According to medieval legends, he was an exemplary knight of the era of the Crusades. Strong and merciful, wise and courageous. It was he who was able to destroy the dream of a Christian Jerusalem and initiated the gradual disappearance of the Latin kingdoms from the historical scene. In the West, he is called Saladin.
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub was born in 1138 in a family from the Kurdish tribe of Ravadiyah and serving the Baghdad caliphs. All family members were zealous Sunnis, and Yusuf, that is, Saladin, also became an example of an ideal warrior for a devout Muslim.
Saladin's father - Ayyub ruled the Syrian city of Baalbek. Saladin himself was born in Tikrit, which is north of Baghdad, and spent his childhood in Mosul. 1152 - as a 14-year-old youth, he entered the service of Zenga's son, Nur ad-Din, who took Edessa and thereby brought the beginning of the Second Crusade closer.
Shiite Damascus often became a forced ally of the Jerusalem kings in the face of threats from the newly converted Sunnis. After Nur ad-Din took this city in 1157, Egypt remained the last Shiite stronghold. This country was largely weakened by internal strife. The Shiite Fatimid dynasty was losing power.
After a palace coup (c. 1162), the vizier Shawar lost his post and fled to Syria, where he convinced Nur ad-Din to help him regain his post in Egypt. Nur ad-Din sent an army to Egypt under the command of Assad al-Din Shirkukh, who took his nephew Saladin on a campaign.
1164 - Shawar regained power over Egypt, and Shirkuh and Saladin returned to Syria. Shawar, I must say, all the time feared the invasion of the former allies.
1167 - Almarich and Shawar again clashed in the battle with Shirkuh. In this battle, Saladin distinguished himself by capturing the royal envoy Hugo of Caesarea and many other knights. He defended Alexandria besieged by Almaric for a long time, but still was forced to leave Egypt along with his uncle.
Shawar suffered significant damage from Christian attacks. But after the conclusion of another truce, Almaric returned to Jerusalem, thereby opening the way for Shirkuh and Saladin.
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Shawar greeted them as saviors, but Shirkuh no longer had confidence in the man who made treaties with infidels against Muslims. He believed that the reason for this behavior was the belonging of the Egyptian caliphs to the Shiites - in his view, heretics. Therefore, Shirkuh decided to overthrow Shawar and sent Saladin to arrest the vizier.
Shawar was captured and beheaded, and Saladin sent his head to Cairo. Shirkuh became the vizier of Egypt, and the Fatimids for some time remained puppet caliphs.
Saladin's biographers write that Shirkukh "was a great glutton, most of all fond of fatty meat, and all the time suffered from indigestion." 1169, March 22 - Shirkukh died (perhaps after a hearty meal), and Salah ad-Din became the vizier of Egypt. In 1170 he conquered Gaza, a border city that had been held for a long time by the knights … of the Templar Order ….
Salah ad-Din was a fanatical Muslim who considered it his duty to expel all infidels from the Holy Land. He also considered it necessary either to pacify the heretics within Islam, to whom he attributed the Shiites, or to convert them to the true faith.
One of his priority tasks in Egypt was "strengthening the Sunni faith, instructing the local population on the path of true piety, instilling in them the innermost knowledge of Sufism." In fulfillment of this task, he, in particular, ordered in 1180 to crucify the heretic Sufi Suhravadi, since he "rejected the Divine law and considered it to be invalid."
1171 - when the last caliph from the Fatimid dynasty died, Salah ad-Din took his place, initiating the Ayyubid dynasty (named after Saladin's father).
Having settled in Egypt, Saladin turned his energy to expel Christians and gain independence from Nur ad-Din, while not wanting to completely break off relations with him. In achieving both of these goals, he was helped by the deaths of Nur ad-Din (May 15, 1174) and King Almarich (July 11 of the same year). An inexperienced teenager became the heir of Nur ad-Din, 13-year-old Baldwin IV, who also suffered from leprosy since the age of 9, was the heir of Almarikh. None of them could become a strong ruler, although Baldwin made efforts to this.
Saladin felt himself to be the spiritual successor of Nur ad-Din. Having captured Damascus, he married the widow of its ruler. By uniting Egypt and Damascus under his rule, he could threaten the Latin kingdoms both from the east and from the west. Jerusalem lived in anticipation of the blow. But instead, much to the relief of Christians, Saladin turned to the east to complete the conquest of the lands that Nur ad-Din had left to his young son - including Mosul and Aleppo.
1180 - Salah ad-Din made an alliance with the Seljuk Sultan of Anatolia Kilich-Arslan II, for a joint campaign to Mosul. He married one of his daughters to the son of the Sultan. The new son-in-law removed his father from power and later became a loyal ally of Saladin.
Mosul, however, did not think to surrender, and in 1185 Saladin concluded a 4-year truce with the young Baldwin, although he himself had earlier condemned those who entered into an alliance with infidels in order to fight other Muslims. Then Salah ad-Din captured Aleppo and made his brother Al-Adil ruler there.
What happened next can be assessed in different ways. Be that as it may, the fate of Jerusalem was dependent on the actions of a single person, and even unbridled disposition.
