Chapter 8

Triumph in the North

Saladin marched out of Egypt once again as a champion of the jihad on 18 November 1177. His spies had told him that the alliance between the Franks and the Byzantines had broken down and also that Count Philip of Flanders, whose arrival in the summer had seemed to threaten the Muslims, had no serious military intentions. As the Egyptian army moved up the coast to Palestine it seemed at first to be aiming for Gaza. The Templars, who garrisoned the place, called up all available reserves only to see the enemy march past on the road to Ascalon. King Baldwin, with 500 knights and the bishop of Bethlehem, was able to get into the fortress before Saladin arrived. The king sent out urgent messages for reinforcements but, leaving a small force to hem in the royal army, Saladin marched confidently on Jerusalem. The road was wide open, the Christians had been divided and decoyed to positions away to the rear of the fast-moving attack. The army was jubilant at the prospect of reconquering the Holy City, and Saladin, pleased at the success of his manoeuvre, relaxed the usually strict discipline. At an uncertain location known to William of Tyre as ‘Mons Gisardi’ and as the ‘Battle of Ramla’ by Arab sources, the carefree razzia was to be routed.

Young King Baldwin the Leper now roused his kingdom to a heroic effort. A message was smuggled through the Muslim blockade of Ascalon, ordering the Templars at Gaza to join the royal army. When they arrived Baldwin and his knights were able to break out of the encirclement and the combined forces thundered up the road to Ibelin and there turned inland towards Jerusalem. ‘Howling like dogs’ down the rugged ravines, they took the scattered Egyptian army completely by surprise. Saladin barely escaped with his life; whole detachments were slaughtered where they stood; thousands of others fled in terror without any thought of taking up their battle formations. In headlong flight southwards, they abandoned camp, booty, prisoners and even their weapons. It was a crucial Christian victory. With Jerusalem at his mercy Saladin had held the fate of the kingdom in his hand, but his own over-confidence and the lightning recovery of the Christians had transformed a triumph for the jihad into humiliating defeat. The Egyptians were harassed by Bedouin as they struggled back across Sinai, and Saladin, knowing the blow his prestige had suffered, sent messengers ahead on racing camels to Cairo to proclaim his safety and return. From the capital the news was broadcast through the country by pigeon post, and the possibility of rebellion was averted. The Egyptians were back in force in Palestine the next year – but the capture of Jerusalem had been put back a decade.

Baldwin was not strong enough to march on Damascus and so undo all Saladin’s progress in Syria, but he did strengthen his own frontiers. Humphrey of Toron, the constable and one of the kingdom’s most revered elder statesmen, built a fortress on the Hill of Hunin that commanded the road from Banyas to his castle. The king built a new fortification on the upper Jordan overlooking an important crossing known as Jacob’s Ford. It was on sensitive territory. The local peasantry who owed allegiance to Damascus or Jerusalem depending on the side of the river they had their homes used the ford regularly to take their flocks from one grazing to another. Treaty agreements governed the place and the Franks had promised never to fortify it. For this reason Baldwin, despite his great victory, was reluctant to take action which could only be provocative. Urged on by the Templars, however, he did go ahead with the building. The fortress, by militarising a ‘friendly’ stretch of the frontier, angered Baldwin’s own subjects amongst the peasant population as well as those of Damascus. Soon they were appealing to Saladin to force the Christians to abide by their treaty obligations. It was a bad time to ask his help for he was rearranging the administration at Damascus.

His brother Turan-Shah, the governor of Damascus, had been lax in his duties and had also been on suspiciously good terms with as-Salih at Aleppo. Saladin installed his nephew Farrukh-Shah as the new governor, and, much against his will, pacified his brother with the lordship of Baalbek – even though for the past three years it had been loyally held by Ibn-al-Muqaddam. With things so unsettled in his high command, Saladin was unwilling to risk a campaign to satisfy peasant petitioners. Instead he offered to buy the king off with 60,000 gold pieces; when this was refused, he upped the offer to 100,000, and when the Christians still refused to dismantle their castle he warned them it would be destroyed and swore an oath to settle the affair as soon as events were propitious.

