Saladin
Page 39
3 Ibid., 6.
4 Ibid., 40.
5 Ibid., 92.
6 C. Rosebault, Saladin Prince of Chivalry, London 1930, 5.
7 C. Hillenbrand, The Crusades through Islamic Perspectives, Edinburgh 1999, 592.
8 C. Tyerman, Fighting for Christendom, Oxford 2004, 195.
9 Hillenbrand, op. cit., 592.
10 A. Ahmad, Living Islam, London 1995, 76.
11 Hillenbrand, op. cit., 595.
12 E. Said, 'These are the Realities', Al-Ahram Weekly, 19 April 2001.
13 Hillenbrand, op. cit., 614.
14 A. Ehrenkreutz, Saladin, Albany 1972.
15 H. Gibb, 'The Achievement of Saladin', Bulletin of John Rylands Library, 35/1, Marchester 1952, 44-60.
Chapter 1 The Weakening of the Abbasid Caliph
and the Sunni Revival
1 The Samanids in Khurasan, the Hamdanids in Syria, the Umayyads in Spain, the
Fatimids in Egypt and the Ghaznavids in Afghanistan.
2 For years the Abbasid caliphs assigned revenues of certain lands (iqta) to their
military governors (amirs), who in return undertook to provide the caliph with
• 243 •
N O T E S
a number of troops or a sum of money. The problem was that the granting of
land in lieu of salary could only lead to fragmentation and the weakening of the
central administration, and the irony became that the men and money required,
in order for the centre to hold, ultimately caused its collapse.
3 J. Saunders, A History of Medieval Islam, London 1965, 134.
4 S.H. Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam, London 1966, 147.
5 G. Makdisi, 'The Sunni Revival', in D. Richards (ed.), Islamic Civilization
950-1150, Oxford 1973, 165.
6 P. Crone and M. Hinds, God's Caliph, Cambridge 1986, 90.
7 R. Humphreys, Islamic History, Princeton 1991, 187. Having said that, and keeping in mind that there existed no fixed boundaries or specialisations, it can
generally be accepted that the ulama were largely divided into three groups; the
legal scholar (faqih) whose focus was on the application of Islamic law; the
scholar of hadith (muhaddith) whose work emphasised the transmission of
hadith, the Prophet's sayings; and the mystic (sufi) who devoted himself pri-
marily to the esoteric dimension of the religion. In medieval Islam, however,
religion and law were inseparable and the ulama who administered the religious
law were also proficient in the transmission of hadith and were themselves sufis.
8 Saunders, op. cit., 125.
9 M. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Chicago 1961, vol. 2, 33.
10 H. Kennedy, The Prophet and the A^e of the Caliphates, London 1986, 229.
11 In 765, with the death of Jafar al-Sadiq, the sixth imam after Ali, the Shiite community split. Jafar's son and heir, Ismail, had died before his father, and while
some recognised Ismail's younger brother, Musa al-Kazim, others recognised
Ismail's son Muhammad as the imam. They became known as Ismailis or
. Sevener Shiite. Those Shiites who followed Musa al-Kazim became known as the
Twelver Shiite and compose the great majority of Shiites today.
12 S. Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. 2 The Kingdom of Jerusalem, London 1952, 12.
13 Kennedy, op. cit., 242.
14 Saunders, op. cit., 147.
15 P. Newby, Saladin in his Time, London 1983, 36.
16 Makdisi, op. cit., 157.
17 Nasr, op. cit., 96.
18 For the purpose of this book, the plural of madhab will be madhabs.
19 Hodgson, op. cit., 152.
20 It must be noted that legal school affiliations were often not mentioned unless
the individual in question was involved in a legal career; the madhabs of sufis,
poets and grammarians were subsequently rarely listed.
21 I. Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, Princeton 1981, 92. An example of this was clearly demonstrated by the Hanbali Shaykh Ibn Taymiya
who, preaching about God's descent, descended himself from the pulpit and
said, 'Exactly as I am descending now'.
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N O T E S
22 Ibid., 94.
23 For an opposing view of the development of Asliarism, see G. Makdisi, 'Ash'ari
and tlie Ash'arites in Islamic Religious Histoiy', Studia Islamica., XVII, 1962.
