Salahuddin unites Egypt and Syria (1171-1186)

Part oneFrom Tikrit to Cairo

Yusuf ibn Ayyub was born around 1137 or 1138 in Tikrit, in Iraq, into a Kurdish family. Europe would know him as Saladin. Muslims call him Salah ad-Din, "righteousness of the faith", or Salahuddin. His father Ayyub served Zengi, and the family later settled in Syria, where Yusuf spent his youth in Damascus. Little is reliably known about those years, and the stories of early signs of greatness were written down much later.

In 1169, when his uncle Shirkuh died in Cairo, the Fatimid caliph's court and the Syrian officers chose Yusuf to be vizier. The court expected a young man who would be easy to manage. They were wrong. He built up his own army, gave important posts to Sunni officials and founded new schools. On 10 September 1171, the Friday sermon in Cairo named the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad in place of the Fatimid caliph. After about 250 years, the Fatimid caliphate had quietly ended. The last Fatimid caliph, al-Adid, was a young man who was already ill, and he died a few days later. Yusuf protected his family.

For the next three years Salahuddin governed Egypt in the name of Nur ad-Din, though the two men did not always agree, and Nur ad-Din wanted more money and troops than he sent. Salahuddin strengthened Egypt's defences, started the walls of Cairo and began the Citadel on the hill above the city. His brother Turan-Shah took Yemen in his name, which gave the family the Red Sea coast. He kept the tax system he found, which worked well, and he supported Hanafi, Maliki and Shafi'i teachers alike. Among his closest advisers was the judge and secretary al-Qadi al-Fadil, who served him for the rest of his life.

Part twoSyria and a state at last

After Nur ad-Din died in 1174, Salahuddin declared himself sultan of Egypt, answering only to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Nur ad-Din had left an eleven-year-old son as his heir. Several princes of the family wanted Syria. Salahuddin wrote kindly to the boy and offered his help to the leaders of Damascus, and when they invited him he rode there with a small force of horsemen. He entered the city in November 1174. He had left Egypt with about seven hundred horsemen, and so many men joined him on the road that around seven thousand rode with him when he marched out of Damascus. Many towns opened their gates to him. Aleppo held out, and he chose not to storm it. He waited, and in 1183 its Zengid ruler gave it up in exchange for lands in Iraq. By then Syria and Egypt were one state. In 1186 Mosul, too, accepted his authority.

Not everything went his way. In 1177 at Montgisard, near Ramla, the young Frankish king Baldwin IV, who suffered from leprosy, surprised Salahuddin's scattered army and beat it badly. Salahuddin returned to Egypt with a handful of men. He was far more careful afterwards. In 1179 he took a castle that Baldwin was building at Jacob's Ford on the Jordan, before it could be finished. In 1180 he agreed a truce with Baldwin that kept the roads open for merchants and pilgrims. He also survived attempts on his life by the Assassins, a small Ismaili group in the Syrian mountains, and in time he agreed a truce with them as well.

The truce was tested by a Frankish lord, Reynald of Chatillon, who held the castle of Kerak east of the Dead Sea, beside the road that pilgrims and caravans used between Syria and Arabia. In 1181 he raided toward Tayma in Arabia. In 1183 ships sent from his lands entered the Red Sea and attacked the coast, and the raiders were heading for Madinah when Salahuddin's fleet caught them. The Muslim world was shocked. Late in 1186 or early in 1187, Reynald seized a large caravan during the truce. Accounts differ on the exact date. Salahuddin vowed that he would answer for it. He had already besieged Kerak in the autumn of 1183, but he withdrew when a Frankish relief army approached.

The people who knew Salahuddin described a modest man who gave away what he had. Ibn Shaddad, his friend and later biographer, wrote that he wept easily when the Quran was recited and that he kept his word. He loved the company of scholars and had hadith recited even on campaign. He was in his late thirties when he entered Damascus, and he would spend most of the rest of his life in the saddle. Where he could, he took Muslim cities without bloodshed, because he wanted to be seen as a man who united, not one who divided.

By 1186 he held Egypt, Syria and Mosul, and the Franks were hemmed in on three sides. What remained was to choose the place and the day.

For the first time since the crusaders arrived, one ruler held Egypt and Syria together.

WatchThe lecture for this chapter

Lecture Al MuqaddimahThe Rise of Salah ud-Din (opens on YouTube)

The mapWhere it happened

• Tikrit
• Cairo
• Damascus
• Aleppo
• Mosul
• Montgisard
• Kerak

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter