The Crusades- Islamic Perspectives

by Carole Hillenbrand

  Figure 4.12 Complex of al-Firdaws, plan and perspectival sketch, 633/1235–6, Aleppo, Syria

  Figure 4.13 Funerary madrasa of al-Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub, perspectival view, 641–8/1243–50, Cairo, Egypt

  Figure 4.14 Palace of al-Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub, plan, 638/1240–1, Cairo, Egypt

  After Saladin’s death in 589/1193 his territories were ruled by members of his own family, a dynasty which has come to be known as the Ayyubids. Ayyubid rule, which lasted until the coup d’état by the Mamluks in 647/1249, witnessed great dissension within the Ayyubid family and often prolonged periods of peace with the Franks. The Ayyubid ‘state’ can be described rather as ‘a confederation of autonomous appanages or principalities’.73

  Internally, Saladin’s successors followed the age-old principle of division of territories and confederate rule which had prevailed further east under their predecessors, the Buyids and the Seljuqs. For most of the period from 1193 to 1250 there were six Ayyubid principalities. Three Ayyubid rulers – al-‘Adil, Saladin’s brother (596–615/1200–18), al-Kamil (615–35/1218–38) and al-Salih (637–47/1240–9) – stand out as having succeeded in imposing their control over their relatives as senior family members. Otherwise, the individual Ayyubid rulers held small parcels of territory in Syria, the Jazira (plates 4.11, 4.12) and Egypt and were frequently in conflict with each other over the ownership of these territories. As Holt points out, Saladin was an exception in the Ayyubid family with his ability to hold his relatives together and to create corporate loyalty amongst them.74

  Plate 4.11 Unidentified building, throne niche of stone with representations of the royal khassakiyya corps, the personal mamluks of the Ayyubid ruler, c. 1220–30, Gu’-Kummet, Sinjar, Iraq

  Plate 4.12 Unidentified building, throne niche of stone with representations of the royal khassakiyya corps, the personal mamluks of the Ayyubid ruler, c. 1220–30, Giu‘-Kummet, Sinjar, Iraq

  In their relations with the Franks, individual members of the Ayyubid family sought peace rather than war. The Ayyubid period witnessed the full integration of the Franks as local Levantine rulers. The Ayyubid rulers made alliances with them, or fought both against them and on their side.

  In the 1240s the Ayyubid ruler al-Salih Isma’il handed over to the Franks a number of the castles in Galilee and southern Lebanon which Saladin had conquered: this initiative on the part of al-Salih Isma’il was prompted by his desire for Frankish support against his nephew al-Salih Ayyub. The Ayyubids strove to build up commercial links with the Italian maritime states to make money – and peace. Great wealth came to the Ayyubids from Levantine ports, such as Jaffa, Acre and Tyre. They feared that any serious disturbance in the ‘Levantine peace’ could provoke the launching of yet another Crusade from western Europe. Conciliation with the Franks was therefore preferable to confrontation. A typical example of this approach was al-Kamil’s opting for a treaty with the Franks in 618/1221 rather than conquering Damietta. The contemporary chronicler Ibn Wasil mentions that al-Kamil realised that if the kings of the Franks in Europe and the Pope should come to hear of any aggression on his part, even stronger Frankish reinforcements would be sent against Egypt.75 Humphreys argues convincingly that the Ayyubids were terrified of the Franks who ‘just kept coming back’.76

  Thus the Ayyubids allowed the emotionally charged atmosphere which had peaked with the conquest of Jerusalem to relax in favour of détente with the Franks, and whilst religious rhetoric still spoke in grandiose terms about jihad, this Islamic discourse bore little relation to the political realities of the Ayyubid period.

  In this period Jerusalem was even handed back to the Franks for a while – a political accommodation unthinkable in the time of Saladin – and later sacked by the Khwarazmians from Central Asia, who were at least nominally Muslims. These two events, following relatively close on each other within a bare half-century of Saladin’s recapture of Jerusalem, are a silent commentary on the ephemeral nature of extreme religious fervour.

  Jihad in the Ayyubid Period: A Hollow Sham?

  Ibn al-Athir complains bitterly that jihad has disappeared in his own time:

  Amongst the rulers of Islam we see not one who desires to wage jihad or aid … religion. Each one devotes himself to his pastimes and amusements and to wronging his flock. This is more dreadful to me than the enemy.77

  Certainly the evidence points to the Zeitgeist of the post-Saladin era as being one of détente rather than jihad; indeed, the Islamic sources which catalogue the events of this period dwell much more on interfamilial Ayyubid strife than on the conflict with the Franks. This suggests that the lack of interest in jihad may even have extended to some members of the learned classes.