In the spring of the next year, 1179, the seasonal movement of flocks across Jacob’s Ford sparked off the war that was bound to come sooner or later. King Baldwin, based at the new castle, was preparing to round up the flocks and in April Saladin sent Farrukh-Shah with a small force to reconnoitre. In fact they came on the Christians unexpectedly and, attacking promptly, came near to destroying the army and capturing the king. Thanks to a heroic rearguard by Humphrey of Toron, he did escape, but Humphrey himself was mortally wounded and died a few days later at the castle of Hunin. Even his Muslim enemies had respected the grand old man, and his death was a severe blow to Christian morale. Once again Saladin, perhaps caught unprepared by the unexpected success, felt unable to follow up the victory. He laid siege to the castle at Jacob’s Ford but withdrew after only a few days to his base at Banyas. From there he sent out detachments of troops to plunder the harvest from Sidon to Beirut while Baldwin moved in force to Toron, across the river from Saladin’s headquarters, to deal with the raiders on their return.

Scouts soon brought the Christian leaders news of a plundering party moving slowly south from Sidon under the command of the redoubtable Farrukh-Shah. It was the ideal opportunity to pay off an old score, and the Christians moved up to intercept the isolated column, laden with booty and flushed with success, sure of an easy victory. The armies met in the Valley of the Springs between the Litani river and the upper waters of the Jordan. The king quickly scattered the Muslims while the Templars and a force led by Raymond of Tripoli moved on up the valley, screening the action of the royal troops and reconnoitring the ground for an advance into Muslim territory. Even an attack on Damascus itself must have seemed a possibility. In fact at the head of the valley the Christian advance guard found itself face to face with the main Muslim army commanded by Saladin. Keeping a keen look-out for his raiding parties, which he knew would be vulnerable on their return, he had seen the herds on the opposite side of the Jordan stampeding and had guessed that they had been disturbed by the Christian army on the march. Rapidly mobilising his men he had gone out to the rescue.

Although the Christians had been taken by surprise, the result of the coming battle was by no means a foregone conclusion. The Muslim army was fresh, but so were the Templars and Tripolitans that faced them. Down the valley Baldwin’s force had dispersed Farrukh-Shah’s men and needed only time to re-form to meet the new threat. Had the Christian advance guard stood firm the whole army might systematically have been brought to bear on Saladin. As it was, the Templars charged haphazard the moment the enemy was sighted. Soon they were being rolled back down the valley on to the disordered, though victorious, troops of Baldwin. In the rout that followed some of the Christian fugitives made their way to safety and the coast while the king and Count Raymond of Tripoli were able to bring part of the army to the crusader castle of Beaufort on the west bank of the Litani. Hundreds stranded on the east bank were massacred or taken prisoner. The dimensions of the disaster were measured by the many noble prisoners taken. Among them was the master of the Temple, who contemptuously refused an offer of his freedom in exchange for one of Saladin’s captured emirs, declaring that the Muslim world could not boast a man that was his equal. He died at Damascus the following year. Of the other distinguished prisoners Baldwin of Ibelin was released in exchange for 1,000 Muslim prisoners-of-war and a promise to find a ransom of 150,000 gold pieces.

It had been a great victory yet Saladin did not feel able to push his advantage too far. The royal army had been scattered but a relief force led by Raymond of Sidon, though it had been too late to join the battle, was still in the field. The troops in Beaufort formed the nucleus round which the fugitives could rally; the garrisons at Hunin and Jacob’s Ford were still intact and in addition news reached Saladin of the arrival of a large body of knights from Europe led by Henry II of Champagne. But Saladin did decide to fulfil the oath he had taken to destroy the castle at Jacob’s Ford. In the last days of August 1179 the place was overrun, the garrison put to the sword and the fortifications levelled to the ground. The chivalrous company from France proved more interested in pilgrimage than sieges and returned to France. Once more Saladin’s operations in Palestine lapsed and the only offensive for the rest of the year was a dramatic raid by the Egyptian fleet on the shipping in the harbour at Acre. It was a tribute to the fighting efficiency of Saladin’s new model fleet and cost the Christians a good deal in merchandise and vessels, but it had little impact on the campaign.

The year 1180 opened with a highly successful raid into Galilee. But neither side was much interested in continuing hostilities. A drought during the winter and early spring threatened both. King Baldwin’s offers of truce were accepted by Saladin, and in May a two-year truce was signed. Hostilities with Tripoli continued for a while – the Egyptian navy made a successful raid on the port of Tortosa but Saladin was repulsed in a foray inland in al-Buqai‘ah. Soon after this he came to terms with Raymond and turned his attention northwards.

