Saladin
Page 30
ding of infidel blood and thereby symbolically cement the alliance between
the religious clerics and the men of the sword. Nevertheless it is hard to
explain the motives behind Saladin's decision that day. No one was Idlled
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without first being offered a chance to convert to Islam, and a few accepted
this offer. It is interesting to note that those who did accept went on to live
among the Muslims and practise their faith sincerely. The rest were handed
to the sufis and were slaughtered to a man. On that dark day for the
Christians, 230 Templar knights were put to the sword.
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Chapter 12
The Return of Jerusalem
The sultan sat with his face £ileamin£i with happiness.
Imad al-Din al-Isfahani
1 Idngdom of Jerusalem was destroyed in one batde, and what had
endured for 90 years vanished within 30 days. The victory at Hattin
secured Saladin's fame in history but it did not afford him security at home,
for he Icnew that once the news of the calamity reached Europe there would
be a swift and terrible response. But now, when speed was what rhattered
most, Saladin's actions lacked urgency and there was a good reason for that
^ the Hattin campaign had exhausted him. His health had never recovered
flilly after his serious illness, and the burden of responsibility which weighed
heavily on his shoulders - though was certainly lifted by his outstanding tri-
umph - had taken its toll. For the time being Saladin basked in his triumph.
The Latin Kingdom had been crippled and could no longer put an army
into the field, and Guy had stripped the garrisons to equip his army, leaving
his cities defenceless. The choice that lay ahead of Saladin was which cities
he should capture first. Should it be the coastal cities such as Acre, Sidon
and Tyre, where the Christians were largely concentrated and through
which any relief from Europe would have to come? Or should he turn
inland and seize the ungarrisoned castles and the ultimate prize, Jerusalem?
From Hattin, Saladin rode to Acre, the 'Constantinople of Syria'. As a
symbolic gesture, he was accompanied by the amir of Medina. The Muslims
were not expecting any opposition and Saladin was initially astonished when
he saw the walls manned by Christian soldiers with banners bravely fluttering
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12: T H E R E T U R N OF J E R U S A L E M
in the breeze. It was a defiant gesture but a liollow one, for no sooner
liad tiie Muslim forces been drawn up for battle than the gates of the city
opened and representatives emerged to discuss the terms of surrender. As
usual, Saladin was generous to those around him, and so his son al-Afdal
was given the town and its estates, his old companion Isa al-Haklcari took
the property of the Templars, while Taqi ul-Din was given the sugar
refinery. To public acclaim Saladin liberated 400 Muslim slaves from Acre
and worshipped in the city's mosque, which for the previous 90 years had
been used as a church. While his generosity at Acre was typical, it was Imad
al-Din alTsfahani who pointed out to him that had the wealth of Acre been
kept in a treasury instead of being given away, it would have financed all
his campaigns. But frugality was never in Saladin's character, even when
generosity almost banlcrupted his empire. The sources constantly portray
the amazement of his officers that the personal acquisitions - universally
acloiowledged as the first object of any amir, including those of his own
house - were of no interest to him.^ We even read that his treasurers kept
secret funds which they did not tell him about, for fear that he would give
the money away.
The collapse of the Latin Kingdom
In the meantime there was a kingdom to conquer and Saladin decided to
divide his army. Normally his cautious nature made him reluctant to give
independent command: T never send out any of my companions or my fam-
ily on an expedition without being fearful for them'. But now there was no
danger from a Christian army and he decided to dispatch his commanders,
'like ants covering the whole face of the country from Tyre to Jerusalem',
to the corners of the Idngdom. Nazareth fell to Keukburi, and Nablus to
Husam al-Din. Badr al-Din Dildrim took Haifa, Arsuf and Caesarea, while
al-Adil took Jaffa. Saladin then dispatched Taqi ul-Din, his most capable
commander, to seize Tyre and Tibnin, and it was there that Saladin made
the mistake which would return to haunt him. Taqi ul-Din faced severe
resistance at Tibnin and he was forced to appeal to Saladin for aid. While
the siege was enduring, the Christian refiigees from Hattin were flooding
into Tyre - and it was Tyre not Tibnin which should have been the
Muslim's target, for it offered the vital strategic harbour which Saladin
needed to seize to prevent aid pouring in from Europe. Even when Tibnin
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fell, Saladin showed his customaiy leniency, allowing the Christians five days
to collect their possessions and then allowing them to march to Tyre.
