An epic history from the Crusades.

This translation of a mediæval Arabic manuscript recants the history of the Third Crusade on Levantine soil, when an entire continent descended upon one Caliphate which had scanty natural resources for self-defence. From the comfort of your study room, relive the copious atrocities of the Crusaders, who were rarely knights in shining armour. Take relief in the chivalry of the Saracens, and that of the occasional Crusading knight.

There are remarkable battle descriptions here, for example where outnumbered Saracen armies won virtually unscathed, where the superior genius of a teenager lifted a siege, where a mighty Eurasian Mamluk with many notches on his belt got ambushed by several wary Crusaders, but escaped when his summary executioner missed and severed an assistant executioner's hand instead. All this against the backdrop of Islamic camaraderie and generosity, figureheaded by the leader of the Muslim armies, the Sultan Salah ud-Din.

From an age when chivalry was the order of the day!

English, fully bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 28 Megabytes, xx, 420 pages

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The Crusades for the Holy Land were ""Holy Wars"" instigated by the Roman Catholic church despite the existing harmony between Muslims and Christians in Palestine. They could have been a response to the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, by Hakim “the Mad” (the Godhead of the Druze religion, in 1009 / 1010 CE, although that was a long time before the 1st Crusade (1095-1099 CE). The Church was rebuilt in a conciliatory gesture by Caliph Zahir, Hakim’s successor, with the co-operation of the Byzantine Emperor, all before the 1st Crusade. The most coherent reason for the Crusades is the encroachment upon Byzantium by the Muslim Seljuk Turks. However, the Crusaders often murdered and pillaged the Orthodox Christians and their cities, including Byzantium (then known as Constantinople). There were in total 9 Crusades (debatably 8, the 5th and 6th Crusades are sometimes counted as one) plus some minor Crusades, all against the Muslim Near East between 1095-1291 CE. None of them had any lasting success in their aims and most were utter disasters. With the fall of Antioch (1268), Tripoli (1289), and Acre (1291), the last traces of European Christian rule in Syria disappeared.
 
There were even more Crusades, some contemporary, some later, up to the 16th Century CE, within Europe, for example against Moorish Spain, the Tartars, the Cathars, the pagan Slavs, and the pagan Finns. The idea of forcing mass-conversion to a religion was a Crusader ideal in non-Christian Europe, whereas Muslim armies offered conversion as an alternative to the killing of a combatant defeated in a battlefield duel (forced conversion is prohibited in the Qur'an; civilians converted to Islam by word of mouth and preaching; the Safavids forced conversion of Persian Sunnis to Shi’ism, but this was within the same faith, and so beyond the pale of this topic). Through these European mainland Crusades, Spain, Northeastern Europe and Finland were Christianised.
 
The Crusaders were often freed criminals who had but to stitch the sign of the cross to their clothes to gain their freedom, being reinvented as “soldiers of Christ” (they generally fell short of the mark for a Christian). The Crusaders often pillaged Christian settlements along their many routes to the Holy Land. They committed many atrocities against the Eastern Roman Christians. Massacres of Jews and the violent treatment of non-Catholic Christians accompanied the movement of the Crusader mobs. Violence against the Orthodox Christians culminated in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 (during the 4th Crusade), in which most of the Crusading armies took part. It is well documented that they boiled / roasted and then ate Muslim adults and babies in the Syrian town of Ma’arra in Syria (1098) on the 1st Crusade, and they are said to have inflicted the same upon the Eastern Christians. The Crusaders are referred to as “cannibals” in the Middle East because of their well-earned reputation for precisely that activity. They frequently broke treaties with Muslims, massacred hostages who were being ransomed, and massacred civilians in captured settlements, for example the massacre of the inhabitants (Muslim, Jewish and remaining Christian) of Jerusalem in 1099 CE. There is a trend to justify or make light of such occurrences by some modern authors.
 
The hero of this book is Salah ud-Din (“Righteousness of Faith”) Ayyubi, also known as Saladin, who lived from approximately 1138-1193 CE. He was of Kurdish descent and was a Sultan of Egypt when the 3rd Crusade struck (1189-1192 CE), although he had by then already had a rich history of fighting the entrenched Crusaders. Could it be true that a man reaches his maximum physical strength at the age of 50? Judging by the timing of the 3rd Crusade: in Saladin’s case, probably. The Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad at the time was Al-Mustadi (reigned 1170-1180 CE), who was succeeded by Caliph An-Nasir (reigned 1180-1225 CE).
 
The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus holds a shrine which is said to contain the head of John the Baptist, honoured as a Prophet by Muslims. It is also where the mausoleum of Saladin stands in a small garden adjoining the north wall of the Mosque. Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany donated a marble sarcophagus to the mausoleum in 1898. Saladin was not re-interred therein, presumably to avoid disturbing his remains. The mausoleum now has two sarcophagi: an empty marble one plus the wooden one wherein the noble Saladin still rests.
 
The 1965 Doctor Who serial “The Crusade” portrayed Richard I of England (""the Lionheart"") far less favourably than Saladin, in accordance with the Western European Romantic tradition exemplified in Walter Scott’s “The Talisman”.
 