He had been called on to intervene in a dispute between Nur-ad-Din Muhammad, prince of Hisn Kaifa, and Kilij Arslan the Selchük ruler of Konya. Nur-ad-Din owed his throne at Hisn Kaifa to the patronage of his great namesake. His father had died when he was still young, and the town had been in danger of coming under the domination of Mosul, then ruled by Qutb-ad-Din, brother of the lord of Aleppo. The great Nur-ad-Din had held his brother back and protected the young prince, but Hisn Kaifa still had reason to distrust Mosul and on Nur-ad-Din’s death had allied with Saladin. The young Nur-ad-Din had also taken to wife one of the daughters of Kilij Arslan but had subsequently treated her so badly that her father was threatening to march and take reprisals. The approach of Saladin’s army from Syria was enough to pacify the angry sultan of Konya, and he even sent an envoy to discuss long-term peace with the new king of Syria. A conference at Samosata on the Euphrates, held we are told in October, settled a two-year truce. This, with the agreement he had already reached with the Christians, gave Saladin time to stabilise his position in Egypt and confirm his hold on Syria.

Arriving in Cairo early in 1181, he spent the rest of that year engrossed in Egyptian affairs, but important developments were soon to draw him north again. During the summer the Frankish lord of al-Karak, Raynald of Chatillon, broke the truce, and in December as-Salih died at Aleppo. The career of Raynald explodes erratically over the next six years, with disastrous effect for the Christian cause, and during that time Saladin learnt to hate him with a personal intensity that he rarely showed towards his enemies. A brief look at the man’s antecedents will help to explain why this should have been so.

Raynald came to the Middle East in the train of Louis VII of France, on the ill-fated Second Crusade. The younger son of a minor French noble, he had no prospects at home and decided to stay on in Palestine in the service of King Baldwin III. He was the typical European newcomer. Bigoted in religion, insensitive to diplomacy, land hungry and brutal, he made a promising start as a robber baron in the best Western tradition. He was young, well built, and a brave soldier, and he caught the eye of Constance, princess of Antioch. The marriage of this young adventurer to the greatest heiress in the Frankish East raised a few eyebrows, but Raynald soon proved his soldierly competence by extending the frontier of the principality of Antioch. In a rapid campaign against the Armenian prince, Toros, he reconquered the territory round the port of Alexandretta and handed it over to the Order of the Temple. This was the beginning of a friendship between the prince and the knights that was to have momentous consequences for the Christian states.

It was also a snub for the Byzantine emperor, Manuel, who claimed suzerainty in Antioch. Worse was soon to follow. The emperor, a loyal and valuable friend of the Latin states, had resigned himself to Raynald’s marriage and had offered to subsidise him if he would fight for the empire against the Armenians. Raynald considered his side of the bargain fulfilled by the Alexandretta campaign, which had in fact cost him little and had benefited nobody but himself and the Templars, but Manuel now refused to pay the promised subsidy until the Armenians had been thoroughly beaten or the empire had received some tangible advantage. Raynald always found deeply repugnant the notion that treaties he signed could lay obligations on him. Furious at what he saw as Manuel’s double-dealing, he promptly teamed up with Toros, recently his enemy, for an invasion of Cyprus. The new allies were temporarily hampered by shortage of funds but Raynald solved this simply enough by torturing, in a particularly bestial manner, the patriarch of Antioch. In a month of rapine and pillage Cyprus was so effectively devastated and the population so terrorised that two years later the Egyptian fleet, traditionally wary in Cypriot waters, was able to plunder there at will.

Four years later, in the late autumn of 1160, Raynald was on a raid in Nur-ad-Din’s territory. Returning, loaded with booty, he and his army were overwhelmed in an ambush. Raynald was taken prisoner and held at Aleppo for sixteen years, being released in an exchange of prisoners late in 1175. His first wife had died while he was in prison, yet, now in his fifties, he soon won himself another rich bride, the heiress of the frontier province of Transjordan and the great castle of al-Karak which glowered over the caravan and pilgrim routes from Damascus to Mecca.

From the moment Baldwin and Saladin signed the truce of May 1180 al-Karak was a potential flash-point. To Raynald it seemed outrageous that, thanks to appeasement politics, Muslim merchants should be able to pass unmolested. The fact that the kingdom, torn by political intrigue and harassed by the drought and famines of early 1180, needed the respite was quite beside the point. In the summer of 1181 he led a detachment out of al-Karak south-east to the oasis town of Taima’ in Arabia on the Mecca road where, as he learnt from his spies, a major caravan, virtually without escort, was to halt. The Christians took rich plunder and many prisoners. Saladin first demanded compensation from Baldwin, but the king was not able to force Raynald to make restitution. In the autumn a convoy of Christian pilgrims was forced by bad weather to take shelter in the port of Damietta, not realising the strained international situation. They disembarked and were promptly imprisoned to be held as hostages until Raynald should disgorge his plunder. When he still proved adamant, the pilgrims were sold into slavery and Saladin prepared to take reprisals.

