Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. A Sunni Muslim ruler of Kurdish origin, Saladin was an important figure of the Third Crusade and spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.
Saladin was sent to Fatimid Egypt in 1164, alongside his uncle Shirkuh, a Kurdish mercenary commander in service of the Zengid dynasty, on the orders of Nur al-Din Zengi. With their original purpose being to help restore Shawar as the vizier to the teenage Fatimid caliph al-Adid, a power struggle ensued between Shirkuh and Shawar after the latter was reinstated. Saladin, meanwhile, climbed the ranks of the Fatimid government by virtue of his military successes against Crusader assaults and his personal closeness to al-Adid. After Shawar was assassinated and Shirkuh died in 1169, al-Adid appointed Saladin as vizier. During his tenure, Saladin, a Sunni Muslim, began to undermine the Fatimid establishment; following al-Adid's death in 1171, he abolished the Cairo-based Fatimid Caliphate which was an Isma'ili (a branch within Shi'a Islam) dynasty, and realigned Egypt with the Baghdad-based Sunni Abbasid Caliphate.
In the following years, Saladin led forays against the Crusader states in Palestine, commissioned the successful conquest of Yemen, and staved off pro-Fatimid rebellions in Egypt. Not long after Nur ad-Din died in 1174, Saladin launched his conquest of Syria, peacefully entering Damascus at the request of its governor. By mid-1175, Saladin had conquered Hama and Homs, inviting the animosity of other Zengid lords, who were the official rulers of Syria's principalities; he subsequently defeated the Zengids at the Battle of the Horns of Hama in 1175 and was thereafter proclaimed the Sultan of Egypt and Syria by the Abbasid caliph al-Mustadi. Saladin launched further conquests in northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, escaping two attempts on his life by the Order of Assassins before returning to Egypt in 1177 to address local issues there. By 1182, Saladin had completed the conquest of Syria after capturing Aleppo but failed to take over the Zengid stronghold of Mosul.
Under Saladin's command, the Ayyubid army defeated the Crusaders at the decisive Battle of Hattin in 1187, capturing Jerusalem and re-establishing Muslim military dominance in the Levant. Although the Crusaders' Kingdom of Jerusalem persisted until the late 13th century, the defeat in 1187 marked a turning point in the Christian military effort against Muslim powers in the region. Saladin died in Damascus in 1193, having given away much of his personal wealth to his subjects; he is buried in a mausoleum adjacent to the Umayyad Mosque. Alongside his significance to Muslim culture, Saladin is revered prominently in Kurdish, Turkic, Arab and even Western culture. He has frequently been described as the most famous Kurdish figure in history.
Early life
Saladin was born in Tikrit in present-day Iraq. His personal name was "Yusuf"; "Salah ad-Din" is a laqab, an honorific epithet, meaning "Righteousness of the Faith".H. A. R. Gibb, "The Rise of Saladin", in A History of the Crusades, vol. 1: The First Hundred Years, ed. Kenneth M. Setton (University of Wisconsin Press, 1969). p. 563. His parents were of Kurdish Rawadiya ancestry,The medieval historian Ibn Athir relates a passage from another commander: "...both you and Saladin are Kurds and you will not let power pass into the hands of the Turks." (Minorsky (1953): )
The 13th-century biographer Ibn Khallikan wrote, "Historians agree in stating that [Saladin's] father and family belonged to Duwin. ... They were Kurds and belonged to the Rawādiya [sic], which is a branch of the great tribe al-Hadāniya": (Minorsky (1953), p. 124.) and had originated from the village of Ajdanakan near the city of Dvin in central Armenia. He was the son of a Kurdish mercenary Najm al-Din Ayyub. The Rawadiya tribe from which his family hailed was originally of Arab descent but later became Kurdicized.
In 1132, the defeated army of Imad al-Din Zengi, Atabeg of Mosul, found their retreat blocked by the Tigris River opposite the fortress of Tikrit, where Saladin's father, Najm al-Din Ayyub served as the warden. Ayyub provided ferries for the army and gave them refuge in Tikrit. Mujahid al-Din Bihruz, a former Greek slave who had been appointed as the military governor of northern Mesopotamia for his service to the Seljuks, reprimanded Ayyub for giving Zengi refuge, and in 1137 banished Ayyub from Tikrit after his brother Asad al-Din Shirkuh killed a friend of Bihruz. According to Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad, Saladin was born the same night his family left Tikrit. In 1139, Ayyub and his family moved to Mosul, where Imad al-Din Zengi acknowledged his debt and appointed Ayyub commander of his fortress in Baalbek. After the death of Zengi in 1146, his son, Nur al-Din Zengi, became the regent of Aleppo and the leader of the Zengids.
Saladin, who now lived in Damascus, was reportedly fond of the city, but information on his early childhood is scarce. About education, Saladin wrote, "Children are brought up in the way in which their elders were brought up". According to his biographers, Anne-Marie Eddé and al-Wahrani, Saladin was able to answer questions on Euclid, the Almagest, arithmetic, and law, but this was an academic ideal. It was his knowledge of the Qur'an and the "sciences of religion" that linked him to his contemporaries; several sources claim that during his studies, he was more interested in religious studies than joining the military. Another factor which may have affected his interest in religion was that, during the First Crusade, Jerusalem was taken by the Christians. In addition to Islam, Saladin knew the genealogies, biographies, and histories of the Arabs, as well as the bloodlines of Arabian horses. More significantly, he knew the Hamasah of Abu Tammam by heart. He spoke Kurdish and Arabic, and knew Turkish and Persian.
