The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives

by Carole Hillenbrand

  In his funerary inscription Balak is called ‘sword of those who fight the Holy War, leader of the armies of the Muslims, vanquisher of the infidels and the polytheists’.36 We find here, then, a whole sequence of resonant titles reflecting a clear concern with jihad against the Crusaders, and Balak is extolled as a Muslim champion in the wars against the unbelievers. In addition he is also called ‘martyr’ (shahid). There are also two very telling Qur’anic quotations on Balak’s tomb. The first is chapter 3, verse 169: ‘Think not of those who are slain in the way of Allah as dead. Nay, they are living. With their Lord they have provision.’ The second, chapter 9, verse 21, says: ‘Their Lord giveth them good tidings of mercy from Him, and acceptance, and Gardens where enduring pleasure will be theirs.’

  Both these Qur’anic verses show Balak clearly as a jihad warrior who has been martyred in the way of God and for whom Paradise is the reward.37 Had he lived, Balak might have inspired a Muslim response to the Franks much earlier.

  Zengi’s victory at Edessa in 539/1144 singles him out as the first major player in the Muslim recovery against the Franks. However, he was a warrior with sprawling ambitions that straddled both the arena of Crusader activity in Syria and Palestine and also Seljuq power politics further east in Baghdad and Mosul. But clearly his capture of Edessa was a key turning-point for the Muslims; indeed, it prompted the Second Crusade. He too is described in contemporary inscriptions in terms of jihad, even before his victory at Edessa. For example, in an inscription at Aleppo dated Muharram 537/August 1142 he is called ‘tamer of the infidels and the polytheists, leader of those who fight the Holy War, helper of the armies, protector of the territory of the Muslims’.38

  Figure 3.14 Horseman and foot soldier, stone tympanum, twelfth century, Daghestan, eastern Caucasus

  Why the emphasis here on these Islamic monumental inscriptions? Their value lies in their very contemporaneity: they are dated to the period of early Crusader presence in the Near East and show that, unlike elsewhere in the Islamic world at this time, monuments in the area right next to the Franks were proclaiming the virtues of those who fought jihad. This is surely not a coincidence, but rather the beginning of a stirring of jihad spirit amongst at least some of the lacklustre and disunited Muslim leaders of Syria. The timing of the first appearance of jihad titles on public buildings coincides with the first modest military victories of the Muslims against the Crusaders. The evidence of these inscriptions shows that the Muslims were beginning at last to interpret these victories in the light of jihad. It was the Muslim jurists who preached and wrote about jihad and it was also they who probably composed the wording of inscriptions, who were the leaders of public opinion in the mosque and the market place and who provided the bridge between the common people and their military overlords. The modest beginning of an alliance between the Turkish commanders and princes and the religious classes can be seen in these monumental records of Muslim victories in the period before the fall of Edessa.

  But the Muslim world still lacked a really charismatic leader who could unite the conflicting factions and realise the full potential of the weapon of jihad propaganda in the task of unifying the lands bordering the Franks.

  Zengi and the Fall of Edessa

  The fall of Edessa marked a significant turning-point in Muslim fortunes. Edessa was the first of the Crusader states to be regained for Islam, and although the Second Crusade was launched shortly afterwards as a direct consequence of Zengi’s victory, this new initiative from Europe achieved little. Was ‘Imad al-Din Zengi the long-needed Muslim leader, the jihad fighter who could unite the Islamic world and rid it of the Frankish presence? Certainly, Ibn al-Athir, the court chronicler of the Zengid dynasty in the thirteenth century, was in no doubt that the good fortune of the Muslim world in its struggle against the Franks began with the achievements of Zengi.39 Deploring the great weakness of the Islamic lands and the vast extent of Frankish power before the coming of Zengi, Ibn al-Athir launches into a panegyrical passage about Zengi’s achievements in revivifying Islam:

  When Almighty God saw the princes of the Islamic lands and the commanders of the Hanafite creed and how unable they were to support the [true] religion and their inability to defend those who believe in the One God and He saw their subjugation by their enemy and the severity of their despotism … He then wished to set over the Franks someone who could requite the evil of their deeds and to send to the devils of the crosses stones from Him to destroy and annihilate them [the crosses]. He looked at the roster of valiants among His helpers and of those possessed of judgement, support and sagacity amongst His friends and He did not see in it (the roster) anyone more capable of that command, more solid as regards inclination, stronger of purpose and more penetrating than the lord, the martyr (al-shahid) ‘Imad al-Din.40

  Such inflated claims in respect of Zengi by Ibn al-Athir are hard to reconcile with the detailed facts of his career as an opportunistic and ruthless military commander who ruled his territories with a rod of iron.