24 G. Makdisi, 'The Hanbali School and Sufism', Boletin de la, Asociacion Espanola de Orientatlisms XV, Madrid 1979, 116.
25 Hodgson, op. cit., 194.
26 Al-Ghazali, Letter to a. Disciple, trans. T. Mayer, Cambridge 2003, xix. For al-Ghazali, there was no question of reconciling sufism with Islamic orthodoxy,
since to do so would have meant that sufism would first have had to break away
from it, and the reality was that it was woven within its fabric. Had it not been
so then the Hanbalis, the sternest of guardians of orthodoxy, would never have
allowed it to pass. The Hanbali creed may have been a literalist one, but it was
not anti-sufi. Particular sufis could be criticised by all means, but, thanks to al-
GhazaU, not the path itself
27 The Sunni Revival spread very rapidly, reaching the Almoravids who conquered
Morocco and part of Algeria and southern Spain at the end of the eleventh cen-
tury. Indeed by the mid-twelfth century, hardly any North African scholar of
note was not familiar with the works of al-Ghazali and many could claim to be
students of his followers. Special mention should be made of Abu Madyan, a
seminal figure of sufism in Muslim Spain and Africa during this period. For an
introduction to Abu Madyan and sufism in North Africa during this period, see
V. Cornell, The Way of Abu Madyan, Cambridge 1996.
28 Miih^isi, Sunni Revival, 161.
Chapter 2 The Turning of the Tide
1 M. Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus
1190-1350, Cambridge 1994, 37.
2 R. Irwin, 'Islam and the Crusades 1096-1699', in J. Riley-Smith (ed.). The
Oxford History of the Crusades, Oxford 1999, 214.
3 Al-Jahiz, Manqib aZ-Twr^, partial trans. C. Harley-Walker as 'Jahiz of Basra to al-Fath ibn Khaqan on the exploits of the Turks and the army of the Khilafat in
general'. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1915), 670.
4 Chamberlain, op. cit., 47.
5 Ibid., 43.
6 Hillenbrand, op. cit., 31.
7 In this book the terms crusaders and Franks will be used interchangeably.
8 Although historians all agree that the political fragmentation of Syria helped
the crusaders greatly, Hillenbrand adds a provocative question of whether the
Europeans had been briefed that this was the perfect moment to pounce. Unfor-
tunately, she concludes, 'There is littie evidence on this in the Islamic sources,
but seldom has the arm of coincidence been longer' (Hillenbrand, op. cit., 33).
• 245 •.
N O T E S
9 P.K. Hitti, History of Syria., London 1951, 589.
10 H. Dajani-Shakeel, 'Diplomatic relations between Muslim and Prankish rulers
1097-1153', in M. Shatzmiller (ed.), Crusa-ders and Muslims in Twelfth Century
Syria, Leiden 1993, 192.
11 The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch
and the County of Edessa.
12 Bidwan's rule in Aleppo, for example, coincided with the arrival of the First
Crusade on the Syrian coast, but not once did he confront them in batde.
Rather, his sole concern was the preservation of his sovereignty,
a task which he
was prepared to complete with the aid of the Franks themselves.
13 Of the forces sent out by the Seljuqs, the best that can be said of them was that
their aim was unclear; were the armies sent intended to drive the Franks out of
Syria, or were they dispatched - as suspicious Syrian amirs believed - to estab-
lish the sultan's control over the land.> The result was predictable. When, in
1111, Mawdud marched his army to Aleppo, he found that Ridwan was unwill-
ing to let his forces into the city. A few years later, in 1115, the Seljuq sultan
sent another campaign into Syria and this time the rulers of Aleppo and
Damascus decided to side with the Franks against it.
14 S. Howarth, The Knishts Templar, London 1985, 95-6.
15 Hillenbrand, op. cit., 21.
16 R. Smail, Crusadins Warfare 1097-1193, Cambridge 1956, 22-3.
17 Atabeg is a Turkish word which means father/leader. Effectively an atabeg was
a guardian who assumed power when a Seljuq prince died leaving an heir who
was a minor. In reality the young seljuq prince became a puppet and the atabeg
did not relinquish his position of power. In the words of Irwin, an atabeg was a
sort of'military nanny' to the under-aged seljuq prince (Irwin, op. cit., 215).
18 D. Patton, 'A history of atabegs of Mosul and their relations with the ulama',
unpublished dissertation. New York University 1982, 1.