  The old alliance between the religious classes and the military leadership which had been forged so successfully under Nur al-Din and Saladin was in fact still present in certain cities in Syria in the Ayyubid period (see plates 4.13, 4.14, 4.15, 4.16); but it had lost its edge. Whilst the propagandists and poets of the Ayyubids honoured them with jihad titles, their commitment to jihad against the Franks was generally not strong. The Ayyubids, like other contemporary Islamic princes (plates 4.17 and 4.18), were given strings of grandiose titles described by Balog as ‘long, sonorous, self-important protocols’.78 The difference between this and other contemporary titulature lies in its emphasis on jihad. Yet some of these titles praising Ayyubid efforts in jihad sound clichéd and hollow and often bear little relation to their actual activities against the Franks. Such titles form part of the legitimisation discourse of military leaders who had usurped power and craved religious credentials.79 Such titles, used in poetry and court historiography, aimed at enhancing the prestige of the Ayyubid princes in the eyes of the population they ruled and vis-à-vis their political rivals.

  Plate 4.13 Great Mosque, minaret, originally dated 529/1134–5, rebuilt after its destruction in 1982, Hama, Syria

  Plate 4.14 Great Mosque, sanctuary facade (1923 photograph), probably twelfth–thirteenth centuries, Hama, Syria

  (Creswell Photographic Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, neg. C. 6064)

  Two Ayyubid princes, Saladin’s brother, al-Malik al-‘Adil (d. 596/1200), and Saladin’s son, al-Malik al-‘Aziz ‘Uthman (d. 595/1198) are mentioned in a prayer, the text of which has survived from the period. It calls on God to: ‘Assist the armies of the Muslims and the phalanxes of those who believe in the One God and the inhabitants of the frontiers in the east and west of the land.’ These two Ayyubid princes are given full-blown jihad titles: ‘the warrior of jihad, the fighter on the frontier, the tamer of infidels and polytheists, the conqueror of rebels and heretics’.80

  A typical example of jihad titulature is that of the commander Aybak (d. 646/1248–9), the major-domo of the Ayyubid prince alMalik al-Mu’azzam, in an inscription dated 610/1213–14: ‘The warrior of jihad, the fighter on the frontier,81 the one supported [by God], the victorious, the one who campaigns [in the path of God], the defender of the frontier on behalf of [true] religion, the pillar of Islam…,’82 Aybak and his master al-Malik al-Mu‘azzam were,83 as it happens, keen opponents of the Franks, but often in the Ayyubid period there was a gulf between titulature and actual performance on the battlefield against the Franks.

  Plate 4.15 Great Mosque, courtyard arcades (1923 photograph), probably twelfth–thirteenth centuries, Hama, Syria

  (Creswell Photographic Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, neg. C. 6070)

  Plate 4.16 Great Mosque, interior arcades and vaults (1923 photograph), probably twelfth–thirteenth centuries, Hama, Syria

  (Creswell Photographic Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, neg. C. 6066)

  Plate 4.17 Unidentified building, marble intarsia work, twelfth century, Mosul, Iraq

  Plate 4.18 Unidentified building, marble intarsia work, twelfth century, Mosul, Iraq

  Figure 4.15 Ruler and two dragons, apotropaic sculpture, Talisman Gate, 618/1221, Baghdad, Iraq

  But jihad could and was interpreted more widely t
han fighting the infidel on the borders of Islam (figure 4.15). We have already stressed the spiritual dimensions of jihad for individual Muslims and especially the military leaders. There were other activities too which formed part of the overall jihad impulse from the period of Nur al-Din onwards. It was understood that the ruler who fought jihad did so within his realm as well as outside it: it was his pious duty to combat heresy and laxity of religious practice and to promote ‘sound religion’ and Islamic justice. In this respect, the Ayyubid princes’ record is more impressive. They were responsible for the founding of sixty-three religious colleges (madrasas) in Damascus alone (figures 4.9, 4.10, 4.11, 4.12, 4.16). The Jazira too saw an outburst of building activity in this period (plates 4.17–4.25; cf. plates 4.2–4.6, 4.11–4.12 and figure 4.31.84

  The Fate of Jerusalem in the Ayyubid Period

  The fate of Jerusalem in the Ayyubid period is a clear illustration of the dynasty’s pragmatic attitude to the Franks, and despite their loud protestations the religious classes could do nothing.

