Salah ad-Din

Perhaps the most prominent Muslim in the centuries of the Crusading period was Yusuf ibn Ayyub, a Kurdish man who was given the nickname or honorific Salah ad-Din, meaning "Righteousness of the Faith." To the people of the West, this was abbreviated to Saladin.

He was born about 1137, the son of a Kurdish mercenary and politician. He was well-educated, and reportedly able to discuss arithmetic and law, Euclid and Ptolemy's Almagest, and especially the Quran. He was more interested in religion than military matters, but he became increasingly prominent because of military successes against Crusaders.

He was sent to Egypt in 1164 by Nur ad-Din, Emir of Damascus and Aleppo, to deal with a local power struggle. Shawar, the vizier to the local caliph al-Adid, had been driven from Egypt by a rival, and requested help from Nur ad-Din. Saladin played an important role in a crucial battle between the rival forces, feigning a retreat to draw the enemy into a compromised position.

In 1169, Saladin was named vizier of the Fatimid Caliphate. He was the target of an assassination attempt organized by a rival, but his chief of intelligence warned him so that he was able to foil the plan and have the person behind it killed. The next day, 50,000 Black African soldiers revolted against his rule, which he managed to quell.

I've just recently shared the results of the Battle of Hattin and Saladin's treatment of Guy of Lusignan. Shortly after that episode, however, he faced the Western adversary whose encounters with Saladin brought the man to awareness of all Europeans. Tomorrow we'll talk about the Third Crusade and the arrival of King Richard I of England, called Lionheart.