Holy Warriors

by Jonathan Phillips

  The most dramatic events in this period took place in northern Syria. Buoyed by the failure of the Second Crusade, Nur ad-Din began to take the jihad to the Franks with a ferocity and zeal as yet unseen. In token of his victory at Inab in June 1149 he dispatched the head and right arm of Raymond of Antioch to the caliph of Baghdad.3 Unlike Zengi, who had used Turkish titles (such as atabeg, or ruler) to emphasize his ties to the Seljuks, Nur ad-Din took Arabic titles that reveal his focus on jihad, the promotion of Sunni orthodoxy, and the establishment of justice. His own name meant “light of the religion” and he was repeatedly described as al-mujahid (fighter in the holy war) and al-adil (the just). It was through Nur ad-Din that the Muslim counter-crusade took its most significant steps forward. He is overshadowed by his successor, Saladin, a man whose contemporary biographers have done much to keep his reputation buoyant to the present day. Aside from his role in modern-day politics, Saladin will (literally) loom large for any visitor to Damascus because his modern equestrian statue stands just outside the medieval citadel, while his well-preserved tomb is just adjacent to the Great Umayyad Mosque. To find Nur ad-Din’s burial place requires a fair amount of detective work in among the mesmerizing warren of streets and alleys in Old Damascus. At one of his madrasas (teaching schools) we can peer through a small, barred window to see a drab cenotaph of unknown (but not medieval) age in a dirty, unlit chamber—hardly the memorial of a hero of the holy war. Of course, it was Saladin who actually removed the Christians from Jerusalem, yet this triumph would have been almost impossible without the immense spiritual, social, and military commitment of Nur ad-Din, who managed the hitherto unprecedented feat of drawing together the religious and noble classes of Muslim Syria.

  One manifestation of Nur ad-Din’s style can be seen in the foundation of a new madrasa in Aleppo around 1150. Madrasas were central to his policies because they offered a way to spread his religious and political agenda and also served as a place to train officials. They were closely associated with Islamic traditionalism—and, by definition, they challenged the Shi’a, a group whom he unrelentingly targeted as a destabilizing, heretical force in the Muslim world. Nur ad-Din wanted to unify the Islamic Near East and to eradicate heterodoxy; only then would he be able to deal with the Franks. He also chose to locate the Aleppan madrasa in a former church, thus symbolizing his recent victories over the Christians.4

  Nur ad-Din’s next major success was to take power in Damascus. As we saw above, at the time of the Second Crusade there was a rapprochement between the two parties and Nur ad-Din’s marriage to the daughter of Unur, former ruler of the city, sealed this pact. To extend his authority further the emir used a combination of military threats and a strong moral message to remind the citizenry of their obligation to the jihad and to suggest that their own rulers were dangerously sympathetic toward the Christians. Nur ad-Din blockaded the city and convinced the inhabitants to open the gates to him. This was a substantial step forward in his struggle against the Franks: for the first time in the history of the Latin East, the two most important cities of Muslim Syria were under the rule of the same man. As William of Tyre observed: “a formidable adversary arose. . . . This change was decidedly disastrous to the interests of the kingdom.”5

  Yet Nur ad-Din’s rise was not without setbacks. A defeat by the Franks near Krak des Chevaliers in 1163 seems to have prompted a personal reappraisal and the emir decided to abandon all luxuries and to dedicate himself to the holy war. In this drive for personal devotion and austerity the emir pursued his own inner jihad as a way to seek God’s favor for the wider holy war. The ideas generated in Nur ad-Din’s circles emphasized martyrdom and the reward of Paradise for those who lost their lives fighting the infidel. They also supported the writing of al-Quds literature, work that stressed the holiness of Jerusalem and its importance as a place of pilgrimage—thus was made clear the need for Muslims to recover the city.6 In connection with this, around 1169, he ordered the construction of an elaborate minbar (pulpit) destined for the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem; a clear statement of his intent to conquer the city for Islam. Ibn Jubayr saw it in 1182 and rhapsodized about its beauty: “The art of ornamental carving had exhausted itself in its endeavours on the pulpit, for never in any city have I seen a pulpit like it or of such wondrous workmanship.”7 More pertinent to Nur ad-Din’s endeavors were the minbar’s multiple inscriptions that proclaimed the victory of Islam over the infidel. A letter from Nur ad-Din to the caliph of Baghdad expressed his aim clearly: “to banish the worshippers of the cross from the Aqsa Mosque . . . to conquer Jerusalem . . . to hold sway over the Syrian coast.”8

