The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives

by Carole Hillenbrand

  Figure 4.3 Jami‘ al-Nuri, inscriptions on columns, 566–8/1170–3, Mosul, Iraq

  Saladin was accompanied on campaign by prominent representatives of the ‘ulama’ class. The Hanbalite legist Ibn Qudama (d. 620/1223), for example, was with Saladin when he made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and he and his cousin ‘Abd al-Ghani had been in Saladin’s army in the campaigns of the 1180s. The work entitled The Profession of Faith of the Hanbalite scholar Ibn Batta was read out publicly by Ibn Qudama in 582/1186 on the eve of Saladin’s decisive campaign against the Franks.8 In the time of Saladin, ‘Abd al-Ghani wrote a work praising jihad which was read out in Damascene religious circles.9

  As in the time of Nur al-Din, the poets in Saladin’s entourage also emphasised the religious aspects of his career, stressing his prosecution of jihad and his role as an ideal Sunni ruler. The poet Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk (d. 608/1211) addressed a rapturous panegyric to, Saladin after his glorious victory at Hattin in 583/1187:10

  You took possession of Paradises (jinan) palace by palace, when

  you conquered Syria fortress by fortress.

  Indeed, the religion of Islam has spread its blessings over created beings.

  But it is you who have glorified it…

  You have risen up in the darkness of the battle like the moon

  when it climbs slowly in the night.

  You have never shown yourself in battles without appearing,

  o Joseph, as beautiful as Joseph [in the Qur’an].

  They attacked en masse like mountains, but the assaults of your chivalry have turned them into wool…

  Syria is not the only object of the congratulations addressed to you, but it is also every region and country.

  You have possessed the lands from east to west.

  You have embraced the horizons, plain and steppe …

  God has said: Obey him;

  We have heard Our Lord and obeyed.11

  These lines are permeated with Qur’anic allusions, not only from Sura 12 which tells the story of Joseph (a pun on one of Saladin’s own names) but also Sura 70: 9 (‘And the hills became as flakes of wool’).12 Above all, these lines demonstrate how Saladin is viewed as the favoured one of God who is carrying out His divine will and purpose.

  Saladin’s Islamic credentials are fully recognised on a surviving gold coin, minted in his name in Syria and dated 583/1187. On this coin, which may well be celebrating Saladin’s victories at Hattin and Jerusalem, he is called ‘the sultan of Islam and the Muslims’. Here is a piece of irrefutably contemporary evidence: a small but expensive coin on whose limited space the title chosen to describe Saladin is a triumphantly Islamic one.13 Given the high value of gold, it was used for the minting of coins on important commemorative occasions: the climax of Saladin’s career in religious terms is thus recorded at the very time it happened in the most precious metal available.14

  Saladin’s Jihad: The Evidence of the Medieval Muslim Chroniclers

  The Muslim sources expend much energy in presenting Saladin as a model Muslim, the champion of the faith. A typical example is the biography of Ibn Shaddad, which is worth analysing in some detail. As Holt points out, this work is divided into three distinct parts, by far the largest part (c. 83 per cent) being devoted to the enumeration of Saladin’s merits and an account of the last six years of his life.15 This is clearly, then, a deliberate tilting of the evidence towards the last phase of Saladin’s career with a view to presenting him at the peak of his achievements as the ideal mujahid. Conversely, it glosses over his rise to power in the wake of what might be viewed by a less laudatory commentator as a series of extremely opportune deaths – notably those of his uncle Shirkuh, of the Fatimid caliph, and even those of Nur al-Din himself and his son al-Malik al-Salih.

  Ibn Shaddad was writing his biography of Saladin in the afterglow of the victories at Hattin and Jerusalem: indeed, he entered Saladin’s service in 584/1188 and remained with his master until his death five years later. Understandably, his work is infused with exultant pride in Saladin’s achievements. He does not only wish to praise his patron – which is, of course, the task of any court biographer – but he aims also to expatiate on the reconquest of Jerusalem and the victory of Islam over Christianity.