There lived a knight Reynald of Chatillonsky. He was handsome, charming and daring to the point of recklessness, but at the same time poor and … stupid. After listening to the novels of chivalry, so popular in France, he came to Antioch in the 1150s in search of happiness. Surprisingly, he actually found happiness there in the person of Constance, the princess of Antioch. As a 9-year-old girl, she was married off to Raymund Poitier. When Raimund died, Constance did not want her next marriage to be also dictated by state interests, and she herself chose Reynald as her husband.
Reynald behaved in exactly the same way as Muslim robbers acted in the first half of the twelfth century - he robbed pilgrims going to Mecca, burned cities and villages; the last straw was his attack on a Muslim caravan that was going from Cairo to Baghdad. "Reynald treacherously captured him, brutally tortured people … and when they reminded him of the agreement, he replied: 'Ask your Mohammed to free you!"
This overtook Salah ad-Din's patience.
By 1187, Baldwin IV was already dead. Jerusalem was ruled by his sister Sibylla and her husband Guy de Lusignan. Guy was also prone to adventures and did not evoke friendly feelings in everyone. In particular, Guy and his associate, the Grand Master of the Templars, Gerard de Ridefort, had such a serious conflict with Raymond of Tripoli that the latter chose to conclude a separate treaty with Saladin. But even Guy tried to persuade Raynald to return the property he had captured in the attack on the caravan. Raynald flatly refused, and it became clear to everyone that Saladin had a good reason to strike.
It all ended with the defeat of Christians at the Horns of Hattin on July 4, 1187. Among those taken prisoner at Hattin were King Guy, Master Gerard de Ridefort, a greater number of templars and Hospitallers, as well as Raynald of Chatillon. But the most difficult test for Christians was the loss of the Life-giving Cross, which was carried to the battlefield in a golden ark.
Saladin ordered to bring the noble captives to his tent. He held out a bowl of water to King Guy. The king quenched his thirst and held out the cup to Reynald. Saladin was furious. “I did not allow this wicked man to drink! he cried. "And I won't keep him alive." With these words Salah ad-Din drew his sword and personally cut off the head of Reinald of Shatillon.
King Guy and Gerard de Ridefort were released by the victor, having received a ransom for them, and all the rest of the Templars and Hospitallers were ordered to be beheaded. "He ordered the execution of these people, because they were reputed to be the most cruel of all Christian warriors, and thus he freed all Muslims from them."
After this victory, Saladin could roam the Holy Land almost freely. On July 10 he took Akra, on September 4 - Ascalon. Queen Sibylla defended Jerusalem as best she could, but she had few soldiers. The city fell on October 2, 1187 Saladin demanded a ransom from the inhabitants.
The Patriarch of Jerusalem asked the Hospitallers for 30,000 Byzantines to pay the ransom for the 7,000 poor. The money was provided, but it was not enough to buy everyone out. Then the Templars, Hospitallers and all wealthy citizens were asked for additional donations, but "they still gave less than they should have."
Even Christian chroniclers note the mercy of Salah ad-Din and his family towards the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Saif al-Din, Saladin's brother, freed 1,000 people, and Saladin himself granted freedom to several thousand. But many residents could not pay the ransom and were sold into slavery.
There is no way to go anywhere - chivalrous nobility has its limits.
Then Salah ad-Din began to cleanse the city of filth. “The Templars built a dwelling for themselves near the Al-Aqsa mosque, their storerooms, latrines and other necessary premises were located in the mosque itself. Everything here has been returned to its previous state."
When it became known in Europe about the fall of Jerusalem, Pope Urban IV died - as they said, could not withstand the severity of the blow. King Henry II of England and King Philip of France, who were always at odds with each other, agreed to conclude a truce and introduce a special tax in their countries, known as "Saladin's tithe", to raise funds for a campaign to recapture the city.
The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Friedrich Barbarossa, the French king Philip Augustus and the English king … Richard the Lionheart … set out to conquer the Holy Land. In European chronicles, Saladin appears as a dangerous but benevolent ruler. In the Muslim chronicles, Richard, in turn, is described as a dangerous, but at the same time an educated sovereign. Probably, both sides felt that their heroes deserved worthy opponents, and each hero received more praise from the enemy than from his chroniclers.
The magnanimous Saladin, having learned about the illness of the English king, sent his doctor to him …
During the crusade, Salah ad-Din was in his 50s, gray hair appeared in his beard. Richard was a little over 30, and Philip was still 10 years younger. It might have seemed to the Sultan that he was at war with schoolchildren. But Richard was able to surprise him with military and diplomatic skills.
Reading the chronicles, especially the descriptions of the endless - interspersed with skirmishes - negotiations conducted by the sovereigns through their messengers, one can conclude that this was a rivalry of equals. Both rulers fought in the name of faith, each one of his own. They followed the same rules and used similar combat tactics.
And whether they were true gentlemen or just barbarians - it depends on the chosen point of view.
Ultimately, Saladin resigned himself to the division of the country and allowed Christian pilgrims to come to Jerusalem again. He himself returned to Damascus, from where he continued to govern his vast possessions. At the end of February 1193, Saladin fell ill and, despite the efforts of doctors, died on March 3 at the age of 55.
He left numerous children and grandchildren, but his dynasty was able to survive for only three generations. Without his guiding hand, the brothers and sisters were at enmity with each other until the Mamelukes, the military caste, of which the Egyptian palace guards consisted, seized power.
Saladin was such a major figure that he was both respected and feared in the West. Unlike the Templars, he became the hero of chivalrous novels …
S. Newman