DEATH OF SALADIN; ARAB EULOGIES

I1n the year 589 (1193 A.D.), after the departure of the king of England, Saladin having no longer anything to fear from the Christians, resolved to pass some time at Damascus. This was always a favourite place of sojourn, and he hoped there to recover his health, for he was feeling severely the strain of so arduous a war. His plan, after resting a while in Damascus, was to go to Egypt, which he had not visited for ten years. He left Jerusalem and paid visits en route to Nablus, Tiberias, and other scenes of his recent conquests. At Berytus, Bohemond, prince of Antioch, came to pay allegiance. What most touched the sultan was that Bohemond came of his own accord, without distrust, without escort, without even having requested a safe conduct.

2As evidence of his satisfaction the sultan gave him a splendid welcome, and granted him several fiefs contiguous to his own principality. The lords who came with him also received presents. Saladin finally arrived in Damascus amid the acclamations of the populace. Great was the rejoicing, and poets exercised their art for the occasion. The sultan immediately took in hand the welfare of the inhabitants and reformed several abuses. In the meanwhile he betook himself with his brother Malik Adil to the pleasures of the chase. He was away a fortnight; his health seemed restored, and already he began to believe himself beyond all danger, when suddenly he fell ill of a bilious fever of which he died on the thirteenth day, March 5, 1193.

3Boha ad-Din, who at the time of Saladin’s death was in the city, relates that grief was universal. “That day,” he says, “was the most terrible that had ever dawned on Islam. The castle of Damascus, the city, the whole universe was struck with a sorrow that God alone could measure.”

4Saladin was born at Tekrit, on the Tigris, and died at the age of fifty-seven lunar years, after having reigned twenty-four years over Egypt and nineteen over Syria. Arabian historians represent him as a most generous prince, who would ever willingly deprive himself of the necessaries of life. Boha ad-Din avows that finally his steward felt obliged, unknown to him, to put aside money in order to meet future emergencies; at his death they found in his treasury forty-seven silver pieces and one of gold. “This,” adds Boha ad-Din, “was all that remained of the revenues of Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and a part of Mesopotamia.”

5It always happened that when Saladin took possession of a new province he performed deeds of great generosity in order to win over the people. When he entered Damascus after the death of Nur ad-Din, he did not take for himself any of this prince’s treasures, but distributed everything among the emirs. “Saladin,” says Abulfeda, “had gentle manners, he bore contradiction easily, and showed great indulgence to those who served him. If anything wounded his feelings he did not exhibit it. He was reserved in speech; and his example inspired the same thing in others. No one dared attack his neighbour’s honour in the sultan’s presence.

6“He never could see an orphan without being moved. If one of its parents were still alive he gave it into this parent’s keeping, but himself provided for the child’s maintenance and kept watch over its education. Whenever he met an aged person he wept tenderly and bestowed some token of generosity. Such was his manner of life until God called him to his merciful bosom.”

7Saladin was not insensible to domestic affection. He loved to spend his time with his family, surrounded by his children, and taking part in their sports. He was sincerely devoted to his religion and brought up his children in the same way. Boha ad-Din has preserved for us the sultan’s speech, a short time before his death, on the occasion of the departure of his son Dhahir to the post of governor of Aleppo. “O my son,” the sultan said, “I recommend to thee the fear of God, source of all goodness. Do what God asks, and thou shalt find in that thy salvation. Hold always the sight of blood in horror. Take care not to shed or stain thyself with it, for the mark is never washed away. Look to the well-being of thy subjects and inform thyself as to their needs.

8Thou art for them God’s minister as well as mine. Take care to please the emirs, the great men of the land, and the people of high estate. It is by my righteous ways that I have reached this degree of power. Bear no malice towards anyone whoever he may be, for we are all mortal. Be attentive to thy duty to others, for in giving them satisfaction thou obtainest the forgiveness of God better than looking to thy own account with him, for repentance to cure all; for the Lord is good and merciful.”

9He loved to read the _Koran_ and he had the book read to his servitors and all those around him. Noticing one day a little child reading the _Koran_ to his father, he was touched to tears by the sight and gave money and land to both father and son. He admitted unreservedly all that religion teaches, and hated philosophers and heretics. He once imprisoned and put to death at Aleppo a young man named Sahraverdi, who mocked at and insulted religion.

10Boha ad-Din relates again: “Saladin was a great lover of justice; not only was he strict on its being given, but he dispensed it himself as far as his affairs would admit. He heard cases twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, assisted by cadis and people of the law. Great and small, everyone found the door open. He did the same on his journeys as in his capital, receiving all petitions presented to him, and rejecting no demands. When a case demanded a great amount of attention he examined it at leisure, sometimes in the day, sometimes at night, and judged it as God prompted him. Never was his sense of justice invoked in vain; it was the same for the princes of his family as for his other subjects, for he made exception of no one.”

11There would be no end were one to transcribe all that the Arab chroniclers, particularly Boha ad-Din, relate concerning Saladin’s justice and piety. The latter is especially devoted to bringing out these virtues of his hero, and purposely omits to speak of the vices that stained them. In the whole course of his reign Saladin encountered no great opposition except on the part of the Christians, and especially those of the West. So he had come to believe in no enemies but the Franks. These he treated as enemies of God, and called the war they brought upon him, “the holy war.”

12“When God shall have put into my hands the other Christian cities,” he told Boha ad-Din,[f] “I shall share my states with my children, leave them my last instructions, and bidding them farewell, embark upon that sea to subdue the western isles and lands. I shall never lay down my arms while there remains a single infidel upon the earth, at least if from here to there I am not stopped by death.”

13Thus Saladin’s ambitions reached as far as the conquest of France, Italy, and the other Christian countries. And lest one should believe the words reported by Boha ad-Din to be a vain threat, we find the same idea in the sultan’s reply to a letter from the emperor Barbarossa. What is more singular is that the hate of Saladin was directed towards the Christians only as a body of nations. Once in his power, he looked at them through different eyes. Thus we can explain the magnificent and even exaggerated eulogies of certain contemporary Christian and especially Italian writers, eulogies which perhaps no Mohammedan writer has exceeded. For example, there is the following passage in the Arab history of the patriarchs of Alexandria, whose author was one of the Coptic Christians:

14“Saladin in all the surrenders he had from the Franks was faithful to his word. When a town capitulated he left the inhabitants their liberty, with their wives, their children, and their belongings. As to their Mohammedan captives, Saladin offered to buy them back, and mentioned a sum greater than their value. If the Franks refused this he let them keep their prisoners, saying, ‘I don’t want to interfere with your captives; only treat them well, as I treat your people.’ Whenever his policy would permit it Saladin sought to please everybody. ‘I much prefer,’ he said, speaking of the Christians, ‘that they should remain contented and happy.’”

15Saladin’s two most glorious achievements in the eye of the majority of the Mohammedan historians were the taking of Jerusalem and Palestine from the Christians, and the destruction of the Fatimite caliphate in Egypt. To these relate most of the titles and phrases in which they refer to him and which may be found on many monuments of the period. “With Saladin,” says Imad ad-Din, his secretary, “the great men perished, with him disappeared people of true worth; good deeds diminished, and bad ones increased; life became difficult, and earth was covered with shadows; the century had its phœnix to deplore, and Islam lost its support.”[k]