Tyre was the key, but its capture would require a long siege and Saladin
ignored it, preferring to march northwards to Sidon and Beirut, which were
harder to defend and which fell easily. At Beirut Imad al-Din had fallen ill
and so, when the city had surrendered, Saladin, believing that anyone who
carried a pen was a scribe, requested that the terms of surrender be noted in
a document, only to find out that no one was capable of doing so to his sat-
isfaction. Imad al-Din noted - not without pride - that he had to dictate it
from his sick-bed. Saladin then turned south and once again passed Tyre,
but made no effort to besiege it. Ibn Shaddad wrote that the soldiers were
tired of fighting and that every man was taldng what he could for himself
It was then that Saladin received a letter from his brother in Egypt, in which
al-Adil urged him to turn towards the ultimate prize: Jerusalem. In later life
al-Adil recalled the words that he had written to his brother:
One of the cir^uments that I ctdva-nced when I was speaking to Saladin and
urging him to take the opportunity of capturing Jerusalem was this: I
pointed out that he was liable to attacks of colic and I said: 'If you die of
an attack tonight, Jerusalem will stay in the hands of the Franks'.
The turning towards Jerusalem was symbolic. Had Tyre fallen, as surely it
would have if Saladin had unleashed his forces on it, then the European cru-
saders would have struggled to gain a foothold in the region from which to
launch the Third Crusade. It was a strategic mistake, as Saladin had left a
door unlocked through which Richard, the deadliest of his enemies, made
an entrance unchallenged.^ The military head said Tyre, but the pious heart
whispered Jerusalem. From the time of Nur al-Din, the Muslims had turned
their gaze, with increasing intensity, towards Jerusalem. Nur al-Din had
built his whole propaganda around Jerusalem and had symbolically con-
structed a pulpit ready to find its rightfiil place in the Aqsa mosque. From
the moment of Nur al-Din's death, Saladin claimed to be his spiritual
heir and his ideological protege, and Jerusalem became the focus of his
campaign. It was a campaign in which the religious classes participated
actively and with increasing vigour. In the pulpits and the madrasas and
the marketplaces, the message was always the same: Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
Jerusalem. It may not have been strategically important but that did not
matter, for Jerusalem was everything. The Holy City simply had to be
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taken.' Aiid the capture of Jerusalem was necessary for Saladin, for it
was proof of his sincerity and vindication of his actions. From 1174 lie
had unceasingly written to the caliph and claimed to be the champion of
the holy war and he never deviated from that message - or rather his two
brilliant spin-doctors Imad al-Din al-Isfahani and al-Qadi al-Fadil never
allowed him to deviate. The message itself was clear: he was fighting the
holy war and, given the forces he required, he would recapture Jerusalem
for the Muslims. Even during the disproportionate period of time which
he spent fighting Aleppo and Mosul, the message never altered. And now
he had delivered the highest prize possible. It was he who had restored
Sunni orthodoxy to Egypt and had effectively sealed the fate of the Latin
Kingdom as a result. Now it was he who would restore Sunni orthodoxy to
Jerusalem.
Although Saladin would not have sensed it directly, the restoration of
Jerusalem into Musfim hands was the culmination not only of his tireless
endeavours and Nur al-Din's incessant propaganda, but also of the Sunni
Revival, which had been born in a different city in a different time. Saladin's
admirable qualities and the cult of personality that has grown around him
has tended to obscure this fundamental point, but if this book began
in Baghdad and with Nizam ul-Mulk, it was because without the ideas
associated with the invigorated Sunni orthodoxy, Saladin would never have
triumphed. Once those ideas began to take their natural course, Saladin -
barring historical accidents - could not but triumph. The theological genius
of al-Ghazali was that he understood the urgent need for an inwardly
ecumenical Islam which allowed MusUms from diflFerent schools of law
and from diflFerent spiritual inclinations - mystics and rationalists, sufis and
Mutazilis - to adhere to the same orthodoxy. The image of Saladin, a mili-
tary Shafii Kurd, riding into the Hattin campaign with Muwaflfaq al-Din
Ibn Qudama, a Palestinian Hanbali jurist, is a striking one. And the rap-
prochment was not just between the Sunnis, for there were sincere attempts
to bring the Twelve Shiites into the fold. It is worth noting that the Shiites
of Aleppo and northern Syria, with whom Nur al-Din had struggled on
several occasions, assisted Saladin during his campaigns against the Franks.
And as mentioned earlier, the attempt at a Sunni-Shiite understanding had
been the cornerstone of Ibn Hubayra, who had served two Abbasid caliphs.
Although Ibn Hubayra and Saladin never met, Abd al-Latif Baghdadi writes
that when he was in Damascus in 1190, he came across Ibn Hubayra's son
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SALAD I N
who was in the service of Saiadin. The political genius of Nizam ul-Mulk
was that he created the madrasa - or transformed it, to be precise - as a
vehicle which carried this message of rapprochement across the Islamic
world and into the cities and towns. But if the message of the Sunni Revival
was ecumenical from within, it was exoterically intransigent, and though
it was initially born to combat the Ismaili heresy, fate dictated that the
ideas should reach Syria at the same time as the crusaders. The result was
the counter-crusade.
