Saladin
You go too far, Yüsuf (Saladin); you
overstep all limits. You are but a servant of Nür al-Din, and now you seek to grasp power for
yourself alone? But make no mistake, for we who have raised you out of nothingness shall be able
to return you to it!
Some years later, this warning delivered to Saladin by the dignitaries of Aleppo would seem absurd. But in 1174, when the new master of Cairo was just beginning to emerge as the principal figure of the Arab East, his merits were not yet evident for all to see. In Nür al-Din's entourage, both while he lived and just after his death, no one even spoke the name of Yüsuf any more. Words like "The upstart", "the ingrate", "the disloyal", or, most often, "the insolent" were used instead.
Saladin himself generally shunned insolence; but his luck was surely insolent. And it was just this that annoyed his adversaries. For this 36-year-old Kurdish officer had never been an ambitious man, and those who knew him from the beginning felt sure that he would have been quite content to be no more than an emir among others had fate not propelled him to the forefront of the scene.
He had accompanied his uncle to Egypt somewhat reluctantly and his role in the conquest had been minimal. Nevertheless, just because of his self-effacement, he was drawn to the summit of power. He himself had not dared to proclaim the downfall of the Fatimids, but when he was forced to do so, he found himself heir to the richest of Muslim dynasties. And when Nür al-Din resolved to put him in his place, Yüsuf had no need even to resist: his master suddenly died, leaving as his successor an 11-year-old adolescent, al-Sälih.
On 11 July 1174, less than two months later, Amalric also died, the victim of dysentery, just when he was preparing yet another invasion of Egypt, this time with the support of a powerful Sicilian fleet. He bequeathed the Kingdom of Jerusalem to his son Baldwin IV, a young man of thirteen afflicted by the most terrible of maledictions: leprosy. Throughout the Orient, there was but a single monarch who could stand in the way of the irresistible rise of Saladin, and that was Manuel, emperor of the Rüm, who indeed intended to invade Egypt in conjunction with the Franj. But then in September 1176, as if to complete the series of gifts fate bestowed upon Saladin, the powerful Byzantine army, which had checked Nür al-Din for nearly fifteen years, was crushed by Kilij Arslan II, the grandson of the first Kilij Arslan, in the battle of M˙rioke-phalon. Manuel died soon afterwards, condemning the Christian empire in the East to sink into anarchy.
Can one blame Saladin's panegyrists for detecting the hand of Providence in this succession of unexpected events? Yüsuf himself never claimed credit for his good fortune. He always took care to thank, after God, "my uncle Shirküh and "my master Nür al-Din. It is true that the greatness of Saladin lay also in his modesty.
One day when Saläh al-Din was tired and was trying to rest, one of his Mamlüks came to him and handed him a paper to sign. "I am exhausted", said the sultan, "come back in an hour." But the man insisted. He fairly stuck the page in Saläh al-Din's face, saying, "Let the master sign!" The sultan replied, "But I have no inkwell here." He was seated at the entrance to his tent, and the Mamlük remarked that there was an inkwell inside. "There is an inkwell at the back of the tent", he cried, which meant, in effect, that he was ordering Saläh al-Din to go and get the inkwell himself, no less. The sultan turned, saw the inkwell, and said, "By God, you're right." He reached back, bracing himself with his left hand, and grasped the inkwell in his right. Then he signed the paper.
This incident, related by Bahä' al-Din, Saladin's personal secretary and biographer, is a striking illustration of what made him so different from the monarchs of his time, indeed of all times: he was able to remain humble with the humble, even after he had become the most powerful of the powerful. Chroniclers, of course, evoke his courage, his sense of justice, and his zeal for the jihäd, but through their writings a more touching, more human, image emerges.
Amin Maalour, "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes", p176
In two years Saladin united Egypt with the Abbasid Caliphate. When Nur ed-Din died in 1174,
Saladin began his expansion of territories. In just twelve years he had Damascus, Syria,
Alleppo, Mawsil and Iraq. After a three month battle he captured Jerusalem in 1187.
Saladin died March 3rd 1193 at the age of 55. In February of that same year Saladin rode out to
meet some pilgrims returning from Mecca. That evening he became bed ridden due to pain and fever
and in a number of days fell into a
comma from which he never returned.