The “Saladin” (FV601) was an armoured car of the Alvis FV600 series, similar in construction to Alvis Saracen armoured personnel carrier and the Stalwart High Mobility Load Carrier. It was used by the British Army (1959 onward) and other forces throughout the world. The Saladin was replaced in the late 1970s by the Scorpion and Scimitar series, although some remained in service in Cyprus until the mid 1980s.

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'SALADIN';
OR,
 
WHAT BEFELL SULTAN YUSUF
(SALAH ED-DIN).
 
COMPOSED BY THE LEARNED
IMAM, GRAND KADI OF THE MOSLEMS,
BEHA ED-DIN ABU EL-MEHASAN YUSUF,
IBN RAFI, IBN TEMIM, GENERALLY KNOWN BY THE SURNAME IBN SHEDDAD,
KADI OF THE FORTIFIED CITY OF ALEPPO.
 
 
WITH THE PERMISSION OF
The (Khalif) Commander of the Faifthful.

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Quotes

p. 19-20:
 
... he [Saladin] who had possessed such abundance of riches, left in his treasury, at his death, but forty-seven Nasri dirhems, and one Tyrian gold piece, the weight of which I do not know. Yet he had given away whole provinces. When he took the city of Amid, he bestowed it upon the son of Kara Arslan, who had asked him for it. I was present on one occasion at Jerusalem, when he received a great number of deputations, just as he was departing for Damascus, and had not sufficient money in the treasury to make presents to the delegates. I continually reminded him of this, until at last he sold one of his farms to the public treasury (beit el-mal), in order that he might distribute the price of it among them. This was done with our help, and in the end there remained not a single dirhem. He gave just as liberally when he was in straits as when he was in the enjoyment of plenty. His treasurers were always careful to conceal from him certain sums of money, as a provision for unforeseen contingencies; for they knew that if he saw them he would spend them at once. I once heard him say, in the course of conversation about one of the traditions: 'It may be that there is someone in the world who esteems money of as little value as the dust of the earth.' He was apparently alluding to himself. He always gave more than they expected to those who asked. I never heard him say: 'We have already given to him.' He made numerous presents; to those who had already received gifts he gave again, and with as much pleasure as though he had not given them anything before. He always acted with great generosity, giving more on a second occasion than the recipient had obtained before, This was so well known that people were always trying to make opportunities for getting money from him, I never once heard him say: 'I have already given to you several times; how often shall I have to give to you again?' Most of the replies to these requests were written at my dictation, and sometimes with my own hand. I was often ashamed at the greed shown by those who asked; but I never hesitated to approach the Sultan in their behalf, knowing how generous and kind-hearted he was. No one ever entered his service without receiving from him such gifts as rendered it unnecessary for him ever to court another's generosity. To enumerate his gifts, and to describe their varied forms, would be a task impossible to fulfil in any satisfactory way. In a conversation on this subject, I once heard the chief of the Divan declare: ‘We kept an account of the number of horses he gave away in the plain of Acre alone, and it mounted up to ten thousand.’ Those who have witnessed the multitude of his gifts will think but little of this. Great God, Thou it was who didst inspire his generosity, Thou, the most generous among the generous! Shower upon him Thy mercy and Thy favour, oh, Thou most merciful of those who show mercy!

 
p. 21:
 
I have seen him [Saladin] take up his position immediately in front of a large body of Franks, who were constantly being increased and relieved every moment, and the sight (of this danger) only strengthened his courage and nerve. One evening there came up more than seventy of the enemy’s ships; it took me the whole of the time between the 'Asr prayer and the prayer at sunset to count them; but their appearance only served to inspirit him anew. On another occasion, at the commencement of the rainy season, he gave leave to his troops and remained himself, attended by very few men, in the face of a strong force of the enemy. On the day when peace was concluded, Balian, son of Barizan, one of the chief [Crusader] princes of the coast, was seated before the Sultan, and I inquired of him what was the number of their troops. I received this answer through the interpreter: 'When the Lord of Sidon' (another of their chiefs, and one of the most intelligent among them) 'and I left Tyre to join our army (at the siege of Acre), and when we sighted them from the top of the hill, we tried to guess as nearly as we could the number of those engaged. The Lord of Sidon said there were five hundred thousand; I said six hundred thousand.' I then asked him how many they had lost, and he replied: 'Nearly a hundred thousand on the field of battle; but God alone knows the number of those who have died from sickness, or who have been drowned.' And of all this multitude but a very small number ever returned to their native land.
 
 
p. 238-9:
 
