Saladin’s reputation as history’s greatest military officer
might dominate the history books but his chivalry and kindness as a human being
who avoided bloodshed as much as possible, greatly outshone his other accomplishments.
Born to no king, Saladin was the finest paladin of his time but he had no desire for power or
conquest and wanted to live his life as a scholar yet history had something else in mind for him.
Welcome to Nutty History, and today let’s look back at the weird parts of the life of Saladin,
the Islamic ruler remembered for his astonishing leadership in the second and third crusades.
Saladin wanted to spend time reading religion and philosophy but the war forced him to abandon
his ambitions and join his uncle Shikuh on an expedition to Egypt at the mere age of fourteen.
Saladin was born in the troubled times following the First Crusade. After the defeat of the
Byzantines, powerful Christians in Western Europe had decided to launch an invasion to reclaim the
land with the belief that God was on their side. These crusaders took advantage of, pillaged,
slaughtered, and immolated thousands. They also desecrated religious monuments in the name of god.
Jerusalem fell and the Christians founded the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem that was still existing
when Saladin was forced to become a soldier despite his ulterior career planning.
Whether Saladin joined army life intentionally or not, he proved his excellence as a soldier
and leader both on and off the battlefield. Shirkuh had taught and molded Saladin into the
competent officer he went on to become. So when in 1169, Shirkuh passed away,
Saladin was unanimously chosen to succeed him in command of Nur al-Din’s forces in Egypt.
This was a key moment in Saladin’s life for he would never be able to go back and live
the life of an ordinary scholar ever again. Saladin and his fellow Damascans entered Egypt
on the pretense of helping an ally, but they may have had more ambitious plans in mind. The young
Caliph of Egypt, al-Adid who had Nur al-Din’s support was also wary of Saladin’s popularity but
he couldn’t risk going against one of Nur al-Din’s most inspiring generals who won him the Battle
of al-Babein. However, al-Adid’s paranoia wasn’t without a foundation. Al-Adid thought by keeping
Saladin closer to himself he would be able to control the charismatic Sunni leader, so he made
Saladin his Vizier. Yes, just like Jaffar in the Aladdin movie. Clearly, al-Adid not only massively
undermined Saladin’s abilities but also made a huge blunder playing right into Saladin’s hands.
The reason being the Vizier position had a vacancy all of a sudden. It was due to Saladin having the
former Vizier exterminated. Al-Adid underestimated Saladin’s influence in Cairo and that mistake made
him the last ruler of the crumbling Fatimid dynasty. Allegedly, al-Adid’s advisors told
him that “there is no one weaker or younger” than Saladin. Yeah, right! After Al-Adid died in 1171,
Saladin took over Egypt and became the first ruler of the Ayyubid Sultanate. How did poor Al-Adid die
at the mere age of twenty all of a sudden? We both know the answer…Saladin you clever man.
Saladin became the leader of Egypt in prime time but he never liked the taste of the Nile’s water.
Since he had become the Vizier of Al-Adid’s regime, he hadn’t rested a single day peacefully.
There was always a target on his back and he had to keep his eyes open all the time. His ruthless
secret service helped weed out these conspirators but there was more to the politics of the middle
east than just finding out who was plotting…. and what. Mere months after his inauguration, Saladin
uncovered a plot on his life, orchestrated from within his own palace. However, the conspirators
learned the hard way that Saladin was not an easy target. He quickly captured the lead conspirator
and had the man executed. It sent a message to anyone who questioned his authority. But Saladin’s
problems were only beginning. The same day Saladin put the conspirators' heads to the sword, the army
of Egypt voiced against Saladin. They were unable to digest the fact that the man who they fought
against for so long was now their commander. Nearly fifty thousand soldiers announced a revolt,
yet Saladin was not quavered at all and his complex intelligence network took care of the
rebellion. After that tumultuous first year, no one in Egypt ever dared to rise against him again.
Although it would be wrong to say that Saladin felt safe thereafter as he began wearing chain
mail underneath his robes all the time from there on. Many Egyptian lords still distrusted Saladin,
and he made them pay for it. Al-Adid had no idea that under the pretense of cleaning up traitors
of the throne, Saladin was actually taking care of people who could be a threat to his position
and taking down Al-Adid’s supporters; one at a time. While he was the vizier, Saladin had many of
these dissenting lords secretly executed. It could not be a coincidence that Al-Adid’s untimely death
happened right after he found himself alone devoid of any friendly face in his court
except Saladin. When Saladin became the supreme leader of Egypt, tragedy struck him soon as he
lost his father Ayyub and his mentor Nur ad-Din in a matter of a year. These events hit Saladin
like an earthquake, but they also provided an opportunity. For the first time in his life,
Saladin was completely free to do whatever he chose. He was aching to go back to Damascus,
the only city that he could consider home, and an opportunity presented itself. A powerful emir from
Aleppo, Gumushtigin, decided the time was ripe to upgrade his status from king to emperor because of
a sudden power void. He set about conquering all nearby cities beginning with Damascus.
The city’s forces were outmatched and they needed help, so they turned to Saladin. What the people
of Damascus didn’t know was that Saladin himself was planning to annex his beloved city of Jasmine.
His only reservation was the respect he had for Nur ad-Din and he didn’t want to blemish
the legacy of his mentor but now Damascus itself had opened their gates for him.
Saladin finally returned to his home city and he would never let it go again. After claiming
Damascus, Saladin wasted no time carving the rest of Syria for himself. This put him right against
Gumushtigin and instead of meeting Saladin on the battlefield, the emir resorted to using assassins.
