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This duty has been placed upon me, it is my job, and with God’s help I shall take the most determined and resolute course …
Saladin on the jihad and the contest with the Crusaders.
In March 1193, Saladin died in Damascus. He was not a great battlefield general. He failed at Mont Gisard, Ramla and Jaffa, and he lost Acre, but he was a great war leader. His political acumen and intelligence-gathering was the key to his victory at Hattin, and his personal attributes and selfless commitment to the jihad was what maintained his army in the field throughout the long, unrewarding contest against the Third Crusade. The last years of his life were spent on the battlefield in an exhausting defence of Islam and yet he still upheld the highest standards of civil governance. Following Nur al-Din’s example, he maintained the rule of law and gave an example of moral leadership that was the antithesis of almost every other government of the time. At times his actions were those of a man tilting at windmills, but his naive attachment to an ideal meant that he achieved epic feats which mere generalship could not have accomplished.
When discussing the terms of the final treaty with Richard, Saladin had said to his emirs:
We have become accustomed to fighting the Holy War and indeed we have achieved our aim. Now it is difficult to break off what has become customary … we have no other occupation other than that of making war … If we give up this work what shall we do? If we destroy our hope of defeating them, what shall we hope for? I am afraid that with nothing to do death will overcome me … my feeling is to reject the idea of a truce and in preferring war to prefer my honour and make it my leader …
His emirs had replied:
Divine grace assists you but you alone have looked to yourself as one accustomed to happiness, to the desire to serve God, to the acquisition of eternal virtue. In yourself you find a force and tenacity, and your indestructible faith marks you out as one to achieve the aims we strive for. But look too at the state of the country, ruined and trampled underfoot and your subjects beaten down, at your armies exhausted and sick, at your horses neglected and ruined. Food is in short supply, and the necessities of life are dear, the rich are reduced to hunger, the poor to destitution. Straw is more precious than gold, barley unobtainable at any price.
And if the Franj fail to get the truce they will devote all their energies to strengthening and consolidating their position. They will face death with high courage in the course of achieving their aims, and for love of their faith they will refuse to submit to humiliation. The best thing is for you to remember the verse revealed by God, ‘and if they incline to peace you too should incline to it.’
Saladin therefore left war to one side for the good of his people and of his soldiers and went to Jerusalem and then on to retire in Damascus. In simple terms, and without even throwing into the equation his near-bloodless conquest of the Holy City, Saladin’s personal talents and character confirm him as the greatest hero of the Crusades.
