Richard deliberately conducted much of this contact in public–seemingly intent upon demonstrating to Saladin that his emirs’ appetite for hard-bitten conflict was waning. Even outside Jaffa on 1 August, Richard invited a group of high-ranking Ayyubid commanders to visit his camp during a lull in the fighting. He spent the evening entertaining and joking with them, speaking of things both ‘serious and light-hearted’. Unfortunately for Richard, the advantage accrued through this scheming was largely squandered when he fell gravely ill in mid-August. Up to this point he had stubbornly insisted that Ascalon–painstakingly rebuilt through his own efforts just months earlier–must remain in Christian hands, always adding that he had every intention of staying in the Levant until Easter 1193. By late August, however, with the Lionheart debilitated by fever, the haggling ceased.¹⁰¹

Through lengthy and convoluted diplomatic dialogue the terms of a three-year truce were eventually settled on Wednesday 2 September 1192. Saladin was to retain control of Jerusalem, but agreed to allow Christian pilgrims unfettered access to the Holy Sepulchre. The Franks were to hold on to the narrow coastal strip between Jaffa and Tyre conquered during the crusade, but Ascalon’s fortifications were once again to be demolished. Strangely, no discussion over the fate of the Jerusalemite True Cross seems to have taken place–in any case, the revered Christian relic remained in Ayyubid hands.

Even at this final moment of accord, Saladin and Richard did not meet. Al-Adil brought the written treaty–the Arabic text of which was penned by the sultan’s scribe Imad al-Din–to Richard at Jaffa. The ailing king was too weak even to read the document and merely offered his hand as a sign of truce. Henry of Champagne and Balian of Ibelin then swore oaths to uphold the terms, and the Templar and Hospitaller masters also indicated their approval. The next day, at Ramla, a Latin delegation that included Humphrey of Toron and Balian was ushered into Saladin’s presence. There, ‘they took his noble hand and received his oath to observe the peace on the agreed terms’. Key members of Saladin’s family–al-Adil, al-Afdal and al-Zahir–and a number of leading emirs then proffered their own oaths. At last, with the elaborate rituals concluded, peace was achieved.¹⁰²

In the month that followed, three delegations of crusaders made the journey to Jerusalem–achieving through truce what had been denied them in war. Among those who fulfilled their pilgrim vows were Andrew of Chauvigny and Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury. But Richard I made no attempt to travel to the Holy City. It may be that his continued ill health prevented him; or perhaps he deemed the prospect of visiting the Holy Sepulchre while Jerusalem yet remained in Muslim hands too shameful to bear. On 9 October 1192, after sixteen months in the Levant, the Lionheart began his journey back to Europe. As his royal fleet set sail, the king was said to have offered a prayer to God that he might one day return.

THE OUTCOME OF THE THIRD CRUSADE

In the end, neither Saladin nor Richard the Lionheart could claim victory in the war for the Holy Land. The Angevin king had failed to recapture Jerusalem or to recover the True Cross. But through his efforts and those of his fellow crusaders, Latin Christendom retained a foothold in Palestine, and the Frankish subjugation of Cyprus offered a further beacon of hope for Outremer’s survival.

After leading Islam to victory in 1187, Saladin had faced a series of humiliating setbacks during the Third Crusade–at Acre, Arsuf and Jaffa. Despite unswerving devotion to the cause of jihad, he had also been wholly unable to prevent the Frankish reconquest of the coast. In siege and battle Richard had prevailed, while in the art of diplomacy the Lionheart had proved, at the very least, to be the sultan’s equal. Yet, though beaten, Saladin remained undefeated. Jerusalem had been defended for Islam; the Ayyubid Empire endured. And now, the crusade’s end and King Richard’s departure offered the prospect of future triumphs–the chance to complete the work begun at Hattin.

The long road ends

Once news of King Richard’s departure from the Holy Land had been confirmed, Saladin finally felt able to disband his armies. Thought was given to undertaking the pilgrimage to Mecca, but the needs of the empire soon took precedence. After touring his Palestinian territories, Saladin returned to Syria to spend a rainy winter resting in Damascus. Bidding farewell to al-Zahir, he was said to have counselled his son not to become too familiar with violence, warning that ‘blood never sleeps’.

By early 1193, Saladin’s health was in decline and he began to show worrying signs of exhaustion. Baha al-Din remarked that ‘it was as though his body was full and there was a lassitude about him’. On 20 February the sultan fell ill, becoming feverish and nauseous. Through the days that followed his condition deteriorated. Together Baha al-Din and al-Fadil visited their master’s chambers in the citadel each morning and each night, and al-Afdal was also in close attendance. By early March Saladin’s fever had intensified, such that sweat soaked through his mattress to the floor and he began to slip in and out of consciousness. Baha al-Din described how on 3 March 1193:

The sultan’s illness grew ever worse and his strength dwindled further…[an imam] was called upon to spend the night in the citadel, so that if the death throes began, he would be with the sultan, [able] to rehearse his confession of faith and keep God before his mind. This was done and we left the citadel, each longing to give his own life to ransom the sultan’s.

Just after dawn, as the imam recited the Koran beside him, Saladin died. He was fifty-five. His body was laid to rest in a mausoleum within the compound of the Grand Umayyad Mosque of Damascus. It remains there to this day.¹⁰³

In his early career, Saladin had been driven by personal ambition and a hunger for renown to usurp power from the Zangids and forge a new and expansive Ayyubid Empire. He had also shown a ready willingness to defame his enemies, Muslim and Christian, through the use of propaganda. The sultan’s dedication to jihad–a marked feature of his career only after his illness in 1186–was ever coloured by a determination to lead Islam in the holy war, rather than serve as a lieutenant.

Nonetheless, Saladin does seem to have been inspired by authentic religious fervour and a genuine belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem. It has recently been suggested that after 1187, once the overriding goal of the Holy City’s recapture was achieved, ‘Saladin’s emotional commitment to jihad faltered.’ In fact, if anything, the sultan’s devotion to this cause strengthened during the Third Crusade, even in the face of failure and defeat. It is also true that the sense of Muslim unity he engendered, while not absolute, was unparalleled in the twelfth century. Certainly, in the world of the crusades, adversaries and allies alike recognised that the sultan was a remarkable leader of men. Even his sometime critic, the great Iraqi historian and Zangid sympathiser Ibn al-Athir, wrote that:

Saladin (may God have mercy on him) was generous, forbearing, of good character, humble, ready to put up with something that displeased him [and] much given to overlooking the faults of his followers…In short, he was a rare individual in his age, with many good qualities and good deeds, mighty in jihad against the infidels, for which his conquests are the proof.¹⁰⁴