Saladin is a prominent figure; the most famous of the Muslim military heroes. He was and still is respected by both the Muslim and Christians. His achievements were not limited to the military sphere alone, but transgressed across the political, diplomatic and administrative arenas. The Muslim owed to him as the man who organized the return of Jerusalem to the Muslim. The Christian remembered his military genius and his humane treatments of his beaten enemies.
His Youth
1138 - Saladin, his actual name was Yusof, born in Tikrit (present Iraq) in the year of 1138. His father, Najmuddin, was a Kurdish from Azarbaijan. When his grandfather migrated to Baghdad, he brought along his two sons, Najmuddin and Asaddin. Later his father was appointed as the governor of Tikrik and his uncle Asuddin as the Army commander. On the night of his birth, his father, Najmudin, decided to move to Aleppo and worked for Imaddin Zangi, the powerful Turkish governor in northern Syria.
He got a taste of military life under the guided eyes of his uncle and the academic and religious elements from his father. Following the tradition in those days, Saladin was trained to be expert horse rider and handled various weapons of combat, such as the sword in and archery. While growing up, Saladin was an ordinary undistinguished youth, with a greater inclination towards religious studies than military.
Egypt.
When Egypt was attacked, the vizier was faced with two mounting challenges, the internal power struggle and the onslaught of the Crusaders. He sent for the help from the Emir, Imaddin in Damascus, who, despite of the fear of crusaders attack, dispatched Asaddin to lead the army. Saladin was enrolled in it. This marked his formal entry to military career.
Asaddin 's army and The Crusader-Egyptian force were engaged in a battle in Giza, a desert border of the Nile River. In this battle Saladin demonstrated his leadership quality and played a significant role in the success of the battle.
The emir was very pleased and awarded Asaddin for his contribution. After his uncle’ Asaddin died, Saladin at the age of 31 was appointed as the vizier of Egypt and at the same as the commander of the Syrian troops in Egypt. His relatively quick rise to power must be attributed not only to the clannish nepotism of his Kurdish family but also to his own emerging talents. As vizier of Egypt, he was accorded the title king (malik) but he was better known as the Sultan of Egypt.
(1171). Saladin strengthened his position by 's position by abolishing the weak and unpopular Shi'ite Fatimid caliphate. The became the sole ruler of Egypt, keep his attachment as a vassal of Nureddin. In the subsequent years, Saladin worked to unite the Muslim’s territories in Syria, Egypt, northern Iraq and Palestine. His had only one ambition, to liberate Jerusalem from the Crusaders.
(1174) , When the Syrian emir died, Saladin was asked by the young ruler of Damascus to put down the uprising in Syria. Using his rich agricultural possessions in Egypt as a financial base, Saladin soon moved into Syria with a small but strictly disciplined army to claim the regency on behalf of the young son of his former suzerain. Soon, however, he abandoned this claim, and from 1174 until 1186 he zealously pursued a goal of uniting all the Muslim territories of Syria, northern Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. He accomplished by skillful diplomacy backed by the swift and resolute use of military force. Gradually, his reputation grew as a generous and virtuous but firm ruler, devoid of pretense, licentiousness, and cruelty. In contrast to the bitter dissension and intense rivalry that had up to then hampered the Muslims in their resistance to the crusaders, Saladin's singleness of purpose induced them to rearm both physically and spiritually.
Battle of Hattin. This is the beginning of the downfall of the crusaders. Due to the poor calculation by the Crusaders, the army was trapped, after a long and exhausted match. So great were the losses in the ranks of the crusaders in this one battle that the Muslims were quickly able to overrun nearly the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem. Acre, Toron, Beirut, Sidon, Nazareth, Caesarea, Nabulus, Jaffa (Yafo), and Ascalon (Ashqelon) fell within three months.
(1187) The Crowning achievement for Saladin and a fatal blow for the Christian was the surrender of Jerusalem. The city surrendered to Saladin's army after 88 years in the hands of the Franks. In stark contrast to the city's conquest by the Christians, when blood flowed freely during the barbaric slaughter of its inhabitants, the Muslim reconquest was marked by the civilized and courteous behaviour of Saladin and his troops.
By 1189 the crusaders occupied only three cities in the entire Middle East. Saladin's conquest sparked the Third Crusade, which was led by the famed military leader Richard I (the Lion-Hearted). The clash between these two great powers ended in a draw, but a treaty was drawn up that allowed Christians to visit holy sites in the area. Saladin died a peaceful death in Damascus in 1193.
Achievement
Saladin's every act was inspired by an intense and unwavering devotion to the idea of jihad, or holy war, taking example from the struggle of the prophet and the companions. It was an essential part of his policy to encourage the growth and spread of Muslim religious institutions.
He courted both scholars and preachers, founded colleges and mosques, and commissioned them to write edifying works both in religious topics as well as academics' interest. Through moral regeneration, which was a genuine part of his own way of life, he tried to re-create in his own realm some of the same zeal and enthusiasm that had proved so valuable to the first generations of Muslims when, five centuries before, they had conquered half the known world.
In wars against the Christian crusaders, he achieved final success with the disciplined capture of Jerusalem (Oct. 2, 1187), ending its 88-year occupation by the Franks. The great Christian counterattack of the Third Crusade was then stalemated by his military genius.
His chivalrous behavior was noted by Christian chroniclers, especially in the accounts of the siege of Kerak in Moab, and despite being the enemies of the Crusaders he won the respect of many of them, including Richard the Lionheart; rather than becoming a hated figure in Europe, he became a celebrated example of the principles of chivalry.
