Saladin

by A R Azzam

  Tripoli, 'a tall thin man, dark-haired and dark-skinned, his face dominated

  by a great nose'," who spoke Arabic fluently and who understood the way

  of the MusUms as well as any of the Franks, was appointed as regent to the

  young king.

  The power struggle in Syria

  It was apparent to all that the Kingdom of Jerusalem was seriously threat-

  ened by a resurgent Islam. ^^ As early as 1175 William of Tyre had recog-

  nised that Saladin was unlike the other Musfim leaders and was clear about

  the threat posed by him: 'Any increase of Saladin's power was cause for sus-

  picions in our eyes . . . For he was a wise man in counsel, vafiant in war, and

  generous beyond measure'. He then advocated that the Franks support al-

  Salih in Aleppo 'not for his own sake, but to encourage him as an adversary

  against Saladin'. Indeed, the Franks' Syrian policy in the following years was

  entirely directed towards preventing Saladin making himself master of the

  Zengid kingdoms of Aleppo and Mosul. Already Edessa had been lost, and

  Nur al-Din's victory at Harim had rendered Antioch impotent to offer any

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  7: T H E P R I Z E OF SYRIA

  aid. This effectively meant that to prevent Muslim encirclement the Franks

  desperately needed military support, and the first place they sought help

  from was Western Europe. From 1160 onwards when, with the rise of Nur

  al-Din, it was becoming clear that the Muslim revanche was gathering an

  ominous pace, letters and envoys were despatched to Europe appealing

  for a new crusade. Admittedly some of these appeals found a favourable

  response from individuals who led their own private crusades, such as Philip

  of Flanders, but what the settlers urgently demanded was a large-scale

  crusade and they fruitlessly focused their appeals on Louis VII of France

  and Heniy II of England. At the same time the Latin Kingdom turned

  its attention to Byzantium. King Baldwin III chose to develop close ties

  with Constantinople and in 1158 married a member of the Greek imperial

  family. Nine years later Amalric did the same. In fact Amalric's dramatic

  journey to Constantinople - the first time the Latin King of Jerusalem had

  left his domains - was a sign of how desperate the situation had become. He

  was received with great cordiality and he recognised Manuel, the Byzantine

  emperor, as his overlord.^^ There is no doubt that this alliance helped the

  Franks; Nur al-Din, fearful of Byzantine reprisals became more cautious in

  pressing home his advantages more aggressively. Nevertheless, William of

  Tyre wrote that the Franks were under such pressure that it was as if they

  were being ground between two millstones. As time would show, the union

  of Damascus and Cairo was a situation which represented the deadliest

  threat of all to the existence of Latin Syria.

  Meanwhile, for Ibn al-Muqaddam in Damascus the situation was pre-

  carious, for the city was dangerously exposed and could not survive long

  in this sea of Syrian anarchy. On the one hand it faced the threat of an

  Aleppan-Mosuli pact and on the other that of the Franks. Saladin's inten-

  tions were unlaiown to Ibn al-Muqaddam, but his character and back-

  ground were not. Damascus was, after all, Saladin's city; he had grown

  up there and of course his father had played a prominent role in the city's

  political life and had, by all accounts, been greatly respected. We have seen

  earlier that Kamal al-Din al-Shahrazuri had warned against ignoring him

  and it is of interest that Kamal al-Din was one of the first people that Saladin

  paid a visit to after his entry into the city. There was, of course, a danger

  involved in inviting an Egyptian force to Damascus and Ibn al-Muqaddam

  would have been well aware of this, but the military and political realities

  on the ground and the necessity to ensure that Damascus was not left

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  SALAD I N

  unguarded forced his hand, and so he wrote to Egypt and to Saladin

  and, in doing so, was the first person to invite him to Syria. This was the

  opportunity that Saladin was waiting for and, his usual caution thrown to

  the wind, he now acted with remarkable speed. Taldng with him only 700

  riders, he set oflfin October 1174 and reached the outskirts of Damascus by

  the end of the month. There he was greeted by a few dignitaries, among

  whom was his cousin and Shirkuh's son, Nasr al-Din. The Syrians were sur-

  prised by the speed of Saladin's action and were disturbed by the fact that

  he appeared to travel with so few men. When Shams al-Din of Busra, who

  was another of those who had invited Saladin to Syria and who as a result

  had tied his fate accordingly, enquired of al-Qadi al-Fadil how much money

  Saladin had brought with him, assuring him that if he had a lot of money

  then Syria would be his, al-Qadi al-Fadil replied that Saladin carried with

  him only 50,000 dinars. At that point a shocked Shams al-Din struck his

  head in horror and exclaimed, 'You are lost and you have destroyed us!' The

  truth, as al-Qadi al-Fadil wrote, was Saladin only had 10,000 dinars.

  So how does one explain Saladin's hasty actions, especially since it

  seemed to go so much against his character.> The temptation is to believe

  that the allure of Syria was too strong to resist and that he rushed in, but

  that would be to misjudge Saladin, who was rarely hasty in his decisions.