  Figure 4.4 Combatants, Blacas ewer, inlaid brass, 629/1232, Mosul, Iraq

  There are various events in Saladin’s career which are taken by Ibn Shaddad as significant milestones in Saladin’s spiritual evolution into an ideal mujahid. As early as his seizure of power in Egypt after the death of Shirkuh in 564/1168, Saladin ‘gave up wine and renounced pastimes, putting on the garment of serious endeavour’.16 Saladin has re-established Sunni Islam in Egypt and is now ready to fight the Franks. Ibn Shaddad does not mention Saladin’s truces with the Franks and he interprets Saladin’s efforts to seize the lands of Nur al-Din from the latter’s family as part of his devotion to jihad. He thus puts the best possible construction on manœuvres which a more impartial historian might describe as opportunistic.

  Similarly, Ibn Shaddad gives a warm, adulatory account of his master’s religious merits: ‘Saladin was a man of firm faith, one who often had God’s name on his lips.’17

  Saladin’s religious orthodoxy is stressed and we are assured that ‘speculation never led him into any theological error or heresy’.18 The fact that Saladin left an empty treasury when he died is attributed by Ibn Shaddad to the fact that he had given away his wealth, dying with only forty-seven Nasirite dirhams and a single piece of Tyrian gold in his treasury.19 Thus Saladin’s lack of care with money, a target of criticism by others, is turned into a pious virtue by his devoted admirer Ibn Shaddad. The two of them, Saladin and Ibn Shaddad, prayed together when they heard that the Franks intended to besiege Jerusalem and shortly afterwards ‘came the joyful news that they had withdrawn and were returning to the region of al-Ramla’.20

  Saladin’s prayers had been answered. So, in his personal life, which was seen by only a small handful of followers, Saladin is shown to be pious and God-fearing. These virtues are then extended by Ibn Shaddad into his role as ruler, the dispenser of justice: ‘He never turned away anyone who had suffered injustice.’21

  Saladin’s role as army general and supreme mujahid is of course given pride of place. He would make himself known to the rank and file of the soldiers in his army, creating bonds of loyalty and solidarity and enhancing corporate morale: ‘He would traverse the whole army from the right wing to the left, creating a sense of unity and urging them to advance and stand firm at the right time.’22

  Sections of the hadith were read out by the ‘ulama’ to the army ‘while we were all in the saddle’.23 No doubt these were the hadith that had to do specifically with jihad and the rewards of martyrdom in the path of God.24

  Ibn Shaddad also points out that he himself was one of those who wrote a work on jihad for Saladin, to whom he presented it in 584/1188–9: ‘I had collected for him a book on jihad in Damascus during my stay there, with all its [jihad] precepts and etiquette. I presented it to him and he liked it and used to study it constantly.’25 As for Saladin’s zeal in the pursuance of Holy War, he was, according to Ibn Shaddad, ‘more assiduous and zealous in this than in anything else’.26 In his description of Saladin’s qualities as a mujahid, Ibn Shaddad indulges in full-blown hyperbole: Tor love of the Holy War and on God’s path he left his family and his sons, his homeland, his home and all his estates, and chose out of all the world to live in the shade of his tent.’27

  Saladin’s other contemporary biographer, ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, also writes about him in laudatory terms in his work entitled The Eloquent Exposition of the Conquest of Jerusalem (Al-fath al-qussi fi’l-fath al-Qudsi). Recent research has suggested that the work was written in Saladin’s lifetime and that part of it was actually read out to him in 588/1192.28 It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that the work has a tone of such high rhetoric and that in its introduction Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem is likened to the Prophet’s hijra t
o Medina in the year 1/622.29

  In these circumstances, the evidence of the pro-Zengid Ibn al-Athir, often a stern critic of Saladin, is of especial value as a corrective to the heights of panegyric reached by Saladin’s two contemporary biographers. Yet even Ibn al-Athir sees Saladin as being full of zeal for waging jihad, and when describing Saladin on his death praises him: ‘He was much given to good deeds and fine actions, a mighty warrior of the jihad against the infidels.’30

  There is also value in the contemporary account of Saladin given by Ibn Jubayr, an outsider from Spain. He describes the pious foundations established by Saladin in Alexandria – colleges, hostels, baths and a hospital.31 He also praises Saladin for his just administration of the taxes. He sums up Saladin’s achievements as follows: ‘The memorable acts of the Sultan, his efforts for justice, and his stands in defence of Islamic lands are too numerous to count.’32 Ibn Jubayr never fails to eulogise Saladin, speaking of ‘his memorable deeds in the affairs of the world and of religion, and his zeal in waging holy war against the enemies of God’.33

  Figure 4.5 Riders, one on a barded horse, the other shooting a cross-bow, inlaid bronze flask, early thirteenth century, Iraq

  Even though Ibn Jubayr stayed only a short while in the Levant, he must have heard such favourable views of Saladin as these from the people whom he met there. Thus the testimony of outsiders satisfactorily corroborates the statements of those close to Saladin.

