A HERO FOR ISLAM

Saladin embraced this latter objective with singular dedication and vigour. The fundamental question–similar to that asked of Nur al-Din–was why? Did Saladin seek power, forging a despotic, pan-Levantine Islamic Empire, to fulfil his own self-serving, personal ambition? Or was he driven by a higher cause, pursuing Muslim unification as a means to an end–the necessary precursor to success in the jihad against the Christian Franks? Some attempt to understand Saladin’s motives and mentality has to be made, not least because of his profound importance as a historical figure, particularly in Islamic culture. In the modern world, Saladin has come to be regarded as the supreme Muslim champion of the crusading age; an extraordinarily powerful talisman of the Islamic past, viewed by many as a revered hero. The task of stripping away the layers of legend, propaganda and bias to explore the reality of his career is thus particularly sensitive and demands scrupulous and assiduous care.

In relative terms, the contemporary sources for Saladin’s life are plentiful, but they are also problematic. A number of Muslim eyewitnesses wrote about his remarkable achievements, including two of his closest supporters–his secretary Imad al-Din al-Isfahani (from 1174) and his adviser Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad (from 1188)–but both presented sanitised biographies of their master after the event. Their works are predicated upon the notion that Saladin was driven by heartfelt religious devotion to serve Islam and fight the Franks. According to Baha al-Din, Saladin’s spiritual conviction deepened after he assumed power over Egypt in 1169, forgoing ‘wine-drinking and turning his back on frivolity’, and from this point forward he was supposedly driven pious by ‘passion, constancy and zeal’. His commitment to the holy war was said to be absolute:

Saladin was very diligent and zealous for the jihad. If anyone were to swear that, since his embarking upon the jihad, he had not expended a single dinar or dirham on anything but the jihad or support for it, he would be telling the truth and true in his oath. The jihad, his love and passion for it, had taken a mighty hold of his heart and all his being, so much so that he talked of nothing else [and] thought of nothing but the means to pursue it.

This highly favourable depiction is balanced, to some extent, by other evidence. The Iraqi chronicler Ibn al-Athir, a supporter of the rival Zangid dynasty, offered a more dispassionate view of Saladin. Manuscript copies also survive of the public and private correspondence written for Saladin by his scribe and confidant al-Fadil. This crucial (yet still relatively under-exploited) corpus of material offers valuable insights into Saladin’s thinking and his own widespread use of propaganda and interest in image creation.³⁵

It is also imperative to contextualise any judgements about Saladin’s character and career. As a medieval ruler he operated within a violent and venomous political environment–to survive and advance it would have been virtually impossible for him always to act with pure-bred nobility, honour, justice and clemency. Indeed, few, if any, of history’s great rulers could claim such qualities, whatever age they lived in.

It is, in fact, evident that Saladin was not simply a bloodthirsty tyrant. In seeking to usurp power from Nur al-Din’s heirs, he could have followed the example set by Zangi, relying upon fear and brutality to amass and maintain power. Instead, Saladin chose to pursue policies that closely mimicked those of his former overlord, Nur al-Din–indeed, in this regard at least he could be said to have been Nur al-Din’s true successor. Saladin’s task in 1174 was essentially to recreate the achievements of the Zangids, but in reverse, subduing Damascus, Aleppo and Mosul. To do so he employed a cautious fusion of military might and adept political manipulation. And throughout he set great store by notions of legitimacy and just cause. This need for validation was amplified by Saladin’s social and ethnic background. What had been true for the Zangid Turks was doubly so for the Ayyubids as Kurdish mercenary warlords–all too easily they could be characterised as upstart outsiders in a Near and Middle Eastern world historically dominated by Arab and Persian Muslim ruling elites.

Throughout the 1170s and beyond, Saladin sought to legitimate his ascent to power and prominence by emphasising his roles as a defender of Islam and Sunni orthodoxy, and as the supposed servant of the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. He also used the notion of jihad to justify the need for Islamic unity under one ruler. Just as Pope Urban II had harnessed the power of a feared and threatening Muslim enemy to unite western Europe in support of the First Crusade, so Saladin proved only too willing to present the Levantine Franks as menacing and inimitable foes.

At the same time, he evidently aspired to extend his own power and to create an enduring dynasty. In the 1170s he began styling himself as a ‘sultan’ (king or ruler), a title reflective of autonomous authority. He was also busy siring a new generation of potential heirs. Few details survive of the numerous wives and slave girls who begat his children, but already in 1174, at the age of thirty-six, he had five sons, the eldest of whom, al-Afdal, was born in 1170.

IN NUR AL-DIN’S WAKE

From summer 1174 it was not just Saladin who looked to exploit the power vacuum left in the Near East by Nur al-Din’s demise. Members of the late emir’s court and extended family–the Zangid dynasty–sought to assert either their own independence or their right to act, in effect, as his successor. Within months, the Zangid realm, so patiently constructed over twenty-eight years, fractured almost beyond recognition, ushering a bewildering array of protagonists on to the stage.

To the east in Mesopotamia, two of Nur al-Din’s nephews held power–Saif al-Din in Mosul and Imad al-Din Zangi in nearby Sinjar. Both now began vying for control of territory west towards the Euphrates. In Syria, Nur al-Din’s young son, al-Salih, became a political pawn as various factions claimed to be his ‘protector’. The boy was eventually spirited away to Aleppo, where the eunuch Gumushtegin had emerged, through bloody intrigue, as the dominant force. Meanwhile, in Damascus a group of emirs, headed by the military commander Ibn al-Muqaddam, seized power. Not surprisingly, the Latins too saw a chance for action that summer. King Amalric’s primary objective was the reconquest of Banyas, the frontier settlement lost to Damascus a decade earlier. He laid siege to the town for two weeks, but the onset of ill health prevented him from pressing any advantage, and he agreed a truce with Ibn al-Muqaddam in return for a cash payment and the release of some Christian captives.

This urgent flurry of activity gripped Syria, but in Egypt Saladin bided his time. In midsummer a Sicilian fleet attacked Alexandria, while in Upper Egypt surviving Fatimid emirs tried to incite rebellion. These threats were readily repulsed, but Saladin still approached the issue of the succession to Nur al-Din’s realm with great caution. Overtly conscious of the need to counter accusations of despotic usurpation, Saladin forsook the blunt tools of invasion and violent suppression, instead employing guileful diplomacy against a backdrop of determined propaganda. One of his first acts was to write to al-Salih, declaring his own loyalty, affirming that the young ruler’s name had duly replaced that of Nur al-Din during the Friday prayer in Egypt, and that Saladin stood ready and willing as a ‘servant’ to defend al-Salih against his rivals. In another letter, the sultan proclaimed that he would fight ‘as a sword against [al-Salih’s] enemies’, warning that Syria was surrounded ‘on all sides’ by foes, such as the Franks, who had to be fought.