Richard the Lionheart's "Noble" Adversary - Saladin

RIchard the Lionheart was a man of war and he had many adversaries in his lifetime. He fought his father more than once in his early years, and fought with his father against the rebellious lords of the Aquitaine and against the French King even more frequently. He spent the last six years of his life in a bitter struggle against King Philip II. Yet of all his adversaries few have captured the imagination of chroniclers, novelists or artists as much as the man he fought in the Holy Land - Sultan Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, more commonly known as Saladin.

Saladin has long been viewed as the epitome of “chivalry.” His honesty and sense of honor is often compared favorably to the duplicity and dishonor of Richard's Christian foes such as the Holy Roman Emperor and Philip of France. Indeed, in the 19th century it became common to suggest that, while the crusaders (including Richard!) were treacherous barbarians, Saladin stood out as a paragon of virtue and honor, a shining light of decency and chivalry in an otherwise brutal age.  This is the view of Saladin that dictated the highly sympathetic portrayal in Ridley Scott's film “The Kingdom of Heaven.” 

This positive view of Saladin in Western literature is largely attributable to a biography of Saladin published by Stanley Lane-Poole in 1898. This was arguably the first scholarly biography of the 12^th century Kurdish leader in the English language, and Lane-Poole made a major contribution to Western scholarship by drawing upon Arab sources for his work.  Unfortunately, he did so uncritically, adopting without scruple the purely adulatory descriptions of Saladin penned by the Sultan’s court biographers. Indeed, Lane-Poole is so completely under the spell of his Arab sources that he claims: “...civilization, magnanimity, toleration, real chivalry, and gentle culture were all on the side of the Saracens.”  With this statement, Lane-Poole dismisses Richard the Lionheart, the troubadour and paragon of Western chivalry, without so much as a mention. 
  
Yet, as Andrew Ehrenkreutz meticulously documents in his biography of Saladin, far from being the embodiment of "magnanimity, real chivalry and gentle culture," Saladin used deceit, hypocrisy, propaganda, bribery, extortion, murder and, ultimately aggressive war to establish an empire in the Near East.  Notably, Saladin spent much more time and many more resources fighting (and killing) fellow Muslims than he did fighting Christians, and that Saladin was responsible for the loss of many more Sunni Muslim lives than Christian ones. 

Furthermore, the many instances in which Saladin treated former foes with leniency, often awarding them new lands and titles within his growing empire, demonstrates not so much his “gentleness” and “chivalry” as his cynical opportunism. If fighting men, particularly the commanders of contingents of troops that offered effective armed opposition to Saladin, could be bought with the promises of riches and titles, then why fight? After all, the alternative (killing or enslaving his opponents on capture) would only have increased the tenacity and fervor of his opponents, and Saladin had a hard enough time subduing them as it was. His mild treatment of defectors is not so much a mark of “gentleness” and “chivalry” as of opportunism that was particularly effective against the fragmented and jealous feudal lords in northern Syria.

Against these documented cases of apparent “gentleness” and “chivalry” are a number of equally well documented incidents of ruthlessness, brutality, duplicity and vindictiveness that are incompatible with the image of Saladin as the paragon of chivalry. To name only a few, Saladin played a key role in eliminating the Egyptian vizier Shawar. Then, having won the confidence and trust of the Fatimid Caliph, Saladin worked systematically to undermine his regime and carried out a bloody coup d’etat against the Fatimid elite as soon as the Caliph conveniently died. While it might be argued that this was justified by repeated Fatimid conspiracies against Saladin or by Sunni orthodoxy’s hostility to Shiism, the same cannot be said of the slaughter of the unarmed women and children of the Sudanese guard that the “gentle and chivalrous” Saladin ordered burned alive in their homes. And if that weren’t enough, Saladin ended the rebellion of their men by agreeing to spare their lives if they left Cairo — only to break his word and slaughter them after they had laid down their arms.

So, yes, Saladin did break his word when it suited his purposes -- as he did to Richard the Lionheart with regard to the surrender of Acre.

Saladin next distinguished himself by waging war against the heir of his feudal overlord Nur al-Din, the eleven-year-old al-Salih -- but only after first swearing humble and abject submission to al-Salih. When the young Sultan’s legal guardians refused to acknowledge Saladin’s bogus claims to be the “true” guardian of the young Sultan, Saladin gave up his pretense of serving the interests of al-Salih, and demanded patents for his position as Sultan of Damascus from the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad. He then spent the better part of the next ten years fighting bitter campaigns against the family of Nur al-Din and their supporters based in Aleppo and Mosul and all across northern Syria.

