Edward Trimnell's Online Guide to the Middle East
Who was Saladin?
Saladin was one of the colossal figures of the Crusades. His skill as a commander and chivalry in battle made him a hero to the Muslim world---and brought him grudging admiration from Christian Europeans.
By the time Saladin was born, the Christian West and the forces of Islam had been waging war in the Middle East for more than a generation. In 1098, the forces of the First Crusade swept down from Europe and conquered territories that the earliest waves of Islamic armies had themselves captured from the Christian Byzantine Empire. The Crusaders then established a group of Latin states in the middle of the Muslim Middle East, where they were surrounded by hostile sultans.
UNDERSTANDING THE MIDDLE EAST:
History, Religion, and the Clash of Cultures
Copyright © 2007 by Beechmont Crest Publishing
First edition, 2007
0-9748330-6-1
It wasn’t long before the sultans began to mount counterattacks against the Christians. During Saladin’s youth, the most powerful Muslim warrior-sultan was Nur ad-Din. One of Nur ad-Din's most trusted lieutenants, Shirkuh, was Saladin’s uncle.
Saladin himself was an unlikely warrior. He had a slender build and often suffered from illness. His uncle sometimes pressed him onto the battlefield---an experience which reportedly terrified him.
In 1168, Saladin accompanied his uncle Shirkuh on a campaign to defend the Fatamid caliphate of Egypt, which was under constant attack by the Crusaders. Once in Egypt, a series of circumstances brought Saladin to the office of vizier.
This event transformed Saladin. Convinced that his unlikely rise to power was a sign from God, Saladin decided to become a devout Muslim. He began to assiduously observe the rituals of his faith, and he adopted a pious, humble demeanor. He also became a ferocious warrior. Saladin would eventually succeed Nur ad-Din as the Islamic world’s dominant warrior-sultan.
In 1187, Saladin recaptured Jerusalem from the European Crusaders. When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem back in 1099, they had massacred the city’s Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. Saladin, however, allowed Jerusalem’s Christian residents to flee peacefully to nearby Tyre. As was the custom of the day, he set a ransom on each prisoner’s head. But he made the amount modest enough so that most could afford to pay it: a mere ten dinars. (Those who could not afford the ten dinars, though, were forced into slavery.)
Saladin’s magnanimousness earned him the admiration of his Christian adversaries. The West produced few real heroes during the Crusades; and some Europeans seemed eager to claim Saladin for their side. There were persistent (but untrue) rumors that Saladin had converted to Christianity.
Nevertheless, Saladin had a violent side. Although he usually treated prisoners-of-war humanely, he once ordered a group of Templar Knights to be massacred in cold blood while he personally observed the killing.
Moreover, Saladin’s example was not followed by many of his successors. As the Crusades dragged on, Muslim commanders became more ruthless. When the last Crusader stronghold of Acre fell in 1291, the commander al-Ashraf Khahil put the city’s entire Christian population to the sword.