19 Hillenbrand, op. cit., 112.
20 Ibid., 114.
21 See V. Minorsky, 'Prehistory of Saladin', in Studies in Caucasian History,
London 1953, 133.
22 Ibid., p. 133.
23 Quoted in M. Lyons and D. Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of Holy War,
Cambridge 1982, 4^
24 Minorsky, op. cit., 133.
25 N. Elisseeff, Nur ad-Din: Un £irand Prince Musulman de Syrie au temps des
croisades, Damascus 1967, vol. 2, 673.
26 D. Ayalon, Eunuchs, Caliphs and Sultans: A Study in Power Relationships,
Jerusalem 1999, 278.
27 Hodgson, op. cit., 46.
28 G. Leiser, 'Notes on the madrasa in medieval Islamic society'. The Muslim
World, LXXVI (January 1986), 16 {MW).
• 246 •
N O T E S
29 Thirty-eight madrasas are documented in Nishapur, which pre-date the
Nizamiyya, though none of them survive.
30 Ahmed Fikry, Masajid al-Qahim wa Madarisuha (The Mosques and Madrasas
of Cairo), 2 vols, Cairo 1965-9.
31 Y. Tabbaa, Constructions of Power und Piety in Medieval Aleppo, Pennsylvania 1997, 125.
32 R. Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, Edinburgh 1994, 190.
33 R.S. Humphreys, From Sa.la.din to the Mongols, New York 1977, 377.
34 Hodgson, op. cit., 46.
35 C. Klausner, The Seljuk Vezirate: A Study of Civil Administration, 1055-1194, Cambridge MA 1973, 70.
36 Leiser, op. cit., 18.
37 Hodgson, op. cit., 48.
38 While a scholar's prime concern - indeed the measure of his reputation - was the
gathering of knowledge ('ilm), for many the gathering of'ilm became a means
to attain high oflBce, a salary and potentially a position of power. In short,
knowledge became a means to an end. Although this was, of course, a gradual
process which did not crystallise until the Ottoman period, and the creation of
a hierarchy and an administrative process of promotion and advancement, the
seeds had been sown.
39 In one case a qadi from the al-Damaghani family resigned from his position
as qadi and accepted a position as court chamberlain, a position which was
normally reserved for military ofiicials. It was certainly not uncommon to find
ulama accepting government positions on the condition that they received no
payment or that they did not have to attend court. The famous vizier Ibn
Hubayra, for example, returned the gifts that were sent to him by the caliph, and
Ibn Shuja al-Rudhrawari only agreed to serve in a government position if he
received no payment for any judicial rulings and that he was not obliged to alter
his dress.
40 The city was now ruled by his son Saif al-Din, but the powers behind the throne
in Mosul were al-Jawad, one of Zengi's leading administrators, and Ali Kujik,
an amir. Ali Kujik undertook the building of a madrasa, which was the first to be
built since the Nizamiyya 50 years previously. What is fascinating about this
madrasa is that it was open for Hanafis and Shafiis equally, the first such dual
madrasa ever.
41 N. Elisseeff, 'Un Document contemporain de Nur al-Din, sa notice biogra-
phique par Ibn Asakir', Bulletin des etudes orientales, 13 (1949-51), 155-96.
42 J. Philips, 'The Latin East 1098-1187', in J. Riley-Smith (ed.). The Oxford
History of the Crusades, Oxford 1999, 122.
43 C. Hillenbrand, op. cit., 122.
44 Ibid., 118-19.
45 For a complete list of madrasas and a breakdown of their location and madhad-
hib, see Elisseeflf, Nur ad-Din: Un£irandprince, vol. 3, 914.
• 247 •
N O T E S
Chapter 3 The Young Saladin
1 J. Richard, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Amsterdam 1979, 40.
2 P. Holt, The A£se of the Crusades: The near East from the eleventh century to 1517, London 1986, 43.
3 Newby, op. cit., 32.
4 B. Lewis, 'The use by Muslim historians of non-Muslim sources', in B. Lewis
and P.M. Holt (eds), Historians of the Middle East, London 1962, 181.
5 Inkitar (English), Alman (German), Faransis (French), Banadiqa (Venetians)
and so forth.