  KING BALDWIN III OF JERUSALEM AND THE BATTLE FOR EGYPT

  Faced by such a formidable opponent the Franks needed a strong leader of their own and, in the form of King Baldwin III, they found an energetic and effective monarch. In 1153 he took the port of Ascalon to give the Franks control over the entire eastern Mediterranean coastline; this, in turn, meant that the Egyptian navy could no longer use Ascalon to harass the merchant and pilgrim fleets that were so vital to the survival of the Frankish states. While this triumph was partially neutralized by Nur ad-Din’s seizure of Damascus it showed that the Franks remained a powerful force. In the remainder of the 1150s Baldwin fought a series of campaigns against Nur ad-Din with honors shared fairly evenly.

  In light of the disastrous Second Crusade and the rising threat of Nur ad-Din, the king set aside previous tensions with Byzantium and elected to establish a closer relationship with the Greeks: they were, after all, the leading Christian power in the eastern Mediterranean. He proposed a marriage with a Byzantine princess and, after an embassy to Constantinople bore Baldwin’s handwritten assurance that he would abide by the envoys’ negotiations, the thirteen-year-old Princess Theodora was dispatched to Jerusalem with a dowry and a bridal suite of huge value. This consisted of gold and gems, garments and pearls, tapestries, silks, and precious vessels—a real demonstration of Byzantine wealth. They were married in September 1158 and, by way of reciprocation, when Emperor Manuel Comnenus became a widower, he married Princess Maria of Antioch on December 25, 1161.9

  While Baldwin proved a competent ruler of Jerusalem, the caliber of Prince Raymond of Antioch’s successor was far inferior. His widow, Princess Constance (daughter of Melisende’s sister Alice), was unwilling to accept any of the candidates on offer.10 She was only nineteen years old and had already produced four children: in part she may—understandably—have been reluctant to marry again. She had been betrothed to Raymond at the age of eight and presumably, on this second occasion, she wanted more of a say in the matter. Thus she turned down a trio of eminent nobles, two of whom were powerful figures from the West. Yet in political and military terms the need for her to take a husband was urgent. Baldwin III did not want the principality to follow Edessa into Muslim hands and he could not keep traveling up to Syria to protect Antioch and thereby leave Jerusalem vulnerable. He consulted his mother and Melisende was dispatched north to sort out her recalcitrant niece. At a family crisis meeting the queen was joined by another of her sisters, Hodierna of Tripoli, and together they tried to impress upon Constance the gravity of the situation. Still the princess resisted and she did not marry until, a year later, she felt a personal attraction to Reynald of Châtillon, a young French knight who may have come out with the Second Crusade.11 Her decision brought to prominence one of the most notorious and influential figures of the entire crusading movement. After the Battle of Hattin in 1187 Reynald was executed by Saladin himself, yet to merit such a distinction was merely the climax of a career that displayed quite special brutality. While Reynald’s violence toward Muslims is well documented, his behavior toward his own coreligionists was, at times, equally appalling. A few years after his wedding the prince fell out with Aimery, the aged patriarch of Antioch, a man whom Reynald suspected of trying to undermine his marriage plans and who continued to make plain his dislike of the prince. Aimery began to voice his opinions too loudly for Reyna
ld’s taste and he was seized. The prince personally conducted him to a tower on the citadel of Antioch and there, on a hot summer’s day, high above the city, he had the old man tied to a chair and his bare head smeared with honey. Flies, bees, and mosquitoes swarmed around Aimery for hours and yet no one dared to help him or protect him from the blazing sun or the tormenting insects until Reynald signaled an end to the grotesque torture.12

  In November 1161, as the prince and his troops rode home after a successful raid into Muslim lands, they were cornered and seized, and Reynald was sent in chains to Aleppo. He spent the next sixteen years as a prisoner; during this time he is said to have learned Arabic but, as his actions later showed, he nursed a deep and festering hatred of his captors. By the time he was freed, however, Baldwin III would no longer rule Jerusalem. He died of consumption in February 1163, only thirty-three years old, and because he had no children the succession passed to his brother, Amalric.

