Saladin

by A R Azzam

  1186 the illness had worsened and Saladin was no longer able to sit up and

  was barely conscious. Imad al-Din took Saladin's last will and testament, for

  it was feared that he was at death's door. The news of Saladin's illness spread

  rapidly from Mosul to Cairo, and a sense of unrest and anxiety gripped

  people, for it was uncertain what would unfold next. Al-Adil rushed over

  from Aleppo - a distance of 200 Idlometres (125 miles) and hazardous in

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  SALADIN

  winter - with his own personal physician, while Saladin's other brother

  Tughteldn was in distant Yemen. The question on everyone's lips was who

  would succeed Saladin? His eldest son, al-Afdal, was 15 years old and in

  Egypt, and he was under the guardianship of Taqi ul-Din. But would Taqi

  ul-Din, having tasted the power and wealth of Egypt, be able to relinquish

  it and content himself with being a guardian? In a moment of lucidity

  Saladin had tried to get his amirs to pledge their allegiance to his son, but

  that proved fruitless, for few were prepared to do so. Once, a few years

  earlier, a young boy al-Salih, Nur al-Din's son, was unable to hold together

  what his father had buih; now it was clear that another would also not be

  up to the task. If Saladin had any illusions that his relations would sink their

  differences, his long fever at Harran taught him otherwise.®

  Saladin and al-Qadi al-Fadil: renewed vows

  Not surprisingly, both al-Qadi al-Fadil and Imad al-Din al-Isfahani viewed

  Saladin's illness in providential terms, so as soon as he began slowly to

  recover, they became determined not to let the opportunity slip. Mildly

  chastising Saladin, Imad al-Din wrote that that siclmess was sent by God to

  'turn away sins . . . and to wake him from the sleep of forgetfiilness', and he

  surrounded him with preachers and jurists, although Saladin objected to the

  presence of jurists for he wearied of their arguing. Al-Qadi al-Fadil was even

  more direct. When Saladin had returned to Damascus and was convalescing,

  he visited him and urged him to vow to God that if he recovered he would

  never fight Muslims again but would devote himself to the holy war. Saladin

  then took al-Qadi al-Fadil's hand and repeated the vow, adding that he

  would also slay Reynald of Chatillon, and with this symbolic holding of

  hands the alliance between the military and the scholar was reforged. Since

  the autumn of 1174 Saladin had spent some 13 months fighting the Franks

  and 33 against his fellow Muslims.^ But he never campaigned east of the

  Euphrates again and within a year of his recovery the Latin Kingdom had

  been devastated and Jerusalem regained.

  Al-Qadi al-Fadil had been critical of the truce which Saladin had agreed

  with Raymond of Tripoli, for Saladin had been under no pressure to enter

  into it. In fact the truce served Saladin well, for during his illness, and with

  Damascus vulnerable, the Franks respected it. So when loiights who had

  responded to Heraclius arrived in Palestine to fight, they were not allowed

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  10: S A I L I N G C L O S E T O DISASTER; S A L A D I N ' S I L L N E S S AT H A R R A N

