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Al-Malik year-Nâsir Salâh AD-DIN Yûsuf , Salaheddine or Saladin (1138 - 1193) founded the dynasty ayyoubide, in Egypt and Syria. Its name, year-Nâsir, mean " that which receives the victory of Dieu" and Saladin means the " straightness of Foi".

Biography

Youssouf (Joseph), wire of Ayyûb , was born with Takrit on the Tigre in a Kurdish family originating in Dvin, the ancient Arménie. With his uncle Chirkouh, it belonged to a Kurdish military family with the service of Noureddine, emir Turkish of Alep. This one sends it in Egypt to support the dynasty fatimide, threatened by the Croisés. Saladin surrounds the capital of a limestone wall which extends from Al-Qahira jusqu with Fustat and the Nile. In the center of this defensive system the Citadel is, from where the new king controls the country. Opened from now on to the people, Al-Qahira, whose palates are demolished, shelters the Caravansérail S, the Souk S and the residences of the tradesmen, the craftsmen and the middle-class men of the new mode.

In 1169, it takes the succession of his/her uncle at the station of Vizier in Cairo. After having started again the Egyptian economy and to have reorganized its army, on request for Noureddine, it abolishes the Shiite caliphate fatimide in 1171, following the death of the young caliph Al-Adid . It thus founds the dynasty of the Ayyoubides which will reign on Egypt until in 1250. It gives its capacity to the service of the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad Al-Mustadhî bi- 'Amr Allah. Its original intention is the holy war to expel the francs established in Syria and Palestine since the First crusade.

It takes then the title of Sultan. Many a Turkish S Seldjoukides refused to serve under the orders of a Kurdish . As moreover after one long line of caliphs children the capacity in Egypt was unstable, the position of Saladin was initially precarious. As a chief of a foreign army, of Syria, it did not have the control of the Egyptian army which was always directed by the Caliph of which it was the only remaining capacity.

With his/her brothers, Saladin transformed Egypt into a stronghold of family, initially under the supervision of Noureddine, then practically independent after its death. It also restored the Sunnisme in Egypt, against the heritage Chiite of the Fatimides, which upset the life of the Christians coptes and the Jews, of which tolerant the fatimides had been useful successfully in the administration, the trade and sciences.

Fight against the crusaders

He wants to then carry out his ambition to drive out the crusaders of the Middle East. For that it initially will join together Syria under the only authority of Ayyoubides.

The zengide Nur AD-DIN which carried out the fight against the crusaders, thought of being able to count on the assistance of Saladin. It for that had reunified Syria under its authority. Saladin did not take part in the invasions carried out by Nur AD-DIN in 1171 and 1173 against the kingdom of Jerusalem, it hoped that the cross kingdom would remain in place, acting like a zone “plug” between Egypt and Syria.

In 1174, Nur AD-DIN is on the point of going to Egypt to face Saladin there. It is seized by a fever which it terrace. His/her son, the young person Have-Salih Ismail Al-Malik became the legitimate heir, and Saladin declared its vassal. Saladin takes the control of the Syria. It goes on Damas which opens its doors (October) to him, takes Homs and Hama then besieges Alep ( December). During this seat, weak the Have-Salih Ismail Al-Malik which is in title sultan of Egypt and Syria, sees itself dispossessed by Saladin. He and its advisers decides to resort to the services Assassins to get rid of Saladin. May 22nd, 1176, an attack in the camp of Saladin fails. The Batin is are massacred. Saladin is made invest by the caliph of the government of Egypt and Syria. Saladin carries out for its own account the dream of Nur AD-DIN. On the other hand Alep and Mosul, the two other large cities that Nur AD-DIN directed, was never taken. Saladin succeeds in imposing its influence and its authority on them in 1176 and 1186 respectively.

Saladin marries the widow of Nur AD-DIN, overcomes the other applicants with the throne and takes the reins of the capacity in Syria in 1185.

As long as it did not finish the unification of Syria and Egypt and did not consolidate its capacity, Saladin leaves quiet the kingdom of the crusaders. In 1177 the king Baudouin IV inflicts a heavy defeat with the to him Bataille of the mount Gisard. Renaud de Châtillon, in particular, tackles the Moslem roads of trade and pilgrimage and threat to attack Mecque with a fleet on the Red Sea.