Early expeditions
Saladin's military career began under the tutelage of his paternal uncle Shirkuh, a prominent military commander under Nur al-Din, the Zengid emir of Damascus and Aleppo and the most influential teacher of Saladin. In 1163, Shawar, the vizier to al-Adid, who was the Fatimid caliph at the time, had been driven out of Egypt by his rival Dirgham, a member of the powerful Banu Ruzzaik tribe. He asked for military backing from Nur al-Din, who complied, and in 1164, sent Shirkuh to aid Shawar in his expedition against Dirgham. Saladin, at age 26, went along with them. After Shawar was successfully reinstated as vizier, he demanded that Shirkuh withdraw his army from Egypt for a sum of 30,000 gold dinars, but he refused, insisting it was Nur al-Din's will that he remain. Saladin's role in this expedition was minor, and it is known that he was ordered by Shirkuh to collect stores from Bilbais prior to its siege by a combined force of Crusaders and Shawar's troops.
After the sacking of Bilbais, the Crusader–Egyptian force and Shirkuh's army were to engage in the Battle of al-Babein on the desert border of the Nile, just west of Giza. Saladin played a major role, commanding the right wing of the Zengid army, while a force of Kurds commanded the left, and Shirkuh was stationed in the centre. Muslim sources at the time, however, put Saladin in the "baggage of the centre" with orders to lure the enemy into a trap by staging a feigned retreat. The Crusader force enjoyed early success against Shirkuh's troops, but the terrain was too steep and sandy for their horses, and commander Hugh of Caesarea was captured while attacking Saladin's unit. After scattered fighting in little valleys to the south of the main position, the Zengid central force returned to the offensive; Saladin joined in from the rear.
The battle ended in a Zengid victory, and Saladin is credited with having helped Shirkuh in one of the "most remarkable victories in recorded history" according to Ibn al-Athir, although more of Shirkuh's men were killed and the battle is considered by most sources as not a total victory. Saladin and Shirkuh moved towards Alexandria where they were welcomed, given money and arms, and provided a base. Faced by a superior Crusader–Egyptian force attempting to besiege the city, Shirkuh split his army. He and the bulk of his force withdrew from Alexandria, while Saladin was left with the task of guarding the city, where he was besieged.
In Egypt
Vizier of Egypt
Shirkuh was in a power struggle over Egypt with Shawar and Amalric I of Jerusalem in which Shawar requested Amalric's assistance. In 1169, Shawar was reportedly assassinated by Saladin, and Shirkuh died later that year. Following his death, a number of candidates were considered for the role of vizier to al-Adid, most of whom were ethnic Kurds. Their ethnic solidarity came to shape the Ayyubid family's actions in their political career. Saladin and his close associates were wary of Turkish influence. On one occasion, Isa al-Hakkari, a Kurdish lieutenant of Saladin, urged a candidate for the viziership, Emir Qutb al-Din al-Hadhbani, to step aside by arguing that "both you and Saladin are Kurds and you will not let the power pass into the hands of the Turks". Nur al-Din chose a successor for Shirkuh, but al-Adid appointed Saladin to replace Shawar as vizier.
The reasoning behind the Shia caliph al-Adid's selection of Saladin, a Sunni, varies. Ibn al-Athir claims that the caliph chose him after being told by his advisers that "there is no one weaker or younger" than Saladin, and "not one of the emirs [commanders] obeyed him or served him". However, according to this version, after some bargaining, he was eventually accepted by the majority of the emirs. Al-Adid's advisers were also suspected of promoting Saladin in an attempt to split the Syria-based Zengids. Al-Wahrani wrote that Saladin was selected because of the reputation of his family in their "generosity and military prowess". Imad ad-Din wrote that after the brief mourning period for Shirkuh, during which "opinions differed", the Zengid emirs decided upon Saladin and forced the caliph to "invest him as vizier". Although positions were complicated by rival Muslim leaders, the bulk of the Syrian commanders supported Saladin because of his role in the Egyptian expedition, in which he gained a record of military qualifications.
Inaugurated as vizier on 26 March, Saladin repented "wine-drinking and turned from frivolity to assume the dress of religion", according to Arabic sources of the time. Having gained more power and independence than ever before in his career, he still faced the issue of ultimate loyalty between al-Adid and Nur al-Din. Later in the year, a group of Egyptian soldiers and emirs attempted to assassinate Saladin, but having already known of their intentions thanks to his intelligence chief Ali ibn Safyan, he had the chief conspirator, Naji, Mu'tamin al-Khilafa—the civilian controller of the Fatimid Palace—arrested and killed. The day after, 50,000 Black African soldiers from the regiments of the Fatimid army opposed to Saladin's rule, along with Egyptian emirs and commoners, staged a revolt. By 23 August, Saladin had decisively quelled the uprising, and never again had to face a military challenge from Cairo.