Chapter 13: Saladin

“God has reserved the recovery of (Jerusalem) for the house of (my family), in order to unite all hearts in appreciation of its members.”

 – Saladin 

There was nothing in Saladin's past to suggest any particular military genius or political gifts, and in fact he owed his promotion to the fact that he was young and without obvious allies in Egypt. The caliph had resented the way Shirkuh had dominated him, and had intended to secure a much weaker candidate. Once in power, however, Saladin moved with alarming speed. Cairo's defenses were immediately strengthened, and the Red Sea ports were secured to guard against crusader invasions. Within a year he had deposed the Fatimid Caliph and consolidated all power in his hands. 

When Amalric had returned to Egypt with the Byzantines, Saladin had easily withstood their attack, and demolished several crusader strongholds on Egypt's borders. His successes had unnerved Nūr al-Dīn who had no wish to see a rival Muslim state establish itself. Suspecting that his vassal was of dubious loyalty, Nūr al-Dīn had ordered Saladin to join him in an attack on the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin's refusal, although couched in polite language, confirmed the atabeg's suspicions. Nūr al-Dīn immediately raised an army to invade Egypt, but luck was on Saladin's side. Nūr al-Dīn died of a sudden fever before he could set out, leaving a flock of mediocre family members behind to engage in a civil war over the inheritance. 

Saladin took full advantage of the chaos. Like Nūr al-Dīn before him, he believed that only a purified, united Islam could drive the Christians out of the Middle East. Jerusalem may have looked weak – Amalric had been succeeded by his thirteen-year-old son Baldwin IV – but Saladin was astute enough to realize that any invasion would be politically premature. All of Outremer was either allied with or under the protection of Byzantium. Any advance against a Christian city would result in an imperial response. The Muslim cause would be much better served by putting its own house in order first. 

This Saladin proceeded to do with unnerving speed. Jerusalem was bought off with a four-year truce, and a quick invasion of Syria crushed the forces of Nūr al-Dīn's sons. The work of mopping up the remaining emirs took longer, but by the end of the campaigning season he had been crowned Sultan of Egypt and Syria. 

While Saladin was occupied in Syria, his concern about Byzantine support to the crusaders resolved itself. In 1176, the emperor Manuel Comnenus was ambushed while crossing a narrow mountain pass in Anatolia. His army, supposedly so large that it covered ten miles, was badly mauled, and only with great difficulty was the emperor able to extricate himself. 

Although Manuel still had enough strength to defend his own territory, he could no longer go on the offensive. The old imperial dream of recovering Anatolia from the Turks was permanently abandoned. Byzantium was now on the defensive, neatly removed as a political force in Syria or the Levant. 

Little help could be expected from Europe either. The pope and the German emperor were at war in northern Italy,⁹⁴ while relations between France and England were equally bad. Engrossed in their own struggles, the nobility of Europe had neither time nor interest in the East. Outremer was on its own. 

The Leper King

The new ruler of Jerusalem wasn’t well. When Baldwin IV was only a child, his tutor had made a horrifying discovery. The prince and his playmates had devised a game to see who could endure the most pain by driving their fingernails into each other's arms. As the other boys squealed in agony, Baldwin stood impassively. At first this was taken as an impressive display of stoicism, but it soon became clear that the young prince couldn't feel anything at all. Baldwin IV was a leper. 

By the time he became king at the ripe age of thirteen, the knowledge that there was something dreadfully wrong with him had already doomed Baldwin IV's reign. He was smart, hard working, and serious, but because there was no possibility of children, the royal court dissolved into factions, each trying to control him and position themselves for the next reign. Even worse for the kingdom was the unwelcome return of Reynald of Châtillon who had finally been ransomed by the Byzantines and was inexplicably now seen as an important voice of experience. The kingdom had never been weaker, and Saladin, well informed about the crusader's difficulties, chose this time to launch an invasion from Egypt. 

If the sultan was overly casual in his preparations it was because he had good cause to feel confident. Not only were his enemies divided, but they were also being led by a virtual corpse. By the time Baldwin IV was sixteen the disease had already opened sores all over his body, rendering him unable to mount his horse without help. He also faced the same crippling issue that plagued all the crusader states: a severe shortage of manpower. Despite the news that a huge army – perhaps twenty thousand strong – was marching north, Baldwin could only muster a few hundred knights for the defense of his kingdom. 

Even in the face of these odds, however, Baldwin IV soldiered on. He ordered the True Cross, Jerusalem's holiest relic, to be carried in procession before the army. After attending a church service dedicated to prayers for victory, the heavily bandaged king was helped onto his horse and rode toward the coast to confront the armies of Islam. 

The determined attempt caught Saladin completely off guard. Believing that the king wouldn't dare attack him with so few men, the sultan had allowed his army to spread out looking for food and plunder. At Montgisard, in what is now central Israel, Baldwin managed to surprise them, leading an immediate cavalry charge into the center of the Muslim ranks. The disorganized Egyptians were slaughtered, and Saladin himself only avoided capture by fleeing on the back of a camel. 