  Saladin’s Personal Jihad

  Like Nur al-Din, Saladin is presented in the sources as having undergone a moment of religious awakening after which he prosecuted jihad with a genuine sense of purpose, personally as well as publicly. However, as already mentioned, such presentations of Muslim rulers were clichés in the writings of the chroniclers; Saladin’s son, al-Afdal, is also recorded as having a change of heart after Saladin’s death.34

  Yet there is some justification for the belief that Saladin did undergo a genuine religious conversion. Certain disturbing experiences may well have exercised a deep impact on Saladin’s own personal religious stance. First, in the years immediately following the death of Nur al-Din, Saladin survived two attacks from the Assassins,35 one in 571/1175–6 and another in 581/1185. He also fell seriously ill and must have had time then to reflect on the fragility of human affairs. His adviser and biographer, ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, certainly views Saladin’s illness as a key moment in his religious development and this seems a much more plausible interpretation than Saladin’s alleged moral transformation whilst still in Egypt in the early 1170s. During his illness Saladin is said to have vowed that he would devote himself to taking Jerusalem whatever the cost. According to ‘Imad al-Din, the illness was sent by God to Saladin ‘to wake him from the sleep of forgetfulness’.36

  During Saladin’s convalescence ‘Imad al-Din took the opportunity to arrange for preachers and lawyers to speak to Saladin during Ramadan.37 Another close adviser of his, al-Qadi al-Fadil, also tried to make Saladin take a vow that he would never fight against fellow Muslims again and that he would devote himself to the jihad.38 Saladin’s illness came soon after Reynald’s audacious and offensive campaigns in the Red Sea which seem to have affected Saladin personally in a way which the conventional and familiar warfare with the Franks in Palestine and Syria did not. Thus, behind the rhetoric and panegyric of his biographers, one may detect key events in Saladin’s life which may well have influenced him spiritually and thus have made his jihad a more meaningful personal one.

  Despite the evidence cited so far, the sources leave little doubt that even in his own time or shortly thereafter Saladin was not immune from criticism. According to some, his policy of expansionism (1174–86), called jihad in the sources, was directed at creating a personal power base strong enough to take on the Franks. To this end he fought fellow Muslims in Syria and Mesopotamia (not merely Shi‘ite ‘heretics’ but rival princes and commanders who would not submit to his overlordship) and he turned away for long periods from attacking the Franks.

  Even his devoted scribe, the Qadi al-Fadil, reproached him, saying: ‘How shall we turn aside to fight with Muslims, which is forbidden, when we are called to war against the people of war?’39

  Saladin’s ambitions could, with a more critical eye, be viewed as those of an empire-builder with aspirations far beyond the confines of Jerusalem, the Holy Land and Syria. Jerusalem was not the unique focus of Saladin’s efforts in the 1170s and the early 1180s. After the death of al-Malik al-Salih, the son of Nur al-Din, in 1181, Saladin is revealed as having a grand design of expansionism which embraced – as he writes in a letter to the caliph at Baghdad – Mosul, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Georgia and the lands of the Almohads in the west. This design is seen in the light of the ultimate triumph of Islam and more especially the ‘Abbasid caliphate, whose servant Saladin allegedly is. Even if the undeniable rhetoric is ignored, the underlying grandiose military design is apparent and it is in marked contrast to the more modest and focused designs of Nur al-Din.

