Saladin

 

Short Biography profile and facts about the life of Saladin
 

Arabic: salāhu d-din yussuf

 

(1138-1193) First Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, and famous for having recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders.
Saladin was of Kurdish heritage, and all through his career he used mainly Kurdish officials as his closest partners.
Saladin managed to revitalize the economy of Egypt, he reorganized the military forces and with the advice of his father, he stayed away from any conflicts with Nureddin, his formal lord, after he had become the real ruler over Egypt. Instead he waited until Nureddin's death, before he started serious military actions first against smaller Muslim states, before directing it against the Crusaders.
Saladin is one of very few personages of the time of the Crusades that has managed to be positively described in both Western and Eastern sources. With his high position among his Western opponents, he has become a figure that have fascinated Western writers. 

Biography

 

1138: Born in Tikrit in Iraq as son of the Kurdish chief Ayyub.
1152: Starts to work in the service of the Syrian ruler, Nureddin.
1164: He starts to show his military and strategical qualities under 3 campaigns against the Crusaders who were established in Palestine, with the first campaign this year.
1169: Saladin serves as second to the commander in chief of the Syrian army, his uncle Shirkuh. Shirkuh became vizier of Egypt, but died after only 2 months. Saladin then took over as vizier. Despite the nominal limitations to the vizier position, Saladin took little regard to the interests of his superiors, the Fatimid rulers. He turned Cairo into an Ayyubid power base, where he used Kurds in leading positions.
1171: Saladin suppresses the Fatimid rulers of Egypt in 1171, whereupon he unites Egypt with the Abbasid Caliphate. But was not as eager as Nureddin to go to war against the Crusaders, and relations between him and Nureddin became very difficult.

1174: Nureddin dies, and Saladin uses the opportunity to extend his power base.
— Conquers Damascus.
1175: The Syrian Assassin leader Rashideddin's men made two attempts on the life of Saladin, the leader of the Ayyubids. The second time, the Assassin came so close that wounds were infliceted upon Saladin.
1176: Saladin besieges the fortress of Masyaf, the stronghold of Rashideddin. After some weeks, Saladin suddenly withdraws, and leaves the Assassins in peace for the rest of his life. It is believed that he was exposed to a threat of having his entire family murdered.

1183: Conquers the important north-Syrian city of Aleppo.
1186: Conquers Mosul in northern Iraq.
1187: With his new strength he attacks the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and after 3 months of fighting he gets control over the city.
1189: A third Crusade manages to enlarge the coastal area of Palestine, while Jerusalem remains under Saladin's control.
1192: With The Peace of Ramla armistice agreement with King Richard 1 of England, the whole coast was defined as Christian land, while the city of Jerusalem remained under Muslim control.
1193 March 4: Dies in Damascus after a short illness.

Saladin

c. 1137-1193 Sultan Military Leader Crusader Adversary

Africa Asia: Arabia

Salah Ad-din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub (westernized to "Saladin"), also known as Al-malik An-nasir Salah Ad-din Yusuf I, was sultan of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Yemen, founded the Ayyubid dynasty, and captured Jerusalem from the Christians. He was the most famous Muslim hero and a consummate military tactician.
Saladin was born to a well-off Kurdish family in Tikrit and grew up in Ba'lbek and Damascus. He began his military career by joining the staff of his uncle Asad ad-Din Shirkuh, an important commander. By 1169, at the age of 31, he had been appointed vizier of the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt as well as commander of the Syrian troops there.
In 1171, Saladin abolished the Shi'ite caliphate and proclaimed a return to Sunni Islam in Egypt, whereupon he became that country's sole ruler. In 1187 he took on the Latin Crusader Kingdoms, and on July 4 of that year he scored a resounding victory at the battle of Hattin. On October 2, Jerusalem surrendered. In retaking the city, Saladin and his troops behaved with great civility that contrasted sharply with the bloody actions of the western conquerors eight decades earlier.
However, though Saladin managed to reduce the number of cities held by the Crusaders to three, he failed to capture the coastal fortress of Tyre. Many Christian survivors of the recent battles took refuge there, and it would serve as a rallying point for future Crusader attacks. The recapture of Jerusalem had stunned Christendom, and the result was the launch of a third Crusade.
Over the course of the Third Crusade, Saladin managed to keep the greatest fighters of the West from making any significant advances (including the notable Crusader, Richard the Lionheart). By the time fighting was finished in 1192, the Crusaders held relatively little territory in the Levantine.
But the years of fighting had taken their toll, and Saladin died in 1193. Throughout his life he had displayed a total lack of pretension and was generous with his personal wealth; upon his death his friends discovered he'd left no funds to pay for his burial. Saladin's family would rule as the Ayyubid dynasty until it succumbed to the Mamluks in 1250.

The Muslim Leader Saladin's Shrine

Saladin is one of the greatest leaders that ruled Damascus during history, The great Saladin (Salah al Din), a Kurd, was one Nureddin’s generals (the ruler of Egypt and Syria). He had been sent as an emissary to the court of Fatimids in Egypt, but ended up taking over that country himself and then, on Nureddin’s death in 1174, he defeated all heirs and claimants and took hold of Syria as well.

When in Damascus, Sladdin lived in the Citadel, as Nureddin did, but he was rarely there because his endless campaigns against Crusaders; 1187 he had his finest hour, when he drove them out of Jerusalem. He returned to Damascus in 1192 after yet another campaign, this time against Richard the Lion-Heart, but he died the following year, aged fifty-five.

It was said that despite all his years of battle and conquest, Saladin's personal fortune was one Dinar and thirty-six Dirham.

Saladin was buried in the tomb on the north side of the Omayyad Mosque. there are two sarcophagi near the mausoleum; the one carved in the wood is the original, the other, an ornate marble, is commonly said it was presented by the German Kaiser Wilhlem The Second on his visit to Damascus in 1898.