Nevertheless, when they failed, Gumushtigin allied with the Zengid dynasty who considered Saladin’s
presence in Syria a betrayal. As-Salih and Gumushtigin attacked several times
but they were callous and Saladin was ever so vigilant. He tried to offer peaceful negotiations
but was outright rejected by his enemies. They would end up regretting it as Saladin managed
to capture Damascus, Aleppo, Mosul, and Yemen from other Muslim rulers giving him control
over the entire Red Sea. Further, he married Nur ad-Din’s widow to legitimize his rule
and gain widespread Muslim support by proclaiming himself the leader of the holy war, dedicated to
defending Islam against Christianity. But he was more than just a paladin of Islam, he was also
a fantastic ruler who sincerely cared and looked after his people, no matter what class, religion,
or social status they come from. His idea of the ruling can be considered way ahead of its time.
As a ruler of Egypt, Saladin set the precedence for modernizing governance and worked hard to make
government work for everybody in his sovereignty. Right after he was crowned as governor of Egypt in
a lavish ceremony, he committed himself to the cause of Islamic resistance against crusades.
When Al-Adid was alive, Saladin’s loyalty was split three ways, to the young caliph al-Adid,
to the caliph in Baghdad, and Nur al-Din in Damascus. Meanwhile, the presence of so many
Syrians was raising tensions in the region too. To counter the problem, Saladin put his father
in charge of Alexandria and his elder brother in charge of the south. He rebuilt the navy of Egypt
and replaced Shiite officials with Sunnis, the men he could trust. He also built a secret
service that was ruthless against traitors and took care of Syrians without any reservations
despite the fact he himself arrived in Egypt with a Syrian army. After Al-Adid died in 1171 at the
mere age of 20, the early years of Saladin's rule in Egypt were very successful with the taxation
of the rich, alms given to the poor, and trade encouraged among all nationalities and religions.
In 1174, fortune shined once more in favor of Saladin as Nur al-Din, his mentor, collapsed
and died after playing a game of polo. Saladin turned his focus on Jerusalem and unifying Islamic
lands under one rule. His rule! This was a long journey for somebody who was born without a home.
By 1186, Saladin had become the head of the entire Muslim population of Syria, northern Mesopotamia,
Palestine, and Egypt. Known for his love of poetry and gardens, he also gained a reputation
as a generous and noble leader which definitely was bolstered by biographers and historians who
were recording his feats on his payroll. Ready to liberate Jerusalem from Western Christian rule,
Saladin launched a full-scale attack against Franks. He crushed their armies in the initial
Battle of Hattin near Tiberias, followed by a string of smaller victories which resulted
in Jerusalem surrendering on October 2nd, 1187. Though Saladin had planned to slay all Christians
in Jerusalem as revenge for the slaughter of Muslims in 1099, he had a change of heart
and agreed to let them purchase their freedom instead. For a child’s freedom, it was one coin,
for a woman it was five, and for a man, it was 10. For those who could not pay for their freedom,
the only option was to be held captive forever or to be sold into slavery. Saladin made many enemies
in his years on the campaign, but he made a lot of allies too. Often, when Saladin conquered a city,
he actually made life better for the citizens. His conquest of Jerusalem would trigger the
Third Crusade which would end up with a truce between him and King Richard the ‘Lionheart’
in 1192. Saladin would die a year later in his beloved gardens of Damascus worn out by
a lifelong campaign of wars and conquest. By the time of his death, he had given away much
of his personal wealth to his subjects, leaving behind not even enough to pay for his own burial.
Saladin was born during troubled times for his family. He was not royalty nor a prophesied prince
that was promised, he was just a son of a guard of Kurdish descent. His father was a warden in
the Iraqi city of Tikrit but when Saladin’s uncle, his father’s brother, slew a friend of the city’s
governor, he brought trouble to the entire family. Saladin’s father was not just fired from his job
but banished from the city; the family left Tikrit at night with Saladin’s mother going into labor
with Saladin about to be born. Even though Saladin was technically born into Tikrit, he wouldn’t
return to the city nor would he ever call it home. The family became sort of nomads traveling from
city to city never staying in one place for a long time and Saladin was brought up more on
wheels than staying in one place. However, during his teenage and youth years, he found a home
in Damascus. Little is known about his childhood but as Stanley Lane Poole wrote in his book about
Saladin, these years must have been happy years for him because there was nothing tragic to record
about him. Yet, it is well known that during his time in Damascus as a young dashing boy,
he fell in love with the city of Jasmine. His father and uncle both had found respect and good
earnings as elite leaders under the service of Imad al-Din Zangi, the powerful ruler of Syria.
It is hard to forget your first love and Damascus was indeed Saladin’s first love
and its place in his heart was unquestioned for his entire lifetime. Damascus was the only place
that Saladin ever considered as his true home. Before he would arrive in Egypt, he had traveled
the entire middle east and had learned a lot about warfare and honed his skills in combat despite
having very little interest in matters of military and war in his younger years. He also excelled in
studying mathematics, law, and religion and that helped shape him into more than just
a warmongering general in brutal and difficult times. He would return to Damascus as a conqueror
but when he left the city in his early years, he was nothing but a soldier in his uncle’s army.
His uncle Shirkuh at that time was serving Zangi’s son and heir, Nur al-Din, on a military expedition
to Egypt. Tell us in the comments, was Saladin the most generous emperor to ever live?
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