The death of the eighteen-year-old as-Salih at Aleppo in December was another reason to move north. There were two obvious candidates for the succession, both grandsons of the great Zengi and both cousins of as-Salih; they were ‘Izz-ad-Din, the new ruler of Mosul, and his brother ‘Imad-ad-Din of Sinjar. As he lay dying of a mysterious stomach illness – which some ascribed to poison – the talented young ruler had debated the question of his heir with the council; it was divided into two factions. The Turkish party, anxious to secure a strong Zengid succession, naturally urged the case for ‘Izz-ad-Din, the strongest member of the family. The Arabs, and no doubt others, were alarmed that Aleppo, so recently the mistress of all Syria, should be subject to her ancient rival. They argued for ‘Imad-ad-Din, who was also as-Salih’s brother-in-law – ‘your father loved him much, treated him with affection and concerned himself with his education’. But as-Salih, more interested in his dynasty’s prospects than in sentimentalising the past, argued with the Turks in favour of ‘Izz-ad-Din. He pointed out that ‘Imad-ad-Din had only the resources of Sinjar and could do little against the might of Saladin: ‘If this man be not stopped, there will not remain a single plot of land in the possession of our family.’ Leading members went to swear their fealty to ‘Izz-ad-Din while the ‘Arab’ party wrote secretly to his brother.

According to the chronicler Kamal-ad-Din, the most influential minister at Aleppo was Jamal-ad-Din Shadbakht, governor of the citadel. He got wind of the Arabs’ dealings and ordered them to take the oath of loyalty to ‘Izz-ad-Din; they complied, realising that little was to be expected from Sinjar. Once installed at Aleppo, ‘Izz-ad-Din dispensed largesse to his supporters and penalties to his opponents and gave bounty to the population at large; he also guaranteed the customs of Nur-ad-Din and as-Salih and retained Jamal-ad-Din in the administration. No doubt to strengthen the legitimacy of his take-over, the new ruler married the widowed mother of as-Salih, and sent her under escort to Mosul.

He then took possession of all the treasures in the citadel together with arms and machines of war in the arsenal and sent it all to ar-Raqqa. He soon moved there himself, making it his headquarters for the spring. It is obvious that ‘Izz-ad-Din’s primary interest was the security of his own state of Mosul and not in mobilising it and Aleppo in a joint axis against Saladin. He wrote to his brother ‘lmad-ad-Din demanding that he cede Sinjar to him in exchange for Aleppo. The bargain was struck and ‘Imad took up his new command, bringing with him his treasure and armoury to replace some part of the depleted reserves of Aleppo. When he heard of the transfer of power, Saladin was delighted that the great city was now in the hands of a ruler who ‘has neither arms nor money’ and who had until recently been Saladin’s ally. He was also bitterly incensed that a city, which he claimed by right of a caliphal diploma, should have been taken by another while Saladin’s own army was actually defending the city of the prophet from the infidels. In his letter to the caliph complaining of ‘Izz-ad-Din’s take-over and arguing against its legitimacy, he wrote: ‘If the exalted commands should ordain that the prince of Mosul be invested with the government of Aleppo, then it were better to invest him with all Syria and Egypt as well.’

On 11 May 1182 Saladin marched out of Cairo with an army of 5,000 troops. There were elaborate formal leave-takings between the vizir and his ministers, and a soothsayer in the crowd called out a verse prophetically interpreted to mean that the vizir would never again return to the city that for thirteen years had been his capital. He took the route across Sinai to al-Aqaba and then headed north-east to avoid the Christian army which had been stationed at Petra to intercept his march. Not only did he successfully evade battle, he was able to send out pillaging raids into the district around ash-Shaubak. King Baldwin had been persuaded to march the main army of the kingdom into Transjordan by Raynald of Chatillon. No doubt, as a contemporary alleged, his real motive was to protect as much as possible of his own lands from the vengeance of Saladin; it was hardly sound strategy to take the main Christian army so far from the kingdom proper. Saladin’s deputy at Damascus, his nephew Farrukh-Shah, was a commander of proved ability and, acting under instructions from the high command, seized the opportunity to raid in Galilee, plundering Daburiya and numerous other places in the neighbourhood of Nazareth. He was also able to recapture the important fort of Habis Jaldak, twenty miles east of Jordan and an irritant long overdue for removal.