The stunning victory was a glimpse at what might have been. Not only had Baldwin's determination seen it through, but he had also been in the thick of the fighting, despite being barely able to hold his sword.⁹⁵ For one moment, at least, it was possible to believe that the armies of the cross could hold back the forces of Islam. 

Baldwin himself was under no illusion of his own strength. Neither gallantry nor inspired leadership could hide the fact that he was dying, and when he returned to Jerusalem he attempted to abdicate. Writing to Louis VII, he asked him to name a successor, arguing that "a hand so weak as mine should not hold power when fear of Arab aggression daily presses upon the Holy City..." 

The request was ignored – the French king had his own problems – and Baldwin was forced to remain on the throne. Each passing day robbed him of strength, and within five years he could no longer see, walk, or use his hands. Conscious of his responsibilities, however, he refused to give in to despair. His repeated attempts at abdication had failed because no one could agree on a single candidate as his successor, so it would be up to him to name one. 

His sister Sibyl was unmarried, so Baldwin began to look around for a suitable match, finally settling on a slightly reckless adventurer named Guy of Lusignan. Guy's past was somewhat checkered – he had been kicked out of France for attacking the representatives of his feudal overlord, ‘Richard the Lionheart’ – but he was capable, wealthy, and, most importantly, available. Guy was rushed to Jerusalem where he was married into the royal family and named permanent regent. 

The marriage should have stabilized the political situation, but Guy was no match for the poisonous atmosphere of the court. He was unable to unite the squabbling barons under his leadership, and within a year Baldwin was forced to wearily take up the reigns of state once again. 

By now physically and emotionally exhausted, Baldwin's reputation was the only thing holding the kingdom together and its enemies at bay. Fortunately for the crusader states, it was still formidable. Later that year when Saladin besieged a castle in what is today Jordan, the blind and lame Baldwin ordered himself carried into the battle on a litter, and the cautious sultan chose to retreat. The scene repeated itself the following year when Saladin returned to the same fortress. Once again the Egyptian army melted away at the sight of the Leper King. 

That was his last triumph. A few months later, in the spring of 1185, the courageous Baldwin IV died,⁹⁶ and with him went any sense of unity in the kingdom. The various court factions began openly fighting, and relations between the sides were so poisoned that one group even appealed to Saladin for help. 

The Horns of Hattin

The sultan was only too happy to step in. While the crusader states were divided and weak, he was carefully preparing the ground for his great invasion. He had been beating the drum of jihad for some time, founding religious schools, erecting new mosques, and strictly enforcing Sharia law, but now his devotion to religious war became almost a mania. “He spoke of nothing else,” wrote a companion who knew him well, “and had little sympathy for anyone who spoke of anything else or encouraged any other activity.”⁹⁷

Saladin’s obsession was fueled by the firm belief that God had specifically chosen him to purge Palestine – and then perhaps the world – of anyone who was not Muslim. “When God gives me victory over Palestine,” he had mused to a friend, “…I shall set sail for their far-off lands and pursue the Franks there, to free the earth of anyone who does not believe in God, or die in the attempt.”⁹⁸ Only when the whole earth submitted to Islam would the jihad end. 

The only real question was when it would start. Saladin had signed an inconvenient peace treaty with Jerusalem, and Guy of Lusignan, Baldwin's former regent who had emerged as the victor of the civil wars, was eager to maintain the peace. Guy understood perfectly well that the thin piece of paper with Saladin's seal on it was the only thing shielding him from a massive invasion, and desperately tried to avoid any pretext to break it. The same, however, could not be said for Reynald of Châtillon. 

His miserable record at Antioch, and the long incarceration that followed, had failed to impress any enduring lessons on the troublesome prince. If anything, he had emerged more stubborn than before. Perhaps nothing illustrates the depths to which leadership in Outremer had fallen than the fact that his appalling list of failures was interpreted as valuable experience by Reynald's peers. 

In the chaos that had followed the Leper King's death, Reynald had installed himself back in Antioch and declared himself independent of Jerusalem. Guy's own grip on power was too tenuous to do anything about this, and his pleas for discretion fell on deaf ears. Reynald had been a powerless vassal before, and he had no intention of repeating the experience. 

One of Reynald's favorite activities was raiding, and since Antioch was conveniently located near a major trading route from Syria to Egypt, there were plenty of opportunities to indulge himself. At first he was content to harass Syrian shepherds by commandeering their flocks, but in 1187, he graduated to ambushing one of Saladin’s large camel caravans. 

King Guy was horrified, and immediately ordered Reynald to reimburse Saladin, but the damage was already done. Needling raids were one thing, but the trade route was also a major line of communication between the two parts of Saladin's kingdom – and could conveniently be interpreted as an attack on the sultanate. The fact that Reynald naturally refused to reimburse anyone was beside the point. Saladin had his justification for war. 