Which is not to say that Saladin did not fight the Christians too. In fact, Saladin undertook a number of campaigns against the Christians including the invasion of 1177 that ended Saladin’s complete humiliation at Montgisard, the invasion of 1179 that ended in the routing of the Templars and the capture of nearly 300 Christian knights and nobles on the Litani. The siege of Beirut in the same year, the campaign that ended in the draw at Le Forbelet in 1182, the equally indecisive campaign of 1183, and the sieges of Kerak in 1183 and 1184. This may sound like an impressive track record, but given Saladin’s overwhelming strategic advantages, and the fact that the Kingdom of Jerusalem was led by a youth slowing dying of leprosy, his lack of success has led some historians to suggest either strategic and tactical incompetence or anemic motivation. 

Not that Saladin didn’t demonstrate his hatred of the Franks.  When in August of 1178, less than a year after Saladin’s scalding defeat at Montgisard, Christian prisoners fell into Saladin’s hands he had them summarily executed, one by one, by members of his retinue. Aside from it being against Sharia law to kill men who had surrendered, it was hardly a demonstration of “chivalry.” Nor was it an isolated incident. When the Christians involved in the Red Sea raids were finally run-to-earth and captured, Saladin again ordered their execution. According to Bernard Hamilton in his excellent work The Leper King and His Heirs, the Christian prisoners were “taken to Mecca where, during the great annual pilgrimage, they were…slaughtered ‘like animals for sacrifice.’” Clearly these men were mercenaries and they had killed Muslim pilgrims and captured Arab shipping so perhaps they were not worthy of mercy, but the same cannot be said of the “unlucky common Christian soldier whom the sultan had slain when he noticed a minor facial scratch his son al-Afdal [by then in his late teens] sustained in the battle of Arsuf.” (Ehrenkreutz, p. 228.)

Last but not least, no discussion of Saladin would be complete without reference to the brutal execution of the Templars and Hospitallers taken captive at the Battle of Hattin. On July 6, these knights and sergeants, bound and helpless, were beheaded in public. Bartlett describes the scene in Downfall of the Crusader Kingdom as follows: “Saladin gave the task…to a group of religious Sufis, holy men largely untrained in the arts of war. Some of them took six or seven attempts to sever the heads of their victims…However justified the death of these men might have been in military terms, the cruelty and indignity of their death did Saladin no credit whatsoever. It was an act of violence, almost barbarism, which Saladin’s apologists have all too frequently glossed over.” (Bartlett, p. 204-205.) 

It is important to remember that this massacre preceded — and may indeed have helped instigate — the slaughter of the Muslim hostages at Acre by Richard the Lionheart four years later.  If Richard the Lionheart's reputation was sullied by the massacre at Acre, so was Saladin's by the massacre after Hattin. The 12th century was a brutal age, and empires were not built with kindness and "gentle culture" -- not in France, Aquitaine, Egypt or Syria.

Saladin in a character in my three-part biography of Balian d'Ibelin:

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"Crusading Warfare 1097-1193" by R. C. Smail

Although first published sixty years ago, this is still a valuable book for those interested in the crusades and the crusader states. It is logically organized looking first at the strategic framework, the composition of the armies of both Christians and Muslims, then finally at the tactics employed.  By avoiding a chronological narrative, Smail highlights how certain features of warfare remained the same — or changed — over time. 

The book provides adequate footnotes for scholars, but the text itself does not often become bogged down in arguments with fellow scholars about details of little interest to the general reader. The book also provides some useful sketches and photos of some of the crusader castles. While the reader may not agree with all of Smail’s theses (more recent research casts doubt on his assumptions about the hostility of the native population, for example), his arguments are cogent and stimulate further thought an analysis.

Saracen Armies

The Army of Saladin as Portrayed in "The Kingdom of Heaven"

The crusader kingdoms consistently faced an enemy that significantly outnumbered them and it is often this sense of "massive hordes" that dominates descriptions of Saracen armies. Yet while the size of Saracen armies was certainly a factor in their success, it was by no means their only significant feature. On the contrary, Saracen armies were extremely complex and understanding them better helps explain Frankish tactics.

Perhaps the most important yet often forgotten characteristic of Saracen armies was their ethnic diversity. The term "Saracen" simply means "Easterner" and referred collectively to the Muslim opponents of the crusaders.  Yet while the use of this term is convenient, it plasters over and so disguises the ethnic differences within the "Saracen" armies. The "Saracen" armies included not only Arabs and Turks, the two largest ethnic groups engaged in warfare against the crusaders. They also included Kurds (Saladin himself was a Kurd), Nubians, and Berbers. Furthermore, the Arab elements need to be sub-divided into Syrians, Bedouins and Egyptians, and the term "Turk" actually covers a variety of Turkmenish tribes. 

Each of these ethnic groups had their own more or less distinct ways of fighting along with their own language, dress, and preferred weapons. In broad terms, the Nubians were famous infantry archers, who fought with large powerful bows but without shields of any kind, making them very vulnerable in close engagements.  The Arabs, Kurds and Berbers generally fought on horseback with lance, javelin and sword, but Bedouins fought more often as infantry archers. The Turks were the masters of mounted archery. 

It was the Turks with their highly mobile cavalry and mounted archers that most impressed the crusaders. Based on Christian descriptions, the crusaders found the infantry and even the heavy cavalry of their opponents unremarkable. The mounted archers on the other hand, with their tactics of pressing in close for a volley of arrows only to flee when challenged, frustrated and won grudging respect from the Franks. The Turkish tactic of pretending flight to lure Frankish cavalry into an ambush was well-recorded and highly effective--over and over again. The comparison to a pesky fly is colorful but somewhat deceptive since these "flies" could kill. 

The diversity of tradition in Saracen armies had advantages and disadvantages. Good commanders could exploit the strengths of their various troops and use them to complement one another. Less effective commanders found their armies disintegrating or the units operating independently of one another. It was easy for the infantry to get left behind, forgotten and slaughtered. Cavalry without infantry support was vulnerable when they stopped to rest and water their horses, and utterly useless in siege warfare--which was the dominant form of engagement in the crusader period.

In addition to the ethnic differences within the Saracen armies, there were different kinds of service as well. At the one extreme and completely unknown in the West, Saracen commanders always had a contingent of slave-soldiers completely devoted to them. These slave-soldiers or Mamlukes (also Mamelukes and Mamluks) formed the personal body-guard of commanders and lords. They were composed of men who had been acquired as children (carefully selected, one presumes, for their physical appearance and health) and trained meticulously and rigorously for years to make them crack troops. Although technically "freed" on completion of training, they remained emotionally and financially bound to their master. They were professionals, with no other interests or purpose other than to serving their master in war.

In contrast, the bulk of the troops in a Saracen army were similar to feudal levees in the West. They were men with land and families, who served in the army when called-up, or as volunteers, but who were not professional soldiers. The quality of such troops obviously varied widely. Some of them, young, virile and ambitious were undoubtedly very good. Others, aging, ailing or just disinterested, were not so good. One element that was undoubtedly of mixed value were the jihadists, who joined Saracen armies engaged in warfare against the crusader states. While often untrained and poorly armed, these troops could be used for particularly dangerous tasks like storming a breech in a wall or scaling a siege ladder.

Also as in the West, most of Saracen troops (like the Mamlukes) owed service to a lord or emir, not to the Sultan directly. Thus, as in the West, a Saracen army was composed of small, close-knit clusters of troops bound to a land-owner, who himself owed service to a larger land-owner, who owed service to an even larger land-owner etc. until one came to the top, the Sultan himself. Yet while all theoretically served the Sultan directly or indirectly, the reality was that men served the men they personally knew. If their immediate lord changed sides or just decided to go home, then they did so too. As a result, the only troops the Sultan could rely on 100% were his Mamlukes (until they too revolted, cut the Sultan to pieces and took control for themselves, but that wasn't until the mid-13th Century.)

In short, the Sultan, like a medieval King, was dependent upon the loyalty and support of his most powerful emirs, and the emirs had power similar to barons in medieval Europe, with one important difference: the emirs did not hold territory on a hereditary basis. They served as administrators of territory or other sources of revenue (such as customs, or markets) for the Sultan. In theory at least, the Sultans could dismiss them and replace them at whim.

While one might have expected this to make them more loyal, the evidence suggests the opposite.  Lack of tenure created a sense of insecurity and tended to make emirs more mercenary. Without a vested interest in a specific territory, they were always open to alternative opportunities -- from a different Sultan, or a brother, cousin or son willing to challenge the reigning Sultan. With no long-term perspectives, there was also a strong bias toward plundering one's current position, whether it was territorial or purely administrative.

Furthermore, the fact that emirs came and went (squeezing as much revenue as possible from those subject to them) undermined loyalty. Tenants farmers and peasants had little reason to identify with the ever changing cast of landlords sent to exploit them. This fact is reflected in the tendency of Saracen forces to dissolve comparatively rapidly. Saladin had consistent difficulty keeping his troops in the field for more than a  month or so. Even after his great victory at Hattin and the plundering of an entire kingdom, his troops faded away when the rains started. 

To compensate for the generally low levels of loyalty and morale among the conscripts, Saracen leaders depended increasingly upon mercenaries. These were predominantly drawn from the nomadic tribes of the Asian steppes, but included Armenians, further adding to the overall diversity of the Saracen force. 

Warfare in the crusader states at the end of the 12th century is an integral part of my biographical novels about Balian d'Ibelin. The first and second books in the series have already been released.

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"Hattin" by John France - A Review

Despite its title, this book is not about the Battle of Hattin. Instead, it is a concise history of the historical events that led up to the crushing defeat of the army of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, and an equally concise discussion of the aftermath and impact of Hattin right up to the present day. For anyone interested in understanding the rhetoric about “crusades” in the context of today’s conflict with ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al Qaida, this book is an incredibly useful starting point.

“Hattin” is only 168 pages long, contains useful maps, a collection of interesting photographs and a useful bibliography. Despite its brevity, on the whole it avoids over simplification and the usual misrepresentations of basic facts. France, for example, makes clear right on page 3 that “many parts of the Middle East, especially those areas seized by the westerners, were not Muslim at all but eastern Christian: their populations often welcomed the new rulers.” He highlights the fact, so often forgotten or ignored today, that Muslim raiders had burned St. Peter’s in Rome in 847 and draws attention to the very real fear of Islamic expansion and conquest that shaped European attitudes right up to the First Crusade. Yet he also notes that once the crusader states had been established “the western settlers were far from fanatical, understanding the importance of exploiting Muslim divisions.” (p.37)

France does a remarkable job of making the complex and (particularly to Western eyes) very confusing divisions and rivalries within the Muslim world comprehensible. He manages to boil down the intrigues that led to Saladin’s seizure of power in Egypt to the essentials, and likewise avoids the usual drivel about the barons of Jerusalem being self-seeking and exceptionally greedy or perversely divided. France notes soberly: “All aristocracies were inevitably divided by factional struggles in which personal likes and dislikes played a major role.” (p.65) In short, there was nothing particularly unique about this in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and nothing inherently fatal about it. France also highlights that “the barons of Jerusalem were not, for the most part, fanatics…but they were fiercely and proudly Catholic and deeply aware of the dangers posed by their Muslim neighbours to their very existence…As a whole they were quite prepared to deal peacefully with the Muslims, but they were also aware that they needed to be strong….”

France does his best to reconstruct the Battle of Hattin itself, but given the absence of first-hand Christian accounts the task is nearly impossible. The contradictions in later accounts written with the benefit of hindsight and designed to serve various contemporary agendas and biases, make a variety of interpretations both plausible and defensible. France’s account is no more than one plausible interpretation, and he only devotes 15 pages to the battle itself. This is completely justifiable as the book far from being about tactical details of no particular relevance in the 21^st century but rather about the impact of Hattin both strategically and ideologically.

France’s most valuable contribution to the literature on the crusades and Hattin is his last chapter titled “Hattin Today: A Poisoned Heritage.” In this chapter he not only traces and explains the emergence of the “chivalrous” Saladin myth in the 13^th and later centuries, he catalogues the various ways in which Saladin and Hattin have been harnessed to modern ideologies and aspirations from the Ottoman empire to ISIS.  France argues, “the European myth of Saladin arose from the desire among the military aristocracy to show the victor as a worthy, indeed praiseworthy opponent who, underneath it all, is ‘one of us’ in some sense.” (p. 142) In the Muslim world, on the other hand, by the 19^th century “the crusader-imperialist linkage catered to the growing sense of victimhood across Islam….” Later, he notes, “the parallel between the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem and Israel, which occupied much the same territory, provided a permanent reminder of the crusading past.” (p. 152) He notes that Saddam Hussein gave one of his divisions the name “Saladin” — and built a statue of himself dressed as Saladin. The PLO had both a “Saladin” and a “Hattin” brigade. The Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS to this day lay claim “to the inheritance of Saladin and aspire to cleave a way to a new Hattin.” (p. 159)

Given the very real fact that Hattin has, as France puts it, “become a rallying cry for radical Islamic groups, and a factor in the politics of hate in the Middle East,” (p. 168) anyone who wants to understand international affairs today owes it to himself to read this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The battle of Hattin is a key event in:

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Defender of Jerusalem won the 2015 Chaucer Award for Historical Fiction set in the Middle Ages and the Silver for Spiritual/Religious Fiction in the 2015 Feathered Quill Book Awards.