Farrukh-Shah’s activities fulfilled precisely the warnings that had been given by Raymond of Tripoli, who had urged that the army should remain to protect the heartlands of the kingdom and not be drawn away by the marching of the Egyptian army or the importunities of troublemaker Raynald. Like his supporters at the time, modern historians have tended to applaud Raymond for a statesmanlike sense of strategy and condemn Raynald. While there is no doubt that the activities of the egregious Raynald forced retaliation out of Saladin where none had been intended, and so brought war on the kingdom at the time it was least able to cope, the strategy of May 1182 was not so easy and straightforward as it is made to appear. First, to the charge that Raynald was using the forces of the kingdom to protect his own territories, his supporters could quite fairly retort that since Galilee was the domain of Raymond’s wife, the count of Tripoli’s motives might not be entirely altruistic. Secondly, the customs of the kingdom laid on the monarch the obligation of coming to the aid of any vassal under attack from the Infidel, and at the beginning of the campaign this was certainly Raynald. Thirdly, the lands of Transjordan were no less vital, though only frontier provinces, to the Christian cause as a whole than were the lands of Galilee.

The fact was that Saladin’s superior resources and their strategic positions enabled him to strike at will along the frontiers of the kingdom. Although not as yet strong enough to deal the decisive blow, he was able to orchestrate a series of damaging raids in Christian territory – seven in the decade 1177 to 1187. The comparative frequency of these razzias into infidel territory helped build the image of Saladin as a champion of the Holy War, they also contributed significantly to the weakening of the Frankish state. Land leases occasionally contained clauses exempting the tenant from rent for a period in which the crops had been laid waste by enemy action, and many a lord found himself forced to sell property to raise the ransoms for kinsfolk or tenants captured in the Muslim raids.

After his successful march up from al-Aqaba, Saladin joined his nephew and the two left Damascus, on 11 July, heading south round Lake Tiberias into the kingdom. They made contact with the Christians, who had called up reinforcements from the garrisons of the castles in the area, at the Hospitallers’ castle of Belvoir, also called Kaukab al-Hawa’. A running fight developed in which the Muslim horse archers did their best to lure the Franks into an all-out attack, while the Christians were content to hold their formation and so deny the enemy freedom of action. The fighting was spasmodic it seems, though occasionally very fierce, and when the engagement was broken off the result was inconclusive enough for both sides to claim a victory.

Next month Saladin was again on the warpath; this time against the northern port of Beirut. He had called up his Egyptian fleet by pigeon post but the amphibious attempt failed – the garrison at Beirut held out long enough for King Baldwin to come to its aid, and Saladin withdrew. He had ordered a diversionary raid by his Egyptian troops in southern Palestine, but the Franks had ignored the tactic and thrown the whole of their army against the main enemy in the north. It had been a vigorous campaigning season and from Saladin’s point of view a successful one. In five coordinated attacks by various divisions of his forces he had probed the kingdom’s frontier from south to north; the Christians had been on the defensive throughout the summer and they had suffered considerable damage from his expeditions.

It was a pattern which had been seen a number of times during the recent fighting. In the next few years there were to be those, even among his friends, who criticised Saladin’s apparent slowness in dealing with the Franks – the same thing had been said of Nur-ad-Din. But Saladin’s failure to follow up even decisive victories over the Christians was, in part, to be blamed on the fact that he had always to keep an eye on the situation at his back. Since as-Salih’s death in December 1181, events had followed the very course which the young king had feared when he tried to ensure the succession of the powerful ‘Izz-ad-Din. What remained of the kingdom of Nur-ad-Din was threatening to fall apart at the seams, the power of the Zengid house was being quickly fractured and only Saladin could profit. In the late summer of 1182, as he nursed his disappointment over Beirut, opportunities were opening up in northern Syria which seemed likely to lead to a decisive initiative for him.