ON the night preceding the first day of the month Rabi'a I. (March 29), the Moslems in Acre made a sortie, killed a great number of the besiegers, and carried off about a dozen women from their camp. On the 3rd of the same month, the advanced guard, which was that day composed of troops from the Sultan's halka, was furiously attacked by a strong body of the enemy. The besiegers had several men killed, one of whom was said to be of high rank. The Moslems lost only one man, named Karakush, a servant in the Sultan's service, who had distinguished himself by his valour on more than one occasion. The Sultan was informed that a detachment of the enemy's army frequently took advantage of our distance from their camp to leave their quarters and disperse over the plain; on the 9th of the month, therefore, he himself selected a considerable number of men from the ranks of the Moslem army, whom he put under the command of his brother, el-Melek el-'Adel, with instructions to take up his position in ambush behind a tell, close to the scene of the action that bears that prince's name. The Sultan concealed himself also behind Tell el ‘Aiadiya, taking with him several of the princes of his family … Amongst the men of the turban (doctors of law) that accompanied him were el-Kadi el-Fadel and the officers of the Chancery; I myself was of the party. A few of our warriors, mounted on good horses, advanced towards the enemy and dis­charged a flight of arrows at them, so as to entice them out into the plain; but they would not leave their camp, having probably received information from some traitor of the real object of this manœuvre. Nevertheless, this day did not pass without furnishing us with some cause for rejoicing; for forty-five Franks, who had been taken prisoner at Beirut, were brought in to the Sultan. On this occasion I witnessed the great tenderness of his heart, beyond anything ever seen. Amongst the prisoners was a very aged man who had lost all his teeth, and who could hardly move at all. The Sultan asked him through his interpreter why, being so old, he had come to this country, and how far off his home lay. He replied: 'My home is several months' journey away; I only came to this country to make a pilgrimage to the Church of the Resurrection' (el-Komama). The Sultan was so touched by this answer that he restored the old man to liberty, and supplied him with a horse to carry him to the enemy's camp. The Sultan's younger sons asked his permission to kill these prisoners, which he forbade them to do. As they had made their request through me, I begged him to tell me the reason of his refusal, and he replied: 'They shall not become accustomed in their youth to the shedding of blood and laugh at it, for they as yet know no difference between a Moslem and an infidel.' Observe the prince's humanity, his wisdom and moderation! 
 
 
p. 326:
 
... the Franks stated, among other things, that if the pope approved of the matrimonial alliance, the arrangement would be carried out; 'if not, we will give the daughter of the king's brother to el-Melek el-'Adel in marriage. She is a virgin, and although, according to our religion, the pope's consent is necessary for the marriage of a king's daughter who is a widow, such is not the case with an unmarried princess; the family may dispose of the maiden's hand as they please.' To this answer was made as follows: 'If the marriage is permissible, let the arrangement we have made be carried out, for we will not break our engagements; if, however, it is impossible, you need not select another woman for us.' This statement brought the meeting to an end. The envoys then repaired to el-Melek el-'Adel's tents to await the ambassador the Sultan was to send to the king, who was engaged in preparing for his mission. Some time afterwards a messenger came from the advanced guard, bringing news that a large body of foot had left the city, and scattered over the plain without any apparent hostile intentions. The Sultan had gone to Tell Jezer, and everyone packed up and followed him. The hour of noon had hardly passed before the army was established in its new camp. As soon as the Franks heard that the Sultan had changed his position, they beat a retreat. After making a halt on this hill, the Sultan set out in the direction of Jerusalem, and the Franks began to march back to their own territory. 
 
 
p. 329:
 
The chamberlain added that he himself had had several interviews with the king [of the Franks], with the result that that prince had relinquished some of his demands, and consented that the Sakhra should be given up to us, that the citadel should remain in our hands, and that the rest should be equally divided (between the Franks and the Moslems); that any Frank specially mentioned should not reside there, and, finally, that the villages in the districts belonging to the Holy City, as well as the whole of the city itself, should be equally divided. On the 16th of the month Rabi'a I., el-Melek el-'Adel arrived on his return from the Ghor, and was received by the Sultan, to whom he gave all the information we have set forth above. Towards the close of the same day, a messenger came in to say that the Franks had attacked the camp of some Arabs near ed-Darun, and had carried off several men, as well as about a thousand of their sheep. 
 
 
p. 384:
 
… we were afraid that these negotiations were like the former ones - nothing but a means employed by the king to gain time; and by this time we were well acquainted with his methods. That same day an ambassador came from Seif ed-Din Bektimor, Lord of Khelat, with a message that his master put himself at the Sultan's disposal, offered his support, and promised to send him troops. An ambassador also came from the Georgians, with instructions relative to the places of pilgrimage maintained by that people in Jerusalem, which they were anxious to keep in good order. They complained that they had been dispossessed, and begged the Sultan to have compassion on them, and order that the places in question might be restored to those in charge of them. The Lord of Erzerum also sent in his submission to the Sultan, with offers of service.
 
 
p. 385:
 
The Frank envoys were received with great honour, and were lodged in a tent pitched for that purpose, and befitting their rank. El-'Adel then presented himself before the Sultan, and informed him of all that had taken place. On the morning of the following day, the 23rd of Sh'aban, the king's ambassador was introduced to the Sultan, and, taking his royal hand, declared that he accepted peace on the proposed conditions. He and his colleagues then asked that an oath to observe the treaty should be taken by el-Melek el-'Adel, el Melek el-Afdal, el-Melek ez-Zaher, 'Ali Ibn Ahmed el-Meshtub, Bedr ed-Din Dolderim, el-Melek el-Mansur, and all the other leaders …

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The Life of Saladin

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