  Some of the Ayyubid rulers seem to have shared Saladin’s reverence for Jerusalem and its sacred places and his desire to contribute towards its religious life by endowing Islamic monuments. Saladin’s son, al-Afdal (d. 622/1225), endowed a religious college (al-Madrasa al-Afdaliyya) for the Malikis in Jerusalem c. 590/1194.85 Saladin’s brother, al-‘Adil (d. 615/1217) built fountains for ablutions as well as for drinking purposes within the haiam area. Another Ayyubid prince, al-Mu’azzam (d. 624/1226), sponsored the rebuilding of the arcades of the Haram al-Sharif (the sacred precinct in Jerusalem), parts of the Aqsa mosque and other monuments, as a number of inscriptions testify. His building activities on the haram do suggest an awareness of the special religious importance of the site (cf. plate 4.26). Al-Mu’azzam built two madrasas, one for the Hanafis called al-Mu’azzamiyya in 606/1209 and the other for the teaching of Arabic called al-Madrasa al-Nahwiyya (‘the Grammatical School’) in 604/1207.86

  Plate 4.19 Jami’ al-Nuri, inscription on mihrab capital with the name of Taqi al-Din Mahmud, Ayyubid prince of Hama between 626/1228 and 642/1243, Hama, Syria

  Figure 4.16 Khanqah fi’l-Farafra, Sufi ‘convent’, plan, 635/1237–8, Aleppo, Syria

  Yet despite their concern to beautify and sanctify Jerusalem, Saladin’s successors showed no interest in settling in the city and making it their capital. In this respect they were following the example of rulers of preceding dynasties, none of whom since the advent of Islam had made Jerusalem their political centre. And indeed Saladin himself even after his glorious conquest of the city showed no inclination to settle there. He remained at Damascus in so far as he was not on campaign, a tacit acknowledgement of the geophysical, political and demographic realities of the time. For all its sanctity and propaganda value, Jerusalem was not, to use modern parlance, a suitable capital city for the Ayyubids. Thus when the religious fervour of the late 1180s had subsided, the way was open for it to revert to its more natural secondary and provincial political role.

  Figure 4.17 ‘+ Of what was made for the most high Excellency, the splendid, noble Eminence Hugh, who has received the favours [of God], who rises in the van of the elite troops of the Frankish kings, Hugh de Lusignan, may his power endure’Inscription on a brass basin made for Hugh de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1324–59); probably Egypt or Syria

  Plate 4.20 Jami’ of Imam Muhsin (formerly al-Madrasa al-Nuriyya), marble intarsia work, 589–607/1193–1211, Mosul, Iraq

  Jerusalem remained securely in Muslim hands until the coming of the Fifth Crusade in 616/1219, the avowed aim of which was to attack the centre of Muslim power in Egypt as a prelude to taking back the Holy City. On hearing that the Franks did indeed have designs on Jerusalem, al-Mu’azzam, the very same Ayyubid sultan who had patronised building projects in the city, found himself reluctantly obliged to dismantle its fortifications lest it should fall again into the hands of the Franks. According to Sibt b. al-Jawzi (d. 654/1257), al-Mu’azzam justified this very unpopular action by saying: ‘If they [the Franks] were to take it [Jerusalem], they would kill those in it and rule over Damascus and the countries of Islam. Necessity demands its destruction.’87

  Plate 4.21 Mashhad Imam Yahya ibn al-Qasim, facade, detail, 637/1239–40, Mosul, Iraq

  The reaction to this demolition of Jerusalem’s defences amongst the local Muslim population was one of profound distress:

  They began on the walls on the first day of Muharram and there occurred in the city an outcry like [that of] the Day of Resurrection. Secluded women and girls, old men and women, and young men and boys went out to the [Dome of the] Rock and the Aqsa and they cut their hair and ripped their clothing to such an extent that the Rock and the Aqsa mihrab were filled with hair.88

  There then followed widespread abandoning of the city by the Muslim population.

  Ten years later worse was to follow with the actual ceding of Jerusalem in 626/1229 to the Frankish emperor Frederick II by the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil.89 In the treaty they signed, al-Kamil agreed to hand over the city of Jerusalem for ten years. Muslims (and Jews) were not allowed access to the city except to the sacred area (al-haram al-sharif), which was to remain in Muslim hands, and it was agreed that Muslim religious observances there should continue unhindered.