The rivalry between ‘Izz-ad-Din and his brother ‘Imad-ad-Din and their confused negotiations had offered the lesser powers in the area fascinating opportunities for politicking at the expense of their once all-powerful neighbours, Mosul and Aleppo. The lord of Harran, a discontented vassal of ‘Imad-ad-Din, drew the rulers of Hisn Kaifa and al-Birah into an alliance against Mosul. Next the allies invited Saladin to cross the Euphrates in the assurance of their support. Their messenger reached him, encamped with his army before the walls of Aleppo. Early in October he crossed the Euphrates and began a triumphant progress through al-Jazirah. Edessa, Saruj and Nisibin quickly submitted and on 10 November he was before Mosul preparing for a prolonged siege. The objective was, and remained, to force ‘Izz-ad-Din to admit Saladin’s suzerainty and to supply troops on request for the Holy War as Mosul had supplied Nur-ad-Din. Although Saladin persistently demanded a caliphal diploma to this effect, he never asked for the outright lordship of Mosul.

Saladin pointed out that ‘Izz-ad-Din was not only financing the Christians to attack him in Syria but was also in alliance with the Selchük ruler of Persian Armenia, one of Baghdad’s arch enemies. The caliph was more concerned to take the heat out of a situation that was uncomfortably near his own frontiers. He sent a mediator to settle the terms on which Mosul should collaborate with Saladin. The negotiations broke down over the question of Aleppo, which ‘Izz-ad-Din refused to surrender. It was as well that Saladin had to sever his dealings with Mosul since the very fact of the negotiations was troubling his allies a good deal. They had only dared their independent initiative because of the rift that had opened between Aleppo and Mosul – a deal over their heads between Saladin and ‘Izz-ad-Din was the last thing they wanted. With diplomacy now at a standstill, Saladin could have been expected to press his offensive but was persuaded by the caliph’s representative to abandon the siege. He withdrew to Sinjar, the town that Mosul had won back only months before by trading off Aleppo. After a siege of a fortnight it fell, and Saladin’s army, possibly restless after being, as they saw it, cheated of the rich spoils of Mosul, sacked the place with uncharacteristic thoroughness and brutality. The governor was spared and sent with an honourable escort back to Mosul, but the fall of Sinjar had been a severe blow to ‘Izz-ad-Din’s prestige and he led his forces out on the road to Sinjar in a show of strength. The effect faltered when he sent further offers of a truce to Saladin and when these were turned down because the wanted concessions over Aleppo were still withheld, the Mosul army returned ignominiously to its base.

Throughout his campaign Saladin had kept up diplomatic pressure on Baghdad to grant official recognition to his claim of suzerainty over Mosul. It was consistently refused, but he was granted the diploma for Diyar-Bakr and late in January 1183 marched against it. After a three-week siege it fell and was given as a fief to Nur-ad-Din of Hisn Kaifa. The city held one of the most famous libraries in Islam and Saladin gave his secretary al-Fadil carte blanche to remove the volumes he wished. Even a caravan of seventy camels could take only some of the treasures to Damascus. It is a measure not only of the magnificence of the collection but of the gulf that divided the culture of the West from that of Islam – in twelfth-century Europe the contents of a great library were to be measured in scores rather than hundreds.

At the end of 1182, with Saladin fully committed to his campaign against Mosul and Aleppo, Raynald mounted an audacious expedition southwards towards the heart of Saladin’s domains. He took al-Aqaba, which had been in Muslim hands since Saladin captured the place twelve years before. While he himself blockaded the island fortress opposite the port, he launched a fleet of prefabricated ships which had been transported overland from al-Karak. They mounted an expedition down the Sinai peninsula and into the Red Sea; it raided along the African coast and sacked the port of ‘Aidhab opposite Jedda. The merchant shipping in the harbour was plundered and an overland caravan from the Nile valley was routed as it approached the town. Next, with considerable élan the Christian pirates carried the attack to the coast of Arabia, raiding the ports which served Mecca and Medina and sinking a pilgrim ship. For a time even Mecca seemed in danger.

But the danger was more apparent than real. Thanks to Saladin’s naval reforms Egypt was well prepared. His brother, al-Adil, the governor, promptly dispatched a fleet to deal with the marauders. Al-Aqaba was recaptured and the Christian fleet taken; in military terms the whole expedition, which had occupied less than a month, had been a fiasco. It had also proved that Egypt was quite able to look after itself and that Saladin had complete freedom of movement in his huge empire, sure in the competence of his lieutenants. Nevertheless, Raynald had touched a raw nerve in Saladin’s self-esteem. His image of himself as the protector of the Holy Places and the pilgrim routes and his reputation as such in Islam had been tarnished. It is not surprising that his reaction was far stronger than the military danger warranted. Batches of the prisoners were taken for ceremonial execution at the Place of Sacrifice at Mina in Mecca, at Cairo and at Alexandria, where they were escorted by triumphant processions of sufis and other religious enthusiasts who carried out the killings. The picture is as ugly as any Frankish atrocity, but in an age when civilisation and barbarity walked comfortably hand in hand the propaganda value of such public punishment of the Christian sacrilege was of course considerable.