They is only ten years later, in 1185, with the approach of died of Baudouin IV of Jerusalem, which it decides to start again the Djihad (fallen in disuse in the Muslim world). In July 1187, Saladin invades the Royaume of Jerusalem, weakened by the arguments between the Templiers the frank and barons and destroys the crossed army, encircled after a walk exhausting, on the hill of Hattin.

The catch of Jerusalem

See also: Head office of Jerusalem (1187)

Saladin captures and makes carry out Renaud de Châtillon; it also captures the king Guy de Lusignan. Then it seizes Jerusalem on October 2nd 1187. It took again all the crossed cities quickly, Tyr excluded.

It makes it possible to the Christians to leave the healthy and safe conquered cities and to regain the coast with part of their goods, generosity exceptional for the time and which was worth the regard of its adversaries to him. To Jerusalem, it returned to Islam the church of the Temple (Mosquée Al-Aqsa) but left to the Christians the the Holy Sepulchre and returned to the Jews the Wailing Wall and their Synagog S, removed by the Crusaders. This leniency which contrasts with the massacre which had taken place at the time of the catch of Jerusalem in 1099 by the crusaders make much for the construction of the image of the “Knight of Islam”.

Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem caused the Third crusade. This crusade took again Acre and Saladin was beaten once again by a Christian king, Richard I {{er}} of England, with the battle of Arsouf in 1191.

The relation between the two men was interfered with respect and military competition. When Richard was wounded, Saladin offered the service of its personal doctor, large the Moïse Maïmonide; in Arsuf, when Richard lost his horse, Saladin sent two in replacement of them to him. There was even the project to marry the sister of Richard with the brother of Saladin. Both arrived at a Accord for Jerusalem in 1192 under the terms of which the city would remain Musulman E but would be opened with the Christian pilgrims .

Shortly after the departure of Richard, Saladin died in 1193 with Damas, where its tomb is a major tourist attraction and on which one can read “lord, grants to him its last conquest, the paradise”.

The character

Praise of Saladin by Usâma ibn Munquidh which was one of his/her comrades in arms: Likes God to embellish Islam and its faithful by giving long life to Salâh AD-DIN, by helping them by the edge of its sword and its decisions, by sheltering them in the width of its shade! And as it has, for them, washed of any impurity the sources of its merits, can it in the same way subject the ground to its very high capacity to order or defend, and the heads of its enemies to the sentence of sound saber.

The same one is not in addition deprived to find Saladin of an excessive brutality. During a battle close to Homs the rain made the ground impracticable for the horses. The infantrymen fight in body with body, one of them moves away to take refuge in Homs: Salâh AD-DIN was posted with me, and we looked in front of us these infantrymen. One of them ran to join those of Homs, with which it mixed. Salâh AD-DIN, which had seen it said to the one his/her companions:

- Bring here the man who was beside the runaway!

When it was done, he asked:

- Which was that which was beside you and fled to go in Homs?

- By God, Lord, answered the infantryman, I do not know it

- Slice it by the medium! Salâh AD-DIN Usâma vainly tries to soften the sorrow…

ordered Salah AD-DIN known as:

- When somebody deserted, one takes that which was at his sides and one cuts the neck to him., or one slices it by the medium.

One blocked it like wanted it the use, and one cut it in deux

In spite of its savage opposition to the Christian power, Saladin gained in Europe an immense reputation of chivalrous sovereign, so much so that there existed at the 14th century a Poème epic on his exploits and that Dante includes it among the pagan hearts of the Limbes.

The emperor of Germany Guillaume II at the time of his visit in Damas in 1898, offered to the Ottoman Empire the restoration of the mausoleum of Saladin built in 1193, and a marble sarcophagus. Currently in the mausoleum which is close to the mosque of the Omeyyades, there are two sarcophagi: that out of marble remained empty and that of wood which contains the body of Saladin. For Guillaume II, it was a question of honouring that which overcame at the same time England and France.

The province of the current Iraq which contains the town of Tikrit calls in its honor Salah AD-DIN.

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