  to. Now as Saladiii's health improved, so did his fortune. Al-Pahiawan of

  Azerbaijan - Mosul's ally - died in the first months of 1186, and with his

  death Izz al-Din of Mosul lost his own ally and found himself isolated. The

  time for a rapprochement with Saladin was opportune. Mosul's ambassador

  to Saladin was Baha ul-Din Ibn Shaddad, who wrote that 'When the news

  of the sultan's illness was received in Mosul we saw that it was an opportun-

  ity not to be neglected, for we Icnew how readily that prince lent his ear to

  an appeal, and how tender hearted he was'. Ibn Shaddad was commanded

  to negotiate an agreement - it was symbolic that he would end up entering

  Saladin's semce and semng him as his army judge and biographer. On the

  day of Arafat, which commemorated the pilgrimage, Saladin finally swore

  the oath that bound him to peacefiil terms with Mosul. It was Ibn Shaddad

  who administered the oath and who also made al-Adil swear. As the Mosuli

  delegation was taking its leave, news reached Saladin of the death of

  Muhammad, the son of Shirkuh. Since Saladin was still too ill to sit up for

  long, al-Adil sat to receive the condolences. The treaty - concluded on

  4 March 1186 - obliged Izz al-Din to recognise Saladin as his overlord

  and provide him with troops against the Franks. Saladin responded with his

  usual generosity and secured Izz al-Din's position. And with this agree-

  ment, Saladin had finally achieved what he had set out to do in 1174: he

  had obtained both the minimum goal of his campaign and one of the major

  goals of his reign.® Although 12 years had passed, finally Mosul, Aleppo,

  Damascus and Cairo had agreed to supply troops and the encirclement of

  the Franks was complete.

  By the end of May 1186 Saladin was back in Damascus and was greeted

  by the news of the death of the young Baldwin V, who had died in Acre.

  His death - sudden but not unexpected, for he had been a sicldy child - pre-

  cipitated a crisis in the kingdom. It meant the succession of Guy of Lusignan

  who - through his marriage to Baldwin IV's sister - was the rightful heir.

  Opinion, however, was divided; though it was agreed that Sibyl had the best

  claim to the throne and that accordingly Guy should be king, others felt

  he was unsuitable, since Baldwin IV had so assiduously tried to bar him

  and annul his sister's marriage.' Finally, after some chicanery, Sybil and

  Guy were crowned, although Raymond of Tripoli refused to attend the

  coronation and retired to Tiberias. Baldwin of Ibelin, who detested Guy,

  also refused to pay homage to the new king and left the kingdom to take

  service with Bohemond of Antioch. Saladin had always been well-informed

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  SALADIN

  of events taldiig place in the Latin Kingdom, and one assumes he would

  have closely followed the events that followed the death of Baldwin V.

  But what took place next would nevertheless have come as a surprise.

  When Raymond of Tripoli refused to pay homage to Guy, the Idng was

  determined to march on Tiberias to confront him. This alarmed Raymond

  greatly and, though the following events are not clear, it appears that he

  made contact with Saladin - via his nephew, Taqi ul-Din - and agreed to

  come to terms with the Muslims. This led to Guy withdrawing his forces,

  because he was not prepared to go to war with Saladin while his Idngdom

  was so divided.^" In any case, the truce still held, although it was due to

  expire in Easter 1187. Why Raymond chose to approach Saladin is a ques-

  tion that has puzzled historians. Although he owed no allegiance to Guy,

  whom he viewed as a parvenu and usurper, he did owe loyalty to the king-

  dom, and by allowing Saladin's troops to garrison in Tiberias he was betray-

  ing his fellow Franks.^^ As a fourth generation inhabitant of Outremer, he

  was fluent in Arabic and counted many Muslims among his friends. Imad

  al-Din al-Isfahani even went as far as to write that had he not been fearful

  of his fellow Christians, he would have become a Muslim
. Accustomed to

  the political game that had been played out in Syria for decades, he had

  perhaps assumed that Saladin would support his claim to the kingship. What

  he had not understood - until it was too late - was that Saladin was not

  intent on playing games. The best that can be said about Raymond was that

  he was being short-sighted, for Saladin was more dangerous as an ally than

  Guy could possibly be as an enemy.^^ At first Saladin suspected a ruse, but

  he quicldy saw the potential of splitting the Prankish forces. In response

  therefore to Raymond's approach, he released a number of Raynlond's

  loiights whom he was holding.