Because the raid had dared to aim at the holiest places of Islam, Saladin’s chancellery was able to make immense capital out of it, even though it had failed. He himself was having to campaign against Muslims because they were allied with the Infidel. Every aspect of the episode was exploited in the propaganda of the Holy War. Raynald and his men were compared to the ‘companions of the elephant’, a group of Abyssinians who, according to the Koran, had attacked Mecca in the days before the Hegira. Political capital was certainly made out of it, but the Red Sea expedition did also provoke a response of genuine horror from the Muslim community. The Spanish traveller Ibn-Jubair, who was journeying in the Middle East at the time, records the impressions the event made, and the jihad literature of the thirteenth century abounds with eulogies of Saladin for his part in the protection of the sacred sites of pilgrimage from the impious designs of Raynald.

Hoping perhaps that the swell of public opinion in his favour would reinforce his application, Saladin wrote again, after the capture of Diyar-Bakr, to beg Baghdad’s official sanction for his campaign against Mosul. It was, he said, the fact that the attack on Diyar-Bakr had had the authorisation of the head of the Faith that had ‘opened the gates of the city to him’. The same would assuredly happen at Mosul, and the obstinacy of this one city was all that now stood between Islam and triumph over the Franks. ‘Let the commander of the Faithful but compare the behaviour of his servants [i.e. Saladin and ‘Izz-ad-Din] and judge which of them has most faithfully served the cause of Islam.’ If, the letter continues, it be asked why Saladin, already so powerful, demands the supreme authority in al-Jazirah, the Lesser Mesopotamia controlled by Mosul, it is because ‘this little al-Jazirah is the lever which will set the great al-Jazirah [i.e. the whole of the Islamic Middle East] in motion. It is the point of division and the centre of resistance and once it is set in its place in the chain of allegiance the whole armed might of Islam will be coordinated to engage the forces of Unbelief.’ He might have added that the fertile region between the upper waters of the Tigris and Euphrates had been the recruiting ground of the armies of Zengi and had provided vital manpower to Nur-ad-Din. Saladin could not rely exclusively on the manpower of Egypt because its own extended frontiers now demanded a sizeable standing army.

The petition was as unsuccessful as former ones, but the victory at Diyar-Bakr brought the ruler of Mardin and other cities behind Saladin. Having handed over the cities of al-Jazirah to loyal emirs and demonstrated the inability of Mosul to defend even its own interests, let alone those of its allies, he marched on Aleppo, arriving before its walls on 21 May 1183.

As the siege began the garrison made a number of hard-fought sorties, during one of which Saladin’s youngest brother, the twenty-two-year-old Taj-al-Mulk Böri, was killed. It was a serious loss for Saladin, who depended heavily on his family in the administration of his domains; but he also loved the boy. In later years, full of remorse, he told Baha’-ad-Din: ‘We did not win Aleppo cheaply, for it cost the life of Böri.’ If Kamal-ad-Din, the historian of Aleppo, is to be believed, there was also unrest in the army. The poor harvests and arrears in their pay led to grumbling among men and officers which came dangerously near to mutiny. Saladin, it appears, while pointing out that his personal resources were few, promised them rich pickings from Aleppo and its territory once the place was won. The reply he got was curt enough.’ Who wants to take Aleppo? If the sultan would but sell the jewels and finery of his wives we should have money enough.’ And so, we are told, the sultan did as demanded and paid his troops with the proceeds of the sale.

Kamal-ad-Din, who wrote his history of Aleppo some thirty years after the events described, is our only source for this odd story. Saladin’s plea of personal poverty rings true enough. Enemies have accused him of buying popularity, admirers ascribe it to his great-hearted generosity of nature, but no writer on Saladin has ever denied that his distribution of the plunder of war was lavish compared with the practice of other commanders and far in excess of what the military conventions required. The reference to his wives is intriguing because so little is known of Saladin’s private life. If we are really to believe that a sale of their personal effects was enough to satisfy an army’s demand for back pay he must have been uxorious indeed. But the context suggests that the story is merely a fiction by the Aleppan historian to balance the genuine quandary facing the ruler of the city with a corresponding dilemma in the camp of the enemy.