  William of Tyre, our main source for events in the Latin East, was personally acquainted with Amalric and acted as his chancellor and as tutor for his son; as he also stated, the Historia—an account of the Frankish East from the First Crusade to the author’s own day—was written, in part, at the king’s suggestion.13 All of this means that he was supremely well placed to give a character portrait of his patron. William described him as quite tall and good-looking with receding blond hair and a full beard, although he noted that the king was troubled by his weight and had breasts “like those of a woman hanging down to his waist.”14 Amalric’s personality was described in some detail: he was confident and assertive with a fine knowledge of customary law; he enjoyed reading and talking to people from distant lands, he was also pious and trusting of others. He was, however, said to be taciturn (in contrast to his affable brother, Baldwin III), relentless in his demands on Church revenues, and a womanizer.

  His reign (1163–74) was dominated by the struggle for Egypt. Both Amalric and Nur ad-Din recognized the vulnerability of the Fatimid regime and each sought to join with, or to remove, this ailing dynasty and thereby secure the unparalleled riches of the Nile for themselves. William of Tyre described the incredible wealth and fertility of Egypt. He wrote of “the marvellous abundance of all good things there and of each individual commodity; the inestimable treasures belonging to the prince himself; the imposts and taxes from the cities both on the coast and farther inland; and the vast amounts of annual revenue. . . . The people, devoted to luxurious living and ignorant of the science of war, had become enervated through a period of long-continued peace.”15

  In the case of Nur ad-Din there was a further dimension to the conflict because he would take on his principal Muslim enemies, the Shi’a, and their Cairo-based caliphate. On five occasions between 1163 and 1169, Amalric invaded Egypt. These campaigns were characterized by a bewildering series of alliances and counter-alliances, first between the Egyptians and the Franks against the Syrian Muslims, and then between the Egyptians and the Syrians in opposition to the Franks. Amalric achieved some notable successes: in 1167 his troops entered Alexandria and for two or three days flags bearing the Christian cross fluttered above this mighty Muslim city, a situation that seems so incongruous it is hard to bring to mind. The threat of an Egyptian-Syrian relief force caused the king to withdraw, however. Amalric knew the conquest of Egypt would be a huge challenge and he sought help from western Europe and Byzantium. Along with several other leading figures in the Frankish hierarchy he sent a series of appeals to the pope and King Louis VII of France. These emotive and keenly pitched messages transmitted hope and the expectation that Louis, as ruler of the homeland of crusading, would act; one letter stated: “Great sadness! How disgraceful it will be to all the peoples and to you if this land, land in which your relatives spilt so much blood, so finely situated and having acquired so much fame, may be violated by evil people and allowed to be destroyed.”16 The pope preached a couple of new crusades and while several important nobles visited the East, and the Pisans—keen to get a priority standing in the prime market of Alexandria—sent fleets in 1167 and 1168, there was not the large-scale expedition the king so desperately needed. An invasion of Egypt in late 1168 proved a disaster. Amalric’s retreat in January 1169 left the stage free for Nur ad-Din’s lieutenant, Shirkuh, to murder the ruler of Egypt and to seize power in the country for himself.

  SALADIN’S RISE TO POWER IN EGYPT

  When Shirkuh began to govern Egypt he took on the same titles and offices as used by the Fatimid regime; an absurd pretense given that the latter were Shi’ite and the invaders Sunni. From a pragmatic perspective, however, this was an undeniably wise policy given the relatively small size of his forces and the danger of overturning such a fundamental aspect of Egyptian life so quickly. When Shirkuh died in March 1169—of a heart attack brought on by his immense girth—he was succeeded by his nephew, Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known to the Franks and to posterity as Saladin.