  Then in the winter of 1186, with the truce running out, Reynald of

  Chatillon attacked a caravan travelling from Cairo to Damascus. Contrary

  to what has over the years been believed, Saladin's sister was not on the

  caravan. Nevertheless Reynald's act was shocking, and Saladin immediately

  protested to Guy about this contravention of the truce. Saladin demanded

  that all prisoners be released and all property returned. Guy appealed to

  Reynald to make restitution, but Reynald refused to do so, claiming that he

  was king in his lands in the same way that Guy was king in his, and that he

  had no truce with Saladin. The fact was that, at the time when the Christians

  were least able to combat the Muslims, Reynald chose to break the truce.

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  10: S A I L I N G C L O S E T O DISASTER: S A L A D I N ' S I L L N E S S AT H A R R A N

  On the face of it his action appears senseless and deliberately provocative,

  and Reynald is often portrayed as the enfant terrible in the unfolding drama, but the truth is more nuanced and a degree of political sophistication needs

  to be added to Reynald's actions.^' It had become increasingly clear that

  Saladin had no intention of renewing the truce, which was to expire in

  Easter 1187. He had returned from his illness determined to fight - as he

  had vowed to al-Qadi al-Fadil - and now an army was slowly mustering

  with forces from Egypt, Syria, the Euphrates and the Tigris. No Muslim

  leader in living memory had gathered such a large force. Of this fact Reynald

  was undoubtedly aware, and was tempted to strike first. He may even have

  supposed that Saladin was using the peace to move troops through Prankish

  territory and have considered this a breach of the truce. Undoubtedly the

  seizure of the caravan shocked Saladin, but the reality was that war was

  about to be resumed - and both parties understood this. In any case, it was

  Raymond of Tripoli who had agreed the truce with Saladin, and Reynald

  detested him and considered him a traitor. Nor did Reynald view the

  breaking of the truce as an act of insubordination towards the ruler of

  Jerusalem,'^ for he was already in the process of building a state within a

  state and would eventually have pressed for independence from the rule of

  Jerusalem, like Tripoli or Antioch.

  Despite Reynald's provocation, Saladin did not break the truce. It was

  now the Muslim month of Muharram, when the pilgrims would be return-

  ing from Mecca, and in March 1187 Saladin took a detachment of troops

  to Bosra to prevent Reynald attacldng another caravan on which his sister,

  who had completed the pilgrimage, was travelling. At the same time, he

  awaited the arrival of the Egyptian forces. With the truce about to expire,

  and as it became clear that Saladin had no intention of renewing it, Guy

  summoned his nobles to determine what the response should be. Those

  present urged him that peace with Raymond of Tripoli was critical, since the

  Idngdom could not afford to be divided. At once a delegation set off, but

  by the time it had departed Jerusalem, the truce had ended and Saladin

  declared war. This time he was determined to fight, 'for affairs do not run

  according to human desire, nor do we know how much is left of our lives'.

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  Chapter 11

  Victory at Hattin

  It is you who £ave him to drink.

  Sala-din

  It was Balian of Ibelin who was the most vociferous in arguing that the

  dispute between the Idng and Raymond of Tripoli needed urgently to

  come to an end, for the sake of the kingdom. He even offered to head

  a delegation which would travel to Tiberias where Raymond was staying

  with his wife, Eschiva, to seek a setdement. Guy agreed to this proposal and

  Balian set off at once. He was joined by Gerard of Ridefort, the master

  of the Templars, and Roger of Moulins, master of the Hospitallers. In the

  meantime Raymond was facing a delicate situation, for Saladin's son al-

  Afdal asked permission to carry out a reconnaissance mission across his lands

  and Raymond's agreement with Saladin left him in no position to refuse.

  Wisely, he limited al-Afdal's movements and it was agreed that the Muslim

  party - led by Keukburi, with whom rode Qaymaz al-Najmi, at the head of

  a squadron from Damascus - would cross the river Jordan after sunrise and

  leave before sunset. Of Keukburi we shall speak more later, for he was des-

  tined to play an important role in Saladin's greatest victory, but we cannot

  pass over Qaymaz al Najmi's name without comment. His name reveals his

  Turldsh origin but also informs us that he was a freed slave - a mamluk -

  and his affiliation al-Najmi tells us that he had been purchased, freed and

  employed by Saladin's father, Najm al-Din Ayyub. Al-Najmi was the leader

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  11: V I C T O R Y AT H A T T I N

  of the mamluks based in Damascus and he headed a cavalry 500 strong.

