz in Egypt and al-Zahir in Aleppo, while his brother al-Adil held lands in Mesopotamia and Transjordan. The sons quarrelled, and by 1200 al-Adil had made himself the dominant ruler. The Ayyubid dynasty ruled Egypt until 1250, when it was replaced by the Mamluks.

Character and reputation

The two main Arabic biographies, by Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad and Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, were written by men who served him and present him as a model ruler: pious, generous, merciful and devoted to jihad. Modern historians accept much of this but also stress his skill as a politician, his reliance on family members and his long wars against Muslim rivals.

In medieval Europe Saladin’s image was remarkably positive. Stories circulated of his gifts to Richard during illness and of his chivalry; Dante placed him in Limbo among the virtuous pagans in the Divine Comedy. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s play Nathan the Wise (1779) and Walter Scott’s novel The Talisman (1825) presented him as a tolerant and noble figure.

In the Middle East his memory faded somewhat after the Middle Ages but revived strongly from the late nineteenth century, when he became a symbol of resistance to foreign invasion. Modern states and leaders have invoked him, and an equestrian statue was erected outside the Damascus citadel in 1993.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Saladin and Richard I fought each other in single combat. Fact: They never met; their contacts were through envoys, chiefly Saladin’s brother al-Adil.
• Myth: Saladin was an Arab. Fact: He was a Kurd, born in Tikrit, serving Turkish rulers.
• Myth: Jerusalem fell without suffering. Fact: Saladin’s terms were lenient for the age, but many poor inhabitants who could not pay the ransom were enslaved.

Timeline

• 1137 or 1138: Saladin is born in Tikrit.
• 1169, 26 March: He becomes vizier of Egypt after Shirkuh’s death.
• 1171, September: The Fatimid Caliphate is ended.
• 1174: Nur ad-Din dies; Saladin takes Damascus late in the year.
• 1177, 25 November: Defeat by Baldwin IV at Montgisard.
• 1183: Aleppo submits to Saladin.
• 1187, 4 July: Victory at the Battle of Hattin.
• 1187, 2 October: Jerusalem surrenders.
• 1192, 2 September: Treaty of Jaffa with Richard I.
• 1193, 4 March: Saladin dies in Damascus.

Why it matters

Saladin ended the Fatimid Caliphate, joined Egypt and Syria into a single power and reversed the greatest achievement of the First Crusade by retaking Jerusalem. The state he built was strong enough to survive the Third Crusade and shaped the map of the Middle East for decades. His reputation, admired by both his followers and his enemies, has made him an enduring symbol of leadership and chivalry.