The Muslim leader Saladin founded the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt, united the Muslim world by force, defeated the occupation army of the Second Crusade, and fought the Third Crusade to a stalemate. Saladin gained fame throughout the Muslim world for his accomplishments and gained the respect of Westerners for his chivalry and culture. His military leadership provided the most for¬midable opposition to European efforts to occupy the Holy Land and made him the most influential Muslim leader of the twelfth century.
Saladin, whose Arabic name, Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, Saladin means “honor of the faith,” was born in Tikrit, Iraq, in 1138. His Kurdish father served as a senior officer in the army of Turko- Syrian leader Nur-ed-din, who opposed attempts by the European Christian crusade to free the Holy Land from “infidels.” Saladin, after studying theology in Damascus, followed his father into the military. By the time he reached the age of diirty, Saladin had distinguished himself as a small-unit leader and had advanced to a leadership position in Nured-din’s army.
In 1164, Saladin was part of die army that drove the Christians from Egypt and successfully occupied the entire country after four years of warfare. When Nur-ed-din died, Saladin assumed command of the fighting force and took control of the Egyptian government. In 1174 he abolished the governing body of Egypt and established his own Ayyubid dynasty. With family members and close friends in leadership positions, Saladin strengthened his army, formed a navy, and initiated military operations to bring all of the Middle East under his control.
During a dozen years of warfare, Saladin conquered Iraq and Syria. By 1186 he controlled the entire region from Egypt to Baghdad except for the Crusader states in Palestine. With the Christian invaders now surrounded, Saladin declared a jihad (holy war) and vowed to expel the Crusaders.
In 1187, Saladin led his army of twenty thousand, half of them mounted archers, into Palestine. Saladin’s general tactic was for the archers to harass the enemy flanks and attack identified weak points. After the archers” had broken enemy formations, horse-mounted swordsmen and infantrymen would assault and completely destroy the enemy. Luring the Crusaders to pursue him across a waterless wasteland until they were exhausted, Saladin turned and attacked at the Batde of Hattin on July 4. In short order, the Muslims killed or captured most of the Crusade army. Included in the capture was the Christian commander Guy of Lusignan and splinters of the “True Cross,” which the Crusaders carried for inspiration.
Saladin continued his offensive after Hattin and captured a succession of towns and fortresses before entering Jerusalem on October 2, 1187, restoring Muslim control over the city for the first time since the Crusader occupation in 1099. Unlike the bloodbath that had followed the Crusader triumph, Saladin treated his enemies with compassion, even freeing Guy on the promise that he would not again take up arms against the Muslims.
For all his goodwill, Saladin had not seen the last of the Eu-ropeans, for the army of the Third Crusade, led by RICHARD I, arrived determined this time to “liberate” the Holy Land. Richard’s massive army, supported by his navy in the Mediter¬ranean apd reinforced by Guy, who in an un-Christian manner had broken his promise and organized another army, captured the important city of Acre after a two-year siege.
Despite the loss, Saladin successively rallied his forces and stopped Richard’s advance on Jerusalem, destroying all food stocks and supplies that might help the Crusaders. Finally, on September 2, 1192, the two commanders met and agreed to a three-year armistice during which a narrow strip of Syrian coastal land would remain in the hands of the Crusaders. Saladin would control Jerusalem, but the Muslims would allow Christians uncontrolled access to holy sites in the city and to shrines throughout Palestine. In an era in which barbarism was much more prevalent than compassion, the agreement was amazingly fair and bloodless.
However, neither Saladin nor Richard, who returned to England, gave up their goal of singular control of the Holy Land. Both planned to renew hostilities at the end of the armistice, but Saladin would not get another opportunity to fight the Crusaders. After returning to Damascus, he contracted yellow fever and died on March 4, 1193, at age fifty-five. He was buried in a tomb next to the city’s great mosque. As a devout Muslim, Saladin had lived simply, leaving no great riches behind—only a dynasty that survived for several more generations as his sons and grandson succeeded him.
Saladin proved himself the greatest Muslim military leader of his period, and his unification of the Muslim world provided the only chance to combat successfully the invading European Christians. Saladin also jusdy administered the lands he conquered, earning the loyalty of his subjects.
In a period when religious fervor provided the impetus for widespread warfare, Saladin remained highly respected by his ene-mies, although they loathed the Muslim faith he represented. Hailed for his chivalry and his efforts to preserve culture, he even inspired literary works by his opponents, including The Talisman, a fictionalized account of the Third Crusade, by Sir Walter Scott