  He was a military man par excellence-, he had distinguished himself in bat-

  tle and had only reluctantly accepted civil administration. Still anxious to

  avoid any clashes, Raymond then sent out the word that the Muslim forces

  were simply passing through his territory and should be neither approached

  nor challenged. When news reached him of a royal delegation approaching

  Tiberias headed by Balian, he hastily summoned messengers to inform them

  of the situation. Believing that he had done all that he could do and that all

  precautions had been taken, he stood at the batdements of Tiberias as dawn

  broke and watched as the Muslim force, headed by Keukburi, rode by.

  However, Raymond had not accounted for the hot-headedness of

  the master of the Templars, for no sooner did Gerard hear that a Muslim

  force was crossing Christian land than he felt honour-bound to attack it.

  It was a rash act and a stubborn one; when James of Mailly attempted

  to persuade him of the suicidal nature of such an attack, Gerard mocked

  him and retorted, 'You love your blond head too much to lose it'. Spoken

  to a knight, this inflammatory jibe was a challenge to his bravery. Stung

  into acdon, James and the crusaders now charged, and initially caught the

  Muslim forces unprepared. But when Keukburi and Qaymaz al-Najmi led

  a counter-charge with spear and sword the result was a massacre of the

  Christians. All the Templars were killed, including the Hospitaller Roger;

  all, that is, except Gerard and two others, who managed to escape. The first

  that Raymond heard of what had happened was when he once again came

  to hi
s battlement at sunset to watch the Muslim forces leave his territory,

  only to be confronted by the chilling sight of the Muslims crossing the river

  with the heads of the Templars hung like trophies on their lances. Even in

  the dusk, the blond hair of James of Mailly was visible. It is worth nothing

  to note here the discipline of the Muslim forces; it is a tribute to Keukburi,

  who was the senior military commander, that he was able to maintain rigour

  after a military victory, even when the smell of blood hung in the air, and

  that his men caused no damage to the land and left Raymond's territory as

  promised. The disaster and massacre reconciled Raymond with Guy, and

  Raymond broke off" his treaty with Saladin. But the reconciliation between

  the count of Tripoli and the Idng of Jerusalem could hardly be described as

  deep, for bitter hatreds remained and Reynald of Chatillon did not forgive

  Raymond for his perceived treachery. Nor could Raymond's reconciliation

  make up for the loss of the Templars, which weakened the Christian army.

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  SALADIN

  Gerard of Ridefort wrote to the Pope to inform him of tiie disaster, but by

  the time his message had reached Europe a greater disaster was to befall.

  Faced by an increasingly perilious situation, Guy sent out an mriere ban at

  the end of May, which summoned to arms all able-bodied Christian men.

  Saladin gathers his army

  In the meantime Saladin was gathering his army - and it was a formidable

  sight. From the east of the Euphrates came the troops of Iraq; from

  Damascus came forces headed by Qaymaz al-Najmi; from Aleppo rode Badr

  al-Din Dildrim at the head of his army. Taqi ul-Din had just concluded a

  truce with Bohemond III of Antioch and this had liberated him to ride

  south with his men. The forces of Mosul were led by none other than Falchr

  al-Din al-Zafarani, now firmly back in the Saladin camp. Men also poured

  in from Sinjar, Nisbin, Amid, Irbil and Diyar Bakr. When all those forces

  had gathered, they were further strengthened by those that arrived from

  Egypt. It was the largest and most powerful Muslim army ever assembled

  by a leader, and it was composed of different races spealdng a variety of