6 E. Sivan, L'Islam et le Croisade, Paris 1968, 205-6.
7 C. Hillenbrand, op. cit., 420.
8 Five Shafii madrasas, five Hanafi madrasas and one Sufi hospice were con-
structed.
9 The ratio of more than two to one continued through Saladin and the Ayyubid's
time so that, by the end of the Ayyubids, Damascus had 89 madrasas whereas
Aleppo had only 45.
10 J. Gilbert, 'The ulama of medieval Damascus and the international world of
scholarship', unpublished dissertation. University of California 1977, 65-6
(henceforth thesis).
11 S. Humphreys, Politics and Architectural Patronage in Ayyubid Damascus.
Essays in Honour of Bernard Lewis: The Islamic World, Princeton 1989, 166.
Remarkably in the century between 1150 and 1250, no less than 57 out of
the 113 known Shafii and Hanafi professors in Aleppo were first- or second-
generation immigrants from Iran and Iraq. It is equally interesting to note
that the number of scholars resident in Damascus during the thirteenth century
was double the number present during the twelfth century.
12 The first was the madrasa built by Saif al-Din Ghazi in Mosul between 1146 and
1149.
13 Hillenbrand, op. cit.. 111.
14 Ibid., 72.
15 Al-Sulami, Kitab al-Jihad, in E. Sivan, 'La genes de la contre-croisade: un traite Damasquin du debut Xlle siecle', Journal Asiatique, XXLIV (1966),
207.
16 Ibid., 216.
17 Ibid., 220.
18 C. Hillenbrand, op. cit., 73.
19 Ibid., 82.
20 Elisseeff, undocument contemporain, 167.
21 Quoted in Irwin, op. cit., 223.
22 Ibid., 226.
23 C. Hillenbrand, op. cit., 151.
• 248 •
N O T E S
24 Not
hing symbolised this ambition more than the minbar (pulpit) which he
ordered to be constructed so as to be placed in the Aqsa mosque. Commissioned
in 1168, it was completed in Aleppo. In fact this minbar marks the peak of cre-
ativity of the Aleppo school of woodcai-vers. The pulpit remained in Aleppo and
Ibn Jubayr saw it in 1182, for it was not Nur al-Din's destiny to see it installed
in Jerusalem. Twenty years would pass until 1187, when Saladin conquered
Jerusalem and sought a more impressive minbar in the Aqsa to mark his triumph.
He recalled Nur al-Din's pulpit and had it brought over from Aleppo and
installed, where it remained in the Aqsa mosque until it was destroyed by a
fanatic in 1969.
25 Lyons and Jackson, op. cit., 3.
26 Quoted in Lyons and Jackson, op. cit., 3.
27 Hodgson, op. cit., 452.
28 Ibid., 452.
29 Even the structure of the maqama itself would send frissons of anticipation as to
how far the narrator would go. Nearly every story began with the sentence 'Isa
Ibn Hisham narrated to us, saying . . .', which the audience did not need telling
was a parody of the chain of authorities on which Islamic tradition relates the
sayings of the Prophet. The parody was, of course, magnified by the fact that hero
of the maqama was a rogue who earned his living through his wit and cunning.
30 On al-Wahrani see K. Zakharia, 'Al-Wahrani, auteur de Maqamas', ArMca,
4 9 / 1 (Dec. 2002).
31 Quoted in Lyons and Jackson, op. cit., 119.
32 Ibid., 372.
33 Ibid., 118.
34 S. Mustafa, Salah ud-Din al-Fciris al-Mujahid wa'l Malik al-ZMd al-muftari
alaihi, Damascus 2003, 52.
35 Ibid., 55.
36 It is largely thanks to the biography of Ibn Shaddad that we are afforded
glimpses of the personal side of Saladin. Although he did not enter his service
until 1188 as Saladin's qadi to the army, Ibn Shaddad, who was a product the
madrasas rapidly proliferating across the Muslim world, barely left Saladin's side
and remained in his household until Saladin's death.
37 M. Lings, What is Sujism? iMndon 1975, 111. Lings has added that no one had exercised in person a spiritual influence of such a far-reaching dimension as
al-Jilani.
38 M. Kailani, Hnkadha dhaha-ra-jil Sa-lah ud-Din was hakadha adapt al-Quds, Dar al-Qalam UAE 2002, 184.