In theory, Shirkuh’s elevation to the post of Fatimid vizier confirmed Zangid power in the Nile region, heralding a new era of Muslim unity in which Aleppo, Damascus and Cairo might join forces to prosecute the jihad against the Franks. Contemporary Muslim sources indicate that, in public at least, Nur al-Din celebrated Shirkuh’s achievement, ordering his ‘conquest of Egypt’ to be proclaimed throughout Syria, even if the emir harboured concerns about the future loyalty of his lieutenant. In fact, Shirkuh’s true intentions were never made manifest, for barely two months later he died of an acute, suppurating throat infection, having gorged himself on coarse meats.

Records detailing the emergence of Shirkuh’s successor–both as commander of the Syrian expedition and as vizier–are confused and contradictory. He was survived by his Kurdish nephew, Yusuf ibn Ayyub, the veteran of al-Babayn and Alexandria, who might count on the support of most of his uncle’s personal military entourage (or askar), made up of 500 mamluks (slave soldiers). But there were other, perhaps more obviously powerful claimants, including the pro-Zangid Turk, Ayn al-Daulah, and another of Shirkuh’s lieutenants, the talented Kurdish warrior al-Mashtub. After days of debate and intrigue it was Yusuf who emerged victorious. Demonstrating a remarkable gift for the subtleties of court politics, Shirkuh’s nephew played the other Syrian candidates against one another, using suggestion and innuendo, emerging as the compromise candidate. His spokesman and advocate throughout this process was Isa, a silver-tongued Kurdish jurist and imam. Only Ayn al-Daulah remained implacable, returning to Damascus with the promise that he would never serve such an upstart. At the same time, Yusuf showed the caliph and his inner circle of Egyptian advisers a different face–one that led them to believe that, as chief minister, he would prove pliable and ineffectual, an outsider who might later be readily overthrown to usher in a Fatimid resurgence. In late March 1169, his ‘command of the [Syrian] troops and appointment as al-Adid’s vizier’ were duly confirmed.²⁷

Whatever the Egyptian caliph’s expectations, Yusuf ibn Ayyub soon revealed his true qualities, crushing an attempted palace coup and brutally suppressing a military revolt within months of taking office. Indeed, in the years that followed, it became clear that his ambitions far outstripped those of his uncle, Shirkuh. Capable, in turn, of extreme ruthlessness and principled magnanimity, gifted with political and military acuity, Yusuf’s achievements would eclipse even those of his overlord Nur al-Din, in time earning him the grand appellation by which he is more commonly known to history: Salah al-Din, ‘the goodness of faith’, or, in the western tongue, Saladin.

SALADIN, LORD OF EGYPT (1169–74)

Despite the seismic impact he would have upon history and the war for the Holy Land, no physical description of Saladin has survived. In 1169 few could have guessed that this thirty-one-year-old Kurdish warrior would establish the Ayyubids (named for Saladin’s father Ayyub) as the new rising power within Islam. Some medieval chroniclers, and many modern historians, have suggested that Saladin’s relationship with his Syrian overlord Nur al-Din soured almost as soon as the former took up the office of Egyptian vizier; that the shadows of imminent conflict between Cairo and Damascus were immediately apparent. In reality, despite a limited degree of friction during an initial period of adjustment, there is plentiful evidence to suggest continued cooperation and little to indicate an early move, on Saladin’s part, to assert independence. The balance of power and interplay of loyalty between these two potentates–champions of the Zangid and Ayyubid dynasties–would, in time, become a pressing issue, but in 1169 Saladin had more urgent concerns.²⁸

Challenges

Upon succeeding his uncle as vizier to the Fatimid Caliph al-Adid, Saladin’s prospects for survival were bleak. During the preceding fifteen years the vizierate had changed hands no fewer than eight times; embittered factionalism, treachery, betrayal and murder were all pervasive and ingrained features of Cairene politics. Saladin came to this volatile, lethal environment as an isolated outsider–a Sunni Kurd in a Shi‘a world–backed by limited military and financial resources. Few can have expected him to prevail.

In spring 1169, Saladin’s first instinct was to gather swiftly around him an inner core of loyal and able supporters. Throughout his career he seems to have placed great faith in the fidelity of blood; all but alone in Egypt, he turned to his family, asking Nur al-Din to allow members of the Ayyubid line to quit Syria for the Nile. Within months Saladin was joined by his elder brother, Turan-Shah, and nephew, Taqi al-Din. They were later followed by others, including Saladin’s father, Ayyub, and another, younger brother, destined to rise to prominence, al-Adil. As vizier, Saladin entrusted key positions of power within Egypt to his relations, but he also won over many of his late uncle Shirkuh’s askar, who were known as the Asadiyya–a play on his full name, Asad al-Din Shirkuh ibn-Shadi.

These included the fellow Kurd al-Mashtub, who had himself challenged for the vizierate; the forceful and forthright mamluk Abu’l Haija the Fat, who in later life reached such an extreme of obesity that he had difficulty standing; and the astute, but rather brutish Caucasian eunuch Qaragush. In years to come these men would prove themselves to be among Saladin’s most faithful lieutenants. He also began to assemble his own askar, the Salahiyya. Saladin even found some allies inside the fractious Fatimid court itself. The scribe, poet and administrator al-Fadil, a native of Ascalon, who had been employed by a number of viziers, now entered Saladin’s service, becoming his secretary and close personal confidant. Al-Fadil was an avid correspondent, and copies of his letters today serve as a vital corpus of historical evidence.

Within months of assuming the vizierate, Saladin needed the support of these trusted allies as he faced a series of assaults on his position. He also revealed a capacity for nuanced political operation in dealing with these threats–one that would prove a signal characteristic of his career. When necessary, Saladin could act with pitiless determination, but he was also able to employ caution and diplomacy. In the early summer of 1169, Mutamin, the leading eunuch within the caliph’s palace, sought to engineer a coup against Saladin, opening channels of negotiation with the kingdom of Jerusalem in the hope of prompting yet another Frankish invasion of Egypt to topple the Ayyubids. A secret envoy was dispatched from Cairo, disguised as a beggar, but passing near Bilbais a Syrian Turk spotted that he was wearing new sandals whose fine quality jarred with his otherwise ragged appearance. With suspicions aroused, the agent was arrested and letters to the Franks discovered, sewn into the lining of his shoes, revealing the plot. Saladin curtailed the independence of the Fatimid court, executing the eunuch Mutamin in August and replacing him with Qaragush, who from this point forward presided over all palace affairs.²⁹

Saladin’s severe intervention elicited an outbreak of unrest among Cairo’s military garrison. The city was packed with some 50,000 black Sudanese troops, whose loyalty to the caliph made them a dangerous counter to Ayyubid authority. For two days they rioted through the streets, marching on Saladin’s position in the vizier’s palace. Abu’l Haija the Fat was sent to stem their advance, but Saladin knew that he lacked the manpower to prevail in open combat and soon adopted less direct tactics. Most of the Sudanese lived with their families in the al-Mansura quarter of Cairo. Saladin ordered that the entire area be set alight, according to one Muslim contemporary leaving it ‘to burn down around [the rebelling troops’] possessions, children and women’. With their morale shattered by this callous atrocity, the Sudanese agreed a truce, the terms of which were supposed to provide for safe passage up the Nile. But once out of the city and travelling south in smaller, disorganised groups, they fell victim to treacherous counter-attacks from Turan-Shah and were virtually annihilated.