Saladin

This is a victory opening the gates of men’s hearts.

Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (c. 1137 – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin (Arabic: صلاح الدین, lit. 'Honour of the Faith'), was a Kurdish commander and political leader. He was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.

Quotes

• This is a victory opening the gates of men’s hearts.
  • Letter to al-‘Adil, after the Crusaders abandoned their position near Hama and drew back to Ḥiṣn al-Akrād (1174). Abū Shāma, ed. Aḥmad and Ziyāda, vol. 1 (1958) p. 614. Lyons and Jackson (1982) ch. 6, p. 89

• I thought of thee, amid the thrusting of their spears,
  While the straight browned blades quenched their thirst in our blood—
  ... again and again we were on the verge of destruction; nor would God have delivered us save for some [future] duty.
  • Letter to Turan-Shah, after the Battle of Montgisard (25 November 1177). Ibn al-Athir. Lane-Poole (1906) p. 156

• This Yemen is a treasure house...We conquered it, but up to this day we have had no return and no advantage from it. There have only been innumerable expenses, the sending out of troops...and expectations which did not produce what was hoped for in the end.
  • Letter to al-‘Adil (c. 1181). Berlin 56. Lyons and Jackson (1982) ch. 11, p. 159

• Children are brought up in the way in which their elders were brought up.
  • Munich 113. Lyons and Jackson (1982) ch. 1, p. 3

Quotes about Saladin

• The sacred works [Koran, hadith, etc.] are full of passages referring to the jihad. Saladin was more assiduous and zealous in this than in anything else...Jihad and the suffering involved in it weighed heavily on his heart and his whole being in every limb; he spoke of nothing else, thought only about equipment for the fight, was interested only in those who had taken up arms, had little sympathy with anyone who spoke of anything else or encouraged any other activity.
  • Francesco Gabrieli, translated from the Italian by E. J. Costello, Arab Historians of the Crusades (U of California P, 1984) pt. 2, pp. 99–100

External links

• Malcolm C. Lyons and D. E. P. Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War (Cambridge UP, 1982). Note: "For Berlin, Cairo (= al-durr al-naẓīma), Cambridge, Leiden, Mosul, Munich, Paris, TC. (= Top Kapu), 7307, 25756, 25757; see al-Fāḍil"
• Stanley Lane-Poole, Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1906)