55
If our late Sultan had detected among you a man as worthy of his confidence as me, would he not have entrusted him with the leadership of Egypt, the most important of his provinces? You may be sure that had Nur al-Din not died so soon he would have designated me to educate his son and to watch over him.
The Kurd, Saladin, making his intention to take on the role of atabeg to Nur al-Din’s heir very clear to the Turkish emirs of Syria.
Al-Salih, the son of Nur al-Din, was still a child when his father died. With the regency of al-Salih came power and Saladin attempted early on to secure his right to act as the child’s atabeg. Nur al-Din’s state also began to fracture, starting with Mosul, and then Gumushtigin, Nur al-Din’s chief eunuch, took al-Salih to Aleppo and declared himself to be the boy’s protector.
Saladin’s propagandists responded with a message that those who chose to join him in his mission of defeating the Crusaders were ‘in one valley and those who think ill of us are in another’. It did not work, and the Syrian emirs concluded a truce with Amalric, but then the king died in July 1174 of dysentery before the anti-Egypt alliance was fully consolidated, and the Zangid emirs fled from Damascus for fear of the ruler of Egypt. Saladin took only 700 men with him to Damascus and its gates were opened to him by members of his clan, the Ayyubids. Saladin was free from interference from the Crusaders as Amalric’s son, Baldwin IV, was only a 13-year-old minor, and a leper. Factions formed in Outremer over the succession to this boy-king, who was expected to be a weak, short-lived monarch who would not sire an heir. Jerusalem was politically paralysed and the kingdom’s later fatal divisions began with Baldwin IV’s accession.
Saladin intended to prosecute the jihad but had first to bring Syria fully under his control, and his war against the Zangids was carried out under the pretence of carrying out his legal duties of guardianship of al-Salih. In fact, he did not move to occupy Aleppo until after the death of al-Salih in 1181. Saladin’s intervention also averted a destructive internecine war amongst the petty princes, and after September 1176, with his marriage to Nur al-Din’s widow, Khatun, and his obvious preeminence among the emirs, it also followed accepted custom.
Saladin’s main aim in the years between 1174 and 1186 was to build an army and an alliance capable of taking on the grinding war that pushing the Crusader Kingdom into the sea would require. He was also, unlike his mentor Shirkuh, a cautious general. He rarely gambled and always looked to have superior numbers in any engagement. Battle is always a risky venture and Saladin was keen to pursue it only if the odds were stacked absolutely in his favour. In desperation at Saladin’s gobbling-up of cities and land, Gumushtigin responded with what we would call today asymmetrical warfare. He persuaded Syria’s Ismaili Assassin grand master, Sinan, to make an attempt on Saladin’s life. The Ismaili Assassins had struggled to survive in Syria during Nur al-Din’s reign, but in the confused political landscape of the 1170s they bid once more for political power in northern Syria. Assassins, disguised as soldiers in Saladin’s army, tried to gain access to the sultan’s tent, but they were challenged by an emir. They stabbed the emir and one Assassin got into the tent, only to have his head slashed off by a guard’s scimitar. More Assassins then forced their way into the tent, but Saladin’s bodyguards killed them to a man. It would not be the last time that the Assassins and the sultan would clash.