For ‘Imad-ad-Din’s troops certainly were demanding their pay – and he had other problems. Although he had been installed at Aleppo on his brother’s authority he was little liked by the Turkish party among the emirs who had originally opposed his succession, nor had his brother greatly helped his prospects by clearing out the armoury and the treasury. Discussing the situation with Tuman, his close adviser who had come with him from Sinjar, he confessed himself at a loss. Before making his proposals he asked for a promise that they would be treated in absolute confidence, for, he went on, ‘if the emirs learnt a single word of our conversation they would start a rising and the affair would turn against us.’ In fact he intended that they should use Aleppo as a bargaining counter to extricate themselves from what was rapidly becoming an impossible situation. For the plan to work the town would have to be surrendered while it still appeared to have some chance of survival. Secret negotiations were opened with Saladin. He not only offered ‘Imad-ad-Din Sinjar in exchange for Aleppo, but also Nisibin, Saruj and even ar-Raqqa, where the treasures and armaments of Aleppo had been housed. For ‘Imad-ad-Din, who had only reluctantly surrendered Sinjar at his brother’s urgings, the deal was a good one, and on the morning of 11 June the defenders were dumbfounded to see the yellow banners of Saladin break out on the battlements.

The Aleppan emirs who had been opposed to Saladin ever since his arrival in Syria now feared they would lose their fiefs; the population at large feared they would lose their lives. The rais(or mayor), with a group of city elders, went up to the citadel to protest against the surrender, but ‘Imad-ad-Din, wisely not coming out to meet them, returned the scornful message: ‘The thing is settled.’ The capitulation was in fact immensely valuable to Saladin. Aleppo was virtually impregnable and Saladin was no master of siege warfare. Had ‘Imad-ad-Din been as determined as the citizens, Saladin might have had to be content with the kind of deal he eventually struck with Mosul, where the ruler recognised his suzerainty but retained his own position in the city. As it was, ‘the thing was settled’.

The garrison and citizenry hurriedly made up a joint deputation which met Saladin during the ceremony of surrender at the Green Hippodrome. They were astonished and delighted at his reaction. The officers and commanders of the defeated garrison received robes of honour for the boldness of the defence and the city was spared a sack. Secure now in the good graces of their new master, the population poured their contempt on the outgoing governor. Before he left, a fuller’s bowl was presented to him with the words ‘Royalty was not meant for you; this is the only trade you are fit for.’ (Stale urine was one of the standard bleaches of the medieval fuller.)

Of Aleppo’s dependencies only Harim still held out. Its governor tried for help from Frankish Antioch, but this time the traditional manoeuvre disgusted public opinion. The governor was deposed and the city was formally made over to Saladin on 22 June. He was poised for the last great decade of his career.

Exercising uncontested authority from Egypt to Syria, including the territories of Damascus and Aleppo and areas of what is now southern Turkey, recognised as lord in Arabia and patron of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina; supported by the caliph in Baghdad, now that his authority was unchallenged by the once mighty city state of Mosul, and his friendship cultivated by the Selchük sultans of Konya in Anatolia, Saladin directly ruled territories of imperial dimensions and exerted influence and authority more extensive than those enjoyed by any other Muslim ruler west of Iran in 200 years.

Saladin had owed his rise in large part to loyal Syrian troopers, noted even then for their violence and termed his ‘rough companions’ by Imad-ad Din; he was himself capable of ruthlessness when occasion demanded it, and though noted for his magnanimity to his enemies, was rigid in his observance of the dividing line between those of the true faith of Islam and Unbelievers. A famous anecdote relates how he restrained two of his young sons, barely in their teens, from participating in a slaughter or prisoners. But this should not be understood as an instance of altruistic humanitarianism on the part of Saladin, or a wish to check a burgeoning blood lust. It was right that warriors should kill the Infidel – but only when, with mature understanding, they knew the distinction between them and the people of the Faith.

Saladin was a hero indeed, but a hero of the Dar al Islam, the region of the religion. As such his face was always set hard against the Dar al Harb, the region of war. To fight the good fight it was necessary for him to subdue other rulers to his will. The service of the Faith required resources and obedience of imperial dimensions. It was the logic of his life that made of Saladin a dynast.