  Zengi was in a different class from the Muslim military leaders of the early twelfth century – such as Il-Ghazi or Tughtegin – who had preceded him and had fought the Franks in rather desultory fashion. Zengi’s death in 1146 – so soon after his famous conquest of Edessa two years earlier – prevents us from assessing whether he would have been presented in the Islamic sources as a true fighter of jihad. But brilliant leadership qualities he certainly did have. He is shown in the majority of the sources as a despot of chillingly ruthless personality who literally inspired terror in his army and subjects alike. His cruelty and iron grip on affairs were legendary.

  ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani launches into a diatribe against Zengi of a ferocity usually kept for his descriptions of the Franks:

  Zengi was tyrannical and he would strike with indiscriminate recklessness. He was like a leopard in character, like a lion in fury, not renouncing any severity, not knowing any kindness… He was feared for his sudden attacking, shunned for his roughness, aggressive, insolent, death to enemies and citizens.41

  Fear is the word most often associated with Zengi in the Islamic sources. Like Baybars after him, Zengi was a zealous upholder of public morals, especially those of his soldiers’ wives.42 In a manner reminiscent of the Mongol commanders, Zengi kept cast-iron discipline amongst his troops. The chronicler of Aleppo, Ibn al-‘Adim, writes as follows: ‘When Zengi was on horseback, the troops used to walk behind him as if they were between two threads, out of fear that they would trample on the crops … If anyone transgressed, he was crucified.’43

  Side by side with these fear-inspiring qualities, Zengi possessed undoubted military and political skills. He came from a family long used to military service and to rulership and is praised in the sources for his excellent government. His career lies on the cusp of Muslim fortunes against the Franks. In the eyes of posterity Zengi was remembered principally for his taking of Edessa. Even those sources which dwell on his despotic qualities are prepared to forget them because of Edessa. All his misdeeds are pardoned by this one act. Towards the end of his life, Zengi is portrayed in the Muslim sources as a real hero of Islam. He is generally called shahid (martyr) in the sources, although he was killed in a drunken stupor in his tent by a slave.

  Figure 3.15 Huntsman, inlaid brass basin known as the ‘Baptistère de St Louis’, c. 1300 or earlier, Syria

  Zengi did not patronise the religious classes as assiduously as his son Nur al-Din was to do. Two years before his death and after a long career of frenetic and wide-ranging military activity, the fall of Edessa was of course Zengi’s passport to fame and Ibn al-Athir exploits this victory to the full: ‘This was truly the victory of victories and the one of them most similar in truth to Badr: those who witnessed it were devoted to jihad with the firmest conviction.’

  Thus Zengi’s conquest of Edessa is likened to the Prophet Muhammad’s famous victory at Badr. Ibn al-Athir then goes on to say that Zengi’s conquests of other places in the area were achieved whil
st he had his eye all the time on Edessa. The whole event of Edessa is described in a rosy religious aura, although Ibn al-Athir spends many pages cataloguing Zengi’s other activities which have nothing to do with jihad against the Franks: ‘Islam became like the full moon after it had been obscured [as at the end of the lunar month] and the suns of the faith became illuminated after their lights had been obliterated.’44

  Ibn al-Athir’s partiality towards Zengi and his dynastic successors has clouded his normally sound judgement here.

  It is doubtful whether the foundations for a true Muslim recovery against the Franks were in place during Zengi’s career. Indeed, it was only in the last few years of Zengi’s lifetime that he came to be viewed in the sources as a mujahid. It is, of course, difficult to evaluate the actual military activities of Zengi against the panegyrics of those who wished to create him in the image of a champion of jihad. Two poets who had escaped the Frankish conquest of the Syrian coast, Ibn al-Qaysarani (from Caesarea) and Ibn Munir (from Tripoli), eventually joined Zengi’s entourage. The bitter experience of being wrenched from their homes must have added an extra dimension to the calls for jihad in their poetry addressed to their patron Zengi.45

  Whilst no doubt motivated by the desire for remuneration (the life of court poets was always precarious), Ibn al-Qaysarani and Ibn Munir, after the fall of Edessa, pointed out how the Counter-Crusade should proceed,46 and they eloquently urged Zengi along that way. Ibn al-Qaysarani stressed the need for the Muslims to make the reconquest of the whole Syrian coastline (the Sahil) the principal aim of jihad: ‘Tell the infidel rulers to surrender after it [Edessa] all their territories, for it is his [Zengi’s] country.’47

  As Sivan argues persuasively, the fall of Edessa allowed the Muslims to shift from a predominantly defensive stance to an offensive one. Apart from the views of al-Sulami and perhaps other members of the religio-legal elite in Syria, before the fall of Edessa jihad, as a motivating factor had been erratic, piecemeal and rather unfocused. After the fall of Edessa, these two poets helped to crystallise jihad around the concept of the reconquest of Jerusalem. As Ibn Munir writes: ‘He [Zengi] will turn tomorrow towards Jerusalem.’48 Ibn al-Qaysarani joins him in this emphasis on Jerusalem: ‘If the conquest of Edessa is the high sea, Jerusalem and the Sahil are its shore.’49

  Figure 3.16 Mounted hunter, inlaid brass basin known as the ‘Baptistère de St Louis’, c. 1300 or earlier, Syria

  Whether or not Zengi himself accepted this mantle of true mujahid, it is important to stress that contemporary poets viewed him in this light; and it is surely plausible to argue that his victory at Edessa must have raised Muslim hopes concerning him and also shaped his own self-image vis-à-vis the Franks.

  Certainly it is possible that Zengi would have gone on to take Damascus and unite Muslim Syria under his iron fist. An alliance with the religious classes could then have followed and he could have been presented as a true jihad leader of the Muslims in a propaganda campaign of mounting intensity focused on Jerusalem. The caliph of Baghdad had already paved the way by congratulating Zengi after his conquest of Edessa with a string of honorific titles stressing his Islamic credentials: according to Ibn Wasil, he was called inter alia ‘The adornment of Islam, the king helped by God, the helper of the believers’.50

  Instead, Zengi was murdered in Rabi‘ I 541/September 1146 and it was his son Nur al-Din who was to achieve the reputation in the Muslim sources of the real architect of the Muslim CounterCrusade. But Zengi had paved the way, presenting a model of ruthless military government which his son was to emulate.

  The Muslim response to the Franks, which involved skilful use of the weapons of jihad propaganda, may be seen as gradual and cumulative, each generation building on and developing the experiences of the previous one. Yet the fall of Edessa may be picked out as a decisive moment in propelling the movement of jihad forward. This was the easternmost Frankish possession, the only one across the Euphrates, and thus the one that most directly threatened the seat of Zengid power, Mosul. Henceforth the Franks were confined to the Levant proper. It would be left to Zengi’s son, Nur al-Din, to take over the struggle against the Franks and to move inexorably towards their encirclement and the acquisition of the city of Jerusalem.

  So much, then, for the development of the idea of jihad in religious, political, military and ideological terms up to the fall of Edessa in 1144 and the advent of the Second Crusade. The rest of this chapter will seek to illuminate the further development of jihad through the study of its role in the career of one of the key personalities of the Near East in the second half of the twelfth century, namely Nur al-Din.

  The Coming of the Second Crusade in 543/1148 – a Turning-Point in the Jihad

  We have seen in Chapter 2 that the Muslim rulers of Syria in the early decades of the twelfth century pursued a policy of collaboration with the Franks when their territories were threatened from outside by armies sponsored by the Seljuq sultans or the governors of Mosul. Such military help ostensibly against the Franks was viewed as interference by princes ‘of the east’ and met with opposition in the form of city gates being closed in the faces of the incoming Muslim army, as with Aleppo under Ridwan in 505/1111–12, or a Frankish-local Muslim coalition army. This hostility to the Muslim east was an important factor in Zengi’s failure to capture Damascus on several occasions in the 1130s.

  As is well known, the Second Crusade proved to be a fiasco, as the Franks decided to mount a massive attack on Damascus, rather than recapturing Edessa or taking Aleppo. Despite the size of the Frankish army sent to Damascus, it was repelled and the enterprise fizzled out thereafter. As a result of the Frankish siege of Damascus in 543/1148 the mood within Damascus and thereafter elsewhere in Syria seems to have changed. Not since the humiliating experiences of the First Crusade and, above all, the Frankish conquest of Jerusalem had the inhabitants of a major Muslim city seen and felt first-hand the presence of the Franks within their walls, pillaging and killing. It is made clear in the Islamic sources that the people of Damascus had not expected to be the target of the renewed Frankish attack from Europe known in the West as the Second Crusade. This must have made its impact all the more profound.