  He was of Kurdish stock, born in Takrit in 1138.17 His father, Ayyub (hence the name of Saladin’s dynasty, the Ayyubids), and his uncle, Shirkuh, were successful warriors, and at the age of fourteen the latter secured him a place in the service of Nur ad-Din in Aleppo. He received a good education and within a few years he had become the shihna (a sort of police chief) of Damascus, a role that provided him with an appreciation of politics and administration that would serve him well. He became close to Nur ad-Din, in part through a shared love of polo, a game both were said to excel at. Saladin’s secretary, Imad ad-Din, later wrote that Nur ad-Din “was passionately fond of polo and would often go out in the dark and, as the day began to break, play by the light of candles, and Saladin would ride out to play with him every morning.”18 Like his father and uncle, Saladin was a short man, whose most noted features were piercing dark eyes and a neat beard. Notwithstanding his military background and evident equestrian skills, Saladin was said to have been reluctant to join the Egyptian campaigns, although by 1167 he was fully involved in events at the siege of Alexandria.

  After Shirkuh’s death Saladin assumed the position of vizier, the de facto ruler of the land, and it is at this point he is said to have experienced a profound change in character and attitude. While some of this could be explained as idealized rhetoric, it seems true that a newfound focus and drive emerged. Ibn Abi Tayy, a near contemporary, wrote: “He repented of wine-drinking and turned away from idle pleasures, he was vigilant in government and dismissed all negligence, donned the garment of religion and observed the rule of the Holy Law, the clear guide. He girt up his loins for serious endeavour and dedication. He poured out on people from his generosity and the abundance of his liberality floods of his goodness, far removed from human experience. To him came envoys and visitors and he was sought out with jewels of orations and gems of poetry.”19 Thus the foundations for a good Muslim ruler were present—strict religious observance, justice, charity, and, of course, the need for a cultured and sophisticated court.

  He began to use this position to destabilize the standing of al-Adid, the Fatimid imam or spiritual leader.20 Saladin provoked a fight with the imam’s black infantry regiment, the force that underpinned his authority, and he duly defeated them and executed the survivors. He fought off a combined Frankish-Byzantine invasion at the coastal city of Damietta in the autumn of 1169 and then secured the pacification of upper Egypt to assure his authority in the south. In accordance with a familiar practice in the Muslim world he then buttressed his position by the appointment of family members to senior posts in the government. His father became the treasurer of Cairo and his brother Saphadin was made ruler of the Yemen. He founded Sunni law colleges, dismissed Shi’a judges and, after he had secured the allegiance of the administrative classes (many of whom were Sunni anyway), he felt strong enough to omit the name of al-Adid from Friday prayers, thereby removing one of the great symbols of power in the Islamic world (the other being the minting of coins) from the imam. Within days al-Adid was dead—possibly killed by one of Saladi
n’s brothers—and Sunni Islam had swept aside its bitter rival. Such progress aside, looming over this burgeoning family enclave was the specter of Saladin’s relationship with Nur ad-Din.

  The extension of Sunni Islam was a source of delight to Nur ad-Din; yet his ability to control Saladin had become a cause of deep concern. As the man responsible for the young man’s advancement he understandably felt that his protégé owed him some degree of loyalty; the Ayyubid family’s growing entrenchment in a land of such immense riches and the clan’s acquisition of so many key political positions were a threat to his authority. In September 1171 Nur ad-Din summoned Saladin to join him at the siege of the Frankish castle of Kerak in Transjordan.21 Saladin did not appear, blaming tensions in Cairo for his absence; his commander was not remotely impressed and made his displeasure clear—he even threatened military action. The Ayyubid clan debated how to react if Nur ad-Din were to invade Egypt. Saladin’s father spoke out, saying that they should obey Nur ad-Din, but later, in private, told his son that this had been a facade and that he should simply avoid open dissent with the Syrian.22 The Ayyubids were clearly playing a long game here and realized that as yet they could not afford open war with their former patron. Saladin’s behavior during this period poses a major challenge to his image as a selfless holy warrior. Some contemporaries were explicit about the fact that he knowingly defied his overlord and that his wish to rule over the Yemen, for example, was motivated by the need for a safe refuge should Nur ad-Din defeat him. It seems that Saladin had exploited the collapse of the Fatimid dynasty to establish his family’s position in the wealthiest land of the Near East. He had acted quickly and decisively to make the most of the situation but in doing so he acquired a taste for independence. For Nur ad-Din’s part the ongoing danger of Frankish invasions and his own plans to attack Antioch and Jerusalem were obvious reasons why he was reluctant to provoke a civil war. Yet there seems little doubt that he had lost control over Saladin whose approach looked increasingly out of step with the jihad against the Christians.