The threat of annihilation finally united the squabbling Christians. The entire fighting strength of the crusader states – perhaps twenty thousand men including twelve hundred knights – heeded King Guy's call. Bolstered by the True Cross, Jerusalem's holiest relic, they marched to Nazareth, making camp along a well-fortified ridge, and waited for Saladin's arrival. 

The sultan had no intention of fighting on ground of the crusader's choosing, and in an attempt to lure them away from their camp attacked a nearby fortress at Tiberias. The Count of Tiberias urged King Guy not to take the bait, a particularly poignant bit of advice on his part since the citadel was sure to fall and the count had left his wife in charge of its defenses. Reynald of Châtillon, supported by the Templars, angrily accused the count of cowardice and urged Guy to attack at once. The king wavered, but in the end chivalry won out. No Christian king worth his salt could simply abandon a woman to her fate. 

Sure enough, the gallant gesture quickly backfired. The fifteen miles of land between Nazareth and Tiberias is a waterless plain, and it was the height of summer. The baking sun was merciless, and the harassing attacks by mounted archers were endless. After a day's grueling march, the army paused on the side of an extinct volcano called the Horns of Hattin. 

The night brought neither relief from the excruciating heat nor sleep for the exhausted Christians. Saladin's army materialized around them in the darkness, lighting brushfires to blow smoke in their faces and shouting out taunts and threats of the beheadings that would surely follow. 

When the sun rose on July 4, 1187, the smoke and haze cleared enough for the demoralized and parched crusaders to realize the scale of the disaster awaiting them. Saladin's army outnumbered them at least two to one, and had them completely surrounded. A hail of arrows signaled the first onslaught, as the immense Muslim army converged on the Christians. The crusaders fought with desperate courage, surging forward and nearly reaching Saladin himself, but the ending was never in doubt. In the chaos of battle a few knights managed to slip away. Everyone else was captured or killed. 

King Guy, Reynald of Châtillon, and the other surviving nobles were brought to Saladin's tent where they were treated to a display of his famous courtesy. The king was given a glass of ice water as a token of hospitality, and treated as an honored guest. The moment was spoiled, however, when Saladin recognized Reynald of Châtillon. After a terse exchange he ordered the sixty-year old to rise, and personally hacked off his head.⁹⁹ Recovering himself, Saladin explained to the shocked Guy that Reynald had only gotten what he deserved. The king and the other nobility would be allowed to purchase their freedom. 

This clemency didn't extend to the other captives. The foot soldiers and those minor nobility who couldn't afford to ransom themselves were sold on the slave markets. The hated military orders – Templars and Hospitallers – weren't even given that small consideration. They were bound and dragged into the sultan's tent, where he ordered them all beheaded. Their last moments were horrific, and, as was surely intended, must have been enough to shake their faith. Each of them had taken a monastic vow to protect defenseless pilgrims, and now they were defenseless themselves, punched, kicked, and forced to their knees by a crowd of shouting Islamic clerics and sufis, each begging the sultan to be allowed to strike the first blow. Their faith had failed; the crescent had triumphed over the cross. 

For Saladin, the victory was dramatic vindication of his call to jihad, and dispatching the despised military orders was a supreme triumph. He withdrew to a raised platform to watch the grisly scene play out. His personal secretary perfectly captured the moment: “Saladin, his face joyful, sat on the dais; the unbelievers showed black despair.”¹⁰⁰ 

The point was further carried home a few weeks later when Saladin rode in triumph through the streets of Damascus. The sultan knew the value of symbols and exploited his great victory brilliantly. The captured crusader king was led through the streets, while Saladin, mounted on a magnificent charger, carried Christendom's most sacred relic – the True Cross – mounted upside down on a lance. 

The sheer scale of Saladin's victory was breathtaking. In a single battle he had wiped out virtually every fighting man in the crusader states. On the morning of July 4, 1187 Outremer had been a major political player in the Levant. By nightfall it had lost its ability even to defend itself. All of its towns and cities were guarded by skeleton garrisons, scattered thinly in small forts and citadels as the Islamic sword dangled overhead. Within days of the battle they were voluntarily surrendering. 

Jerusalem stubbornly held out for three months, but that was due more to Saladin's deliberate approach than any hope of resistance. When the Muslim army arrived on September 20, the city was defended by only fourteen knights. The Patriarch attempted to negotiate a surrender but was horrified to learn that Saladin planned a general massacre of every Christian in the city. Only the heated reply by the garrison that they would kill the Muslim inhabitants of the city first, changed his mind. Negotiations went forward, and on October 2, 1187, Jerusalem capitulated.¹⁰¹ 

As in other cities Saladin conquered, those who could purchase their freedom were allowed to do so. The rest were sold into slavery. The churches of the city were either converted to mosques or desecrated, and all crosses were removed. The only exception was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which was allowed to continue to operate under the care of four elderly Syrian priests. 

Within two years Saladin had all but accomplished his great dream of destroying the Christian presence in the Levant. Only the cities of Tripoli, Antioch, and Tyre remained independent. Outremer was all but gone.