Of course, for the ideas of the Sunni orthodoxy to flourish they
demanded a sincere adherence to its principles, and the incredible spread of
madrasas - the symbol of this invigorated Sunnism - was a testimony of the
sincerity. What is remarkable about this period is how everyone participated
in building madrasas as an affirmation of their piety, from military men like
Shirkuh who had no time for the theological debates which were conducted
within, to the disproportionate number of women patrons who would never
even have entered the madrasas which they patronised. Saiadin himself,
of course, participated actively in this revival and never more so than by his
endeavours in Egypt. Intellectually he may not have had the vision to see
the whole picture, but though he was a simple man, he certainly was not a
simpleton. It can fairly be said that his efforts arose out of the simplicity of
his character, which allowed him to adhere unquestioningly to his ortho-
doxy. This simpUcity, complemented by a natural piety and humility, would
have made him sense that he was being pulled by a powerful tide.
Before he could leave the coast and head inland towards Jerusalem,
Saiadin had to settle the question of Ascalon. He turned to his most prized
prisoner and offered Guy his freedom if he could persuade the garrison of
Ascalon to surrender. Guy agreed to this, but when he tried to plead with
the garrison he was mocked by its people and labelled a coward. It was
a public humiliation for Guy, and he was kept as prisoner for a further year
in Nablus. In the meantime, seeing that Ascalon would not surrender
peacefully, Saiadin stormed the city and captured it. The news of the fall of
Ascalon would have been of particular poignancy to al-Qadi al-Fadil as it
was his native city. News soon arrived that Gaza and Darum had surren-
dered, and that meant that the coast belonged to Saiadin. The coast, that is,
with the exception of Tyre. In the meantime, while Saiadin mopped up the
crusader strongholds in Palestine, Jerusalem was preparing for the inevitable
end game. The city was suffering from an acute shortage of food, especially
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since the battle of Hattin had occurred at harvest time and the crops had
not been gathered. The shortage of food became more acute as refugees
poured into Jerusalem from most of the areas surrounding it: the popula-
tion of the city doubled from 30,000 to 60,000.
It was largely during this period that Saladin's actions won him the
admiration of friend and foe, and tales of these actions were told and retold
until they became legendaiy. We noted above how, had his wealth been
better managed, he would have saved himself severe financial hardships, but
it was not simply in matters of money that Saladin was generous, and never
more so than when he received a request from Balian of Ibelin. Balian had
fled the battlefield of Hattin with one concern: to ensure the safety of his
wife. Queen Maria Comnena, who had once been married to the great
Amalric, and who had fled to Jerusalem with her children. Balian knew that
Jerusalem would inevitably fall to Saladin and believed that the only safe
refiage for the Christians was Tyre. The question was, how could he pos-
sibly fetch his wife from Jer
usalem and escort her to safety? Such was
Saladin's reputation that Balian did not hesitate to petition him and request
a safe conduct to Jerusalem so that he could fetch his wife. It was an extra-
ordinary request, but Saladin lived up to his reputation and agreed, stipulat-
ing that Balian should spend only one night in Jerusalem and should never
again take up arms against him. Balian vowed that this should be the case
and was granted safe passage. In Jerusalem, however, Balian came across a
hysterical city suffering a nervous breakdown. At once - though his inten-
tion was to enter the city anonymously - he was recognised and escorted
to the patriarch Heraclius, who had once travelled to England to petition
Henry II in vain to take up the Cross. Heraclius insisted that Balian defend
the city against Saladin, and when Balian told him about the oath he had
made to Saladin, the patriarch would not be moved: 'An oath to an infidel
was not an oath' he declared. But Balian knew that there was more honour
in Saladin than in the patriarch of Jerusalem. It was an impossible situation
for him; vows were not made to be broken without losing honour, but the
people of Jerusalem refused to let him leave the city and clung on to him.
He now sent an urgent message to Saladin outlining his dilemma, and
Saladin not only agreed to release Balian from his oath, but personally
guaranteed safe passage for his wife and her children to Tyre. And since the
journey was reasonably tiring, Saladin entertained her in his tent and gave
the children garments and jewels as parting gifts.
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SALAD I N
Saladin besieges Jerusalem
The time had come to take Jerusalem. Astrologers had once informed
Saladin that the stars foretold he would enter Jerusalem but that he would
lose one eye, but Saladin was dismissive and merely responded, 'I would not
mind losing my sight if I took the city'. But now, as the city appeared ready
to fall, it was ironically Balian of Ibelin who stood in his way. As the high-
est ranldng lord remaining in Jerusalem, Balian was seen by the Muslims as
holding a rank 'more or less equal to that of a Idng'. In Jerusalem Balian had