  The fact was it was a bold and brilliant move, for although he did not loiow

  what reaction he would receive in Syria, he did know Syria as well as any-

  • one. Undoubtedly he saw himself as the spiritual and ideological heir of Nur

  al-Din and he needed to act accordingly. His aim therefore was not to

  defeat the Zengid house by military force but by moral persuasion. He knew

  that he needed Nur al-Din's army to side with him. Nur al-Din's men had

  split up following his death and about two-thirds of his army went to serve

  al-Salih in Aleppo while the remainder was placed under the command of

  Ibn al-Muqaddam in Damascus. They were the key, for they were fiercely

  loyal to Nur al-Din and to his son, and Saladin had to win them over. To

  use an unfortunate modern parlance, he sought to win Syrian hearts and

  minds and the way to do that was to create an irresistible moral and psy-

  chological current in his favour. Morality needed of course to be softened

  by liberality and generosity, for the Syrians were nothing if not traders -

  after all Shams al-Din's first question to al-Qadi al-Fadil was how much

  money Saladin had brought with him. The fact that Saladin had brought

  with him littie money was in reality not much of an issue, since credit

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  7: T H E P R I Z E OF SYRIA

  transfers (Icnown as hawala) were common. What mattered above all was

  the manner of Saladin's entiy into Syria: not as a foreign invader at the head

  of an army, but as a natural son returning home. He would march into

  Damascus not by force but in triumph, and as he approached the city he cal-

  culated more and more amirs would flock to his side. There was in reality

  litde haste in Saladin's planning and much thought.

  Saladin marches into Syria, and th
e challenge

  of Aleppo

  In the meantime, Damascus opened its gates to Saladin. His first action was

  to pray in the Umayyad mosque, while his second was to spend the night in

  his father's house: two calculatedly symbolic acts. At once the markets were

  ordered to reopen and looters were warned of severe punishment. Money

  was also spent liberally to win people's favours. The result was what Saladin

  had hoped for - no serious opposition, and a wary welcome from the city

  where he had grown up. So far things had progressed as he had anticipated,

  but he clearly understood two things: first, that having embarked on the

  Syrian adventure he could not stop at Damascus, since although it was the

  key to southern Syria, without controlling Aleppo it would remain vulner-

  able to attacks from the north; and second, that this campaign would not be

  easy. Saladin was under no illusion that Aleppo and Mosul would resist, but

  what he may not have realised was how personally dangerous it would turn

  out to be. The problem was that the Zengids of Aleppo and Mosul regarded

  Saladin as litde more than a usurper and his claim to be Nur al-Din's spiri-

  tual and ideological heir was dismissed with disdain by Nur al-Din's family

  and by his mamluks - the Nuriya - who remained ferociously loyal to their

  master's memory. A dog that barks at his master was one of the many insults

  levelled at Saladin. He was also, and this is an important point, not a Turk

  but a Kurd in an age when the Turkish princes of Syria - and of Mosul in

  particular - regarded the Kurds as decidedly inferior. In a way his position

  was not dissimilar to that of Napoleon - a Corsican - in post-revolutionary

  France.

  The first signs of trouble appeared while Saladin was still in Damascus.

  An embassy from Aleppo arrived, headed by Qutb al-Din Inal, a man

  Saladin knew well, for he had accompanied him on Shirkuh's final expedi-

  tion to Egypt. The tense meeting did not go well. Pointing to his sword.

  • 109 •

  SALAD I N

  Qutb al-Din warned Saladin to return from whence he had come. Aleppo

  did not welcome him to Syria, he declared, since he was an aggressor who

  had come to betray his master. To this Saladin responded that he had come

  to unify Syria and to oversee the upbringing of al-Salih until he reached the

  age of maturity. Nevertheless, it was clear that Saladin was shaken by the

  hostility shown and this is reflected in two letters he wrote subsequently.

  The first was to Ibn Naja in Egypt, in which he insisted that 'our move was

  not made in order to snatch a Idngdom for ourselves, but to set up the stan-

  dard of the holy war'. He then wrote of the 'men who had become enemies,

  preventing the accomplishment of our purpose with regard to this war'.

  Interestingly the second letter was written to Qutb al-Din al-Nishapuri, and

  in it he complained about the 'feeble minds' which opposed him. The recipi-

  ents of the two letters were the two men who, it could be fairly said, exerted

  the most spiritual influence on Saladin, and the letters need to be seen as

  attempts to win their approval. The attempt to justify his acdons is also

  indicative that Saladin was well aware of the criticisms that were being

  levelled at him.

