At a glance
Era 5- Dates
- c. 1137-1193 CE (589 AH)
- Who
- Sultan of Egypt and Syria who won at Hattin and recovered Jerusalem in 1187
- Era
- The Crusades & Salahuddin
ProfileSalahuddin Yusuf ibn Ayyub
Salahuddin was born in Tikrit to a Kurdish family and grew up in Syria in the service of Nur ad-Din. He went to Egypt with his uncle Shirkuh and became vizier there in 1169. In 1171 he ended the Fatimid caliphate and restored the name of the Abbasid caliph in the Friday sermon.
After Nur ad-Din's death he united Egypt and Syria. On 4 July 1187 he destroyed the crusader army at Hattin, and on 2 October Jerusalem surrendered. He let its people leave on payment of a ransom, freed many who could not pay, and kept the Church of the Holy Sepulchre open to Christians. In the Third Crusade he held Jerusalem against Richard of England, and the two signed a truce in 1192.
He gave away almost everything he had, and when he died in Damascus in 1193 there was hardly enough money for his funeral. He is buried beside the Umayyad Mosque.
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