  The Muslim sources are at pains to mention that during the siege of Damascus two members of the religious classes, the Malikite imam Yusuf al-Findalawi and an ascetic named ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Halhuli, both aged men, died as martyrs in defence of the city.51 Indeed, the religious classes of Damascus could play on the emotional impact of the Frankish presence within the city and begin to exploit a real sense of the need to embark on jihad against these unwanted infidel intruders. It was no longer appropriate to make alliances with the Franks in order to maintain the independent status of Damascus as a city-state. The shock and horror of Frankish pillaging and killing could be harnessed to a new appeal to unite in jihad against the Franks. It was fortunate for Nur al-Din that he could begin his career at this turning-point in Damascene and Syrian history.

  The Career of Nur al-Din, 541–569/1146–1174

  In order to evaluate Nur al-Din within the context of a discussion of jihad, it is useful to give a brief summary of the major landmarks in this period and to highlight the achievements of his career.

  After Zengi’s murder, Nur al-Din, his second son, speedily took possession of Edessa and Aleppo. The Muslim world then underwent the impact of the Second Crusade, triggered by the fall of Edessa. Nur al-Din achieved a resounding victory against the Franks at Inab in Safar 544/June 1149. By 549/1154 he had united Syria. With the accession of the Crusader ruler Amalric in 558/1163 a new phase in the career of Nur al-Din began. Amalric turned his attention towards the ailing Fatimid state in Egypt, weakened by the assassination of the vizier Tala’i‘ in 556/1161, and Nur al-Din was obliged to adopt a more bellicose stance towards the Franks, as he too began to intervene in the internal affairs of Egypt. In 558/1163 Nur al-Din suffered a defeat at the hands of the Franks in the plain of al-Buqay’a. The following year, the
Fatimid vizier Shawar came to Nur al-Din to beg for military help against his political rival in Cairo, Dirgham, who had ousted him from power. In 559/1164 Nur al-Din sent an army under the Kurdish commander Shirkuh (the uncle of the future Muslim leader Saladin) to restore Shawar to power in Cairo. For his part Dirgham invited the Franks under Amalric to come to his aid but Shawar regained control of Cairo and reneged on his promises to Nur al-Din.

  Figure 3.17 Helmets, thirteen th-four teen th centuries, Turkey

  A second campaign into Egypt sponsored by Nur al-Din in 562/1166 achieved little. However, the Franks launched an offensive in 564/1168 against Cairo. Shawar was obliged to summon the help of Nur al-Din once again. During a third Egyptian campaign Nur al-Din entrusted the command to Shirkuh. On the latter’s death in 564/1169, his nephew Saladin assumed command of the Syrian troops in Egypt and moved towards controlling the Fatimid state by masterminding his own appointment as vizier by the Fatimid caliph al-‘Adid. On the death of the caliph in 565/1171 Saladin took the most significant step of abolishing the Fatimid caliphate and restoring Egypt to allegiance to the Sunni ‘Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad.52 Until 567/1172 Saladin made all these moves in the name of his master Nur al-Din in Syria, but thereafter there were increasing signs of estrangement between them which would probably have erupted into an open rift if Nur al-Din had not died in 569/1174. The previous year Nur al-Din had been given a document from the caliph officially conferring upon him all the lands which he had conquered.

  Behind this recital of the principal events of the military career of Nur al-Din there lies the complex reality that he had to fight throughout his career against a wide range of opponents: his own Sunni Muslim political rivals in Syria, Isma‘ili Shi‘ite and other factions in Egypt, Byzantium – which was intervening in Syrian affairs – and last but not least the Franks. His admirers would say that the subduing of all his Muslim military opponents in Syria and the creation of a unified territory on the borders with the Franks were an essential preliminary to tackling the Franks themselves. Indeed, the attempt by Nur al-Din to unite Syria and Egypt under a Sunni ruler for the first time since the tenth century was exactly what al-Sulami had advocated as a crucial step in the encirclement of the Franks. Yet critics of Nur al-Din could draw attention to his long career – twenty-eight years – in which a significant proportion of his military effort was directed at fighting his fellow Muslims and not the Franks. It is also noteworthy that Nur al-Din judged it prudent at certain points in his career to enter into peace treaties, for example with Byzantium in 554/1159 and with the Frankish ruler of Jerusalem in 555/1161.