  Saladin’s expansionist plans eastwards, which are reported only by Ibn al-Athir, also reflect personal and family territorial ambitions and cannot be construed as jihad. In a conversation between Saladin, his son al-Afdal and his brother al-‘Adil, shortly before Saladin’s death, he is reported to have said: ‘We have now finished with the Franks and have nothing to do in this country. In which direction shall we turn?’40 After some discussion, Saladin proceeds as follows:

  You [al-‘Adil] take some of my sons and a part of the army and attack Akhlat [in present-day eastern Turkey], and when I have finished with the land of Rum [Byzantium], I will come to you and we will press on from there into Azarbayjan. Then we will have access to the land of Persia. There is nobody there who could prevent us from it.41

  This may well be, of course, an attempt by Ibn al-Athir (with his known bias towards Nur al-Din) to besmirch Saladin’s reputation as a jihad fighter in Palestine and Syria, especially since he places this conversation in his obituary notice of Saladin. But this could also be a true reflection of the importance of what Saladin and his contemporaries still felt to be the real centre of Muslim power, Iraq and Iran, and the influence which those lands still exerted on the Seljuq successor-states in Syria and Palestine. Clearly, according to Ibn al-Athir at least, the Franks were only one part of Saladin’s grandiose design for himself and his family. It must be remembered in this context that Saladin came of Kurdish, not of Syrian or Palestinian stock, and he had begun life further east. That heritage would naturally have predisposed him to focus on the Jazira, eastern Anatolia and Iran.

  Saladin and Jihad in Modern Scholarship

  A very favourable attitude to Saladin, based on the accounts of ‘Imad al-Din, his private secretary, and Ibn Shaddad, his army judge, was adopted by the Western Orientalist scholars Lane-Poole and Gibb, who view Saladin as imbued with high moral standards and motivated by a desire to restore the Shari‘a and to act in obedience to the caliph.42

  As Gibb writes: ‘For a brief but decisive moment, by sheer goodness and firmness of character, he raised Islam out of the rut of political demoralization. ‘43

  A critical stance towards Saladin’s jihad has also been adopted very vigorously by some modern scholars. They too point to the fact that many of Saladin’s military activities were directed against rival fellow Muslims, not all of whom were ‘heretics’, although Saladin’s propagandists might label them as such. Ehrenkreutz, for example, asks rhetorically whether Saladin would have been remembered for anything other than ‘a record of unscrupulous schemes and campaigns aimed at personal and family aggrandizement’, if he had died from his serious illness in 581/1185?44

  Lyons and Jackson share this view and they point out that if Saladin had died he would have been remembered as ‘a dynast who used Islam for his own purposes’.45

  Köhler also cuts a swathe through the aura of ideological probity surrounding Saladin’s activities. He stresses that Saladin made a number of treaties with the Christian
states of Europe and the Levant.46 Saladin and his official advisers used jihad propaganda to legitimise his power and to present their opponents as allies of infidels. In reality, Saladin had just as few scruples as Zengi or Nur al-Din about making alliances with the Franks. This contrasts markedly with Saladin’s jihad claims which are proclaimed at length in letters written for him by his advisers and addressed to the caliph, as well as in monumental inscriptions.47 Heavily loaded epithets of religious abuse are levelled against Saladin’s political opponents (even though they are fellow Muslims). Al-Qadi al-Fadil, Saladin’s scribe, labels them rebels and hypocrites.48 Köhler concludes with the rhetorical flourish that the longer Saladin undertook nothing of significance against the Franks, the more he depicted his struggles against his fellow Muslims as jihad. Köhler’s interpretation of Saladin’s career is shared to some extent at least by another German scholar, Möhring, who concludes that jihad was not the driving force in Saladin’s career and that his ultimate objective was not the reconquest of Jerusalem but the revival of the entire Islamic empire under his leadership.49

  Figure 4.6 Horse with crouching groom, inlaid metal ewer, thirteenth century, probably Iraq

  Perhaps one can go too far in the demythologisation of Saladin as a true warrior of Islam. In the years leading up to Hattin and the recapture of Jerusalem, Saladin’s rather low-key attempts at jihad against the Franks could be viewed as being a more prudent policy than an all-out attempt to crush them, since this could well have provoked a dangerous new major Crusading effort from Europe. It is, moreover, perhaps unfair to criticise Saladin for not devoting all his efforts after Hattin and the recapture of Jerusalem to the expulsion of the Franks. Saladin not only experienced the inevitable anti-climax which follows the attainment of a long-cherished goal – in his case, the conquest of Jerusalem – but had also to suffer the impact of the Third Crusade; thus his capture of the Holy City paradoxically brought him his greatest glory as well as many difficulties in the last and disappointing years of his life.