  One of the two chroniclers closest to the events, Ibn Wasil, tries to justify al-Kami?s conduct:

  The sultan al-Kamil said: ‘We have allowed only ruined churches and monasteries. The haram and what is in it consisting of the sacred Rock and the rest of the shrines are in the hands of the Muslims as before and the sign of Islam is on what is there [on the haram].90

  In his view, such a defenceless city could easily be reconquered for Islam later on. Al-Kamil‘s power base lay in Egypt and a Jerusalem bereft of its defences would present no threat to him: it could be handed over to the Franks who desired it as part of a treaty ensuring that they would leave Egypt alone. In reality, al-Kamil had perpetrated this act out of political expediency, since he feared hostilities from his Syrian relatives, and above all his brother al-Mu’azzam, and he needed Frederick’s military support. Jerusalem formed part of the deal and its religious status was far from uppermost in his mind.91 Thus Saladin’s own descendant handed Jerusalem back to the Franks.

  Plate 4.22 Jami‘ of Imam Muhsin (formerly al-Madrasa al-Nuriyya), marble intarsia work, 589–607/1193–1211, Mosul, Iraq

  Plate 4.23 Mashhad Imam Yahya ibn al-Qasim, facade, detail, 637/1239–40, Mosul, Iraq

  Plate 4.24 City gate, between 631/1233–4 and 657/1259, ‘Amadiyya, Iraq

  Plate 4.25 Mashhad ‘Awn al-Din, carved alabaster portal, between 631/1233–4 and 657/1259, Mosul, Iraq

  The fact of the matter was that strategically Jerusalem was not crucial to Ayyubid rulers whose power base was in Egypt or Syria. Jerusalem always had its political price so long as the Franks still desired to possess it. However much individual Ayyubid rulers may have embellished the city of Jerusalem with new monuments and pious foundations, in the end this counted for less than political expediency.

  Predictably there was widespread indignation and outrage amongst Muslims at al-Kami?s handing over of Jerusalem to Frederick. For the year 626/1229, the chronicler Sibt b. al-Jawzi writes: ‘In it [this year] al-Kamil gave Jerusalem to the emperor… The news of the handing over of Jerusalem to the Franks arrived and all hell broke loose in all the lands of Islam.’92

  Sibt b. al-Jawzi, himself a renowned preacher, then reports that the Ayyubid ruler of Damascus, al-Malik Da’ud, asked him to speak in the Great Mosque about what had happened to Jerusalem and he waxed lyrical about the recent indignities the city had suffered.93 Apart from this chronicler and Ibn Wasil, another contemporary witness, the other Islamic sources (probably out of justified feelings of corporate shame) tend to gloss over this rather ignominious episode.94

  Plate 4.26 Aqsa Mosque, facade showing both the central gable (formerly bearing Fatimid inscription, second half of eleventh century), and A
yyubid porch (note incorporation of Frankish elements, perhaps as references to Muslim victory), 615/1218–19, Jerusalem

  (Creswell Photographic Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, neg. C. 4993)

  The fortunes of Jerusalem went from bad to worse. The city remained in Frankish hands until after al-Kamil’s death in 635/1238. It then reverted briefly to Ayyubid control in 636/1239 under al-Nasir Da’ud, the ruler of Kerak, but again as a result of internal rivalries amongst the Ayyubids it was handed back to the Franks in 641/1243–4 in exchange for the promise of Frankish help to al-Nasir Da’ud and his allies against the Ayyubid ruler in Egypt, al-Malik al-Salih Ayyub.95 Thus once again the Muslim world suffered the humiliation of the Dome of the Rock being in the possession of the Franks.96 Truly Saladin and his propagandists must have turned in their graves at this betrayal.

  Jerusalem’s fortunes reached their lowest ebb in 642/1244. In order to destroy his enemies, the Ayyubid sultan Najm al-Din Ayyub called in the Khwarazmians, dispossessed nomadic troops (originally Kipchak Turks) who had been forced westwards from their Central Asian homeland, displaced by the invasions of the Mongols. The Khwarazmians fell upon Syria and Palestine and sacked Jerusalem in Rabi’I 642/August 1244,97 slaughtering the Christians and desecrating the Holy Sepulcre and other Christian churches. Thereafter, in an alliance typical of the time, in Jumada I 642/October 1244, the Khwarazmians and the Egyptian Ayyubids fought at Harbiyya against the Syrian Ayyubids who had joined forces with the Crusaders, an encounter in which the Khwarazmian-Ayyubid coalition emerged victorious.

  Sibt b. al-Jawzi is outraged by this Muslim-Frankish collaboration and yearns for the halcyon days of Islamic unity. Bemoaning the fact that Muslim troops fought under the banners of the Franks, with crosses over their heads, ministered to by Christian priests, he continues: ?t was a calamitous day, the like of which had not happened in [early] Islam nor in the time of Nur al-Din and Saladin.’98