  It was crucial that the momentum gained on the march to Damascus be

  carried on. Above all Saladin could not allow himself to fall into the trap of

  besieging cities and thereby be perceived as an invader. His hope was that,

  like its southern sister, Aleppo would open its gates without the spilling of

  blood. Saladin also knew that he had to move fast so as to build up a

  momentum, and so within 40 days of Damascus opening its gates to him,

  he was camping outside Homs, which lies halfway between Aleppo and

  Damascus. Homs, it should be recalled, had been granted to Shirkuh by

  Nur al-Din, who had then removed it from Shirkuh's son following his

  father's death and granted it to Fakhr al-Din al-Zafarani. Understandably,

  Saladin was anxious as he approached Homs, since he could not have Icnown

  whether the city would welcome him. He had no need to worry, as Fakhr

  al-Din joined his service. Fakhr al-Din was important for another reason,

  since he was one of Nur al-Din's senior army commanders and it was they,

  above all, whom Saladin needed to win over. On 10 December 1174 Homs

  fell to Saladin and once again money was distributed liberally to smooth any

  disruptions. Saladin then turned his attention to Hama, which was held by

  someone whom he Icnew very well, for Izz al-Din Jurdik had once helped

  him in the arrest - and possible slaying - of Shawar in Egypt. The two men

  met and it was agreed that Hama would be surrendered to Saladin and that

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  7: T H E P R I Z E OF SYRIA

  the citadel should be held by Jurdik's brother. As for Jurdik himself, he

  would travel to Aleppo to test the waters and see if there was any room for

  negotiations. Clearly Saladin had faith in him and entrusted him on this

  diplomatic mission, but it went terribly wrong, for no sooner had Jurdik

  arrived in Aleppo than he was arrested and thrown in a dungeon. Never-

  theless Saladin remained determined that Aleppo would welcome him and

  he was confident enough to pun that he only had to do the milldng (halab

  is the Arabic word for both milk and of the city) and Aleppo will be his. He

  blew the city well, perhaps not as well as Damascus where he had grown

  up, but he had travelled north on many occasions with his uncle Shirkuh,

  who had served as Nur al-Din's deputy there. He also loiew that the city

  which the Franks had never been able to capture would not be easily entered

  by force, for its fortifications were formidable. The main problem that con-

  fronted Saladin was that Aleppo had no intention of surrendering. And so

  when he finally reached Aleppo, in the first days of 1175, he found a city

  defiant and ready to resist. It was a cold welcome in the midst of a bitterly

  cold winter and the incessant rain lashed against the tents surrounding the

  city and extinguished any fires which the men had lit in an attempt to stay

  warm.

  As long as the Aleppans controlled the young al-Salih, they Imew that

  they had a strong moral claim. Nur al-Din's son was now brought out to

  address the crowds and when he burst into tears it fi.irther strengthened the

  Aleppan resolve to resist. Clearly however the tears of the boy would not be

  enough to defend the city and Aleppo began to intrigue in order to stop

  Saladin's advance. There was the fear that the Sunnis would hand over the

  city to Saladin, and so a rapprochement was made with the Shiites in the

  city, for their influence was considerable - one recalls how they had strongly

  opposed Nur al-Din's construction of madrasas. Now once again the Shiite

  call to prayer was heard in Aleppo and the symbolism of that at a time when

  Saladin had extinguished it in Egypt was certainly not lost on him. In

  Aleppo, as in Mosul, the strict principles of the revived Sunnism which Nur

  al-Din had imposed were fast unravelling. But the Shiites were not the only

  party towards whom the Aleppans made advances; they also contacte
d the

  Franks and Raymond of Tripoli, who was naturally receptive to the Aleppan

  rapprochement. The result was that Saladin faced a mirror image of what

  had confronted Nur al-Din. Once, Nur al-Din had controlled northern

  Syria and Damascus and had struggled to control Egypt, now the situation

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  SALAD I N

  had reversed itself and Saladin controlled Egypt and Damascus but strug-

  gled to bring Aleppo and Mosul under his control. At the same time the situ-

  ation had also reversed itself for the Franks, for they had endeavoured with

  great fortitude to prevent Egypt falling into the Sunni orbit. Now they had

  to come to the aid of Aleppo and Mosul and ensure that Saladin's policy of

  encirclement was thwarted.

  Despite Shiite reconciliation and Prankish rapprochement, the Aleppans

  still feared Saladin and they decided to eliminate him once and for all. So

  a secret message was sent to Rashid al-Din Sinan, the legendaiy head of

  the Ismaili Assassins - one which was accompanied naturally by financial

  inducements and which asked for Saladin's head. By this time Saladin was

  encamped south of Aleppo. It was the custom to hold communal meals near

  his tent, where the amirs and distinguished visitors would drop by to sit with

  him for a few minutes. As it happened - and to Saladin's great fortune -

  Khumartekin, the lord of a nearby land, was in Saladin's company when he

  spotted a group of men approaching the tent. At once he recognised them

  as belonging to the Assassins and he raised the alarm. The Assassins rapidly

  attacked Saladin, who was surrounded by his amirs as others rushed to his

  aid. During the furious and bloody melee, one of the Assassins broke

  through the ranks and came face to face with Saladin, but as he raised his

  sword he was slain by one of the amirs. The Aleppans had come a sword-

  strike away from ridding themselves of their most feared foe. When the

  fight was over bodies were strewn among the tent, among them that of

  Khumartekin. Saladin himself was unhurt, but greatly shaken by the force of

  the attack. If he did not know it then, he now understood how dangerous

  his foray in Syria would be. Aleppo was clearly not going to open its gates

  as Damascus had done. At the same time, Saladin calculated that if the city