As for Balian, he sought to raise the money needed to buy back the freedom of the poorest citizens. In itself, the ransom was not excessive, although for a prince it regularly ran to several tens of thousands of dinars, sometimes even a hundred thousand or more. But for ordinary people, something like twenty dinars per family represented a year or two’s income. Thousands of unfortunates had gathered at the gates of the city to beg for coins. Al-‘Ādil, who was as sensitive as his brother, asked Saladin’s permission to free a thousand poor prisoners without payment of any ransom. When he heard this, the Frankish patriarch asked the same for seven hundred others, and Balian for another five hundred. They were all freed. Then, on his own initiative, the sultan announced that all old people would be allowed to leave without paying anything and that imprisoned men with young children would also be released. When it came to Frankish widows and orphans, he not only exempted them from any payment, but also offered them gifts before allowing them to leave.
Saladin’s treasurers despaired. If the least fortunate were to be set free for nothing, they argued, at least the ransom for the rich should be raised. The anger of these worthy servants of the state knew no bounds when the patriarch of Jerusalem drove out of the city accompanied by numerous chariots filled with gold, carpets, and all sorts of the most precious goods. ‘Imād al-Dīn al-Asfahāni was scandalized:
I said to the sultan: ‘This patriarch is carrying off riches worth at least two hundred thousand dinars. We gave them permission to take their personal property with them, but not the treasures of the churches and convents. You must not let them do it!’ But Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn answered: ‘We must apply the letter of the accords we have signed, so that no one will be able to accuse the believers of having violated their treaties. On the contrary, Christians everywhere will remember the kindness we have bestowed upon them.’
The patriarch paid his ten dinars just like everyone else, and was even provided with an escort to make sure that he reached Tyre without incident.
Saladin had conquered Jerusalem not to amass gold, and still less to seek vengeance. His prime objective, as he himself explained, was to do his duty before his God and his faith. His victory was to have liberated the holy city from the yoke of the invaders—without a bloodbath, destruction, or hatred. His reward was to be able to bow down and pray in places where no Muslim would have been able to pray had it not been for him. On Friday 9 October, a week after the victory, an official ceremony was organized in al-Aqṣā mosque. Many religious leaders competed for the honour of delivering the sermon on this memorable occasion. In the end, it was the qāḍī of Damascus Muḥī al-Dīn Ibn al-Zaki, the successor of Abū Ṣa‘ad al-Ḥarawi, who was designated by the sultan to mount the pulpit, garbed in a superb black robe. Although his voice was clear and powerful, a slight tremor betrayed his emotion as he spoke: ‘Glory to God who has bestowed this victory upon Islam and who has returned this city to the fold after a century of perdition! Honour to this army, which He has chosen to complete the reconquest! And may salvation be upon you, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf, son of Ayyūb, you who have restored the spurned dignity of this nation!’
Part Five
Reprieve
(1187 — 1244)
When the master of Egypt decided to hand Jerusalem over to the Franj, a great storm of indignation swept all the lands of Islam.
SIBṬ IBN AL-JAWZI
Arab chronicler (1186–1256)
11
The Impossible Encounter
Although venerated as a hero after the reconquest of Jerusalem, Saladin was nevertheless subjected to criticism—although amicable on the part of his close collaborators, from his opponents it became increasingly severe.
Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, writes Ibn al-Athīr, never evinced real firmness in his decisions. He would lay siege to a city, but if the defenders resisted for some time, he would give up and abandon the siege. Now, a monarch must never act in this way, even if destiny smiles upon him. It is often preferable to fail while remaining firm than to succeed while subsequently squandering the fruits of one’s success. Nothing illustrates the truth of this observation better than the behaviour of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn at Tyre. It is his fault alone that the Muslims suffered a setback before the walls of that city.
Although he stopped short of any systematic hostility, the Mosul historian, who was still loyal to the Zangī dynasty, was always somewhat reserved in his evaluation of Saladin. Ibn al-Athīr shared the general elation that swept the Arab world after Ḥiṭṭīn and Jerusalem. But that did not prevent him from taking note, without the slightest complacency, of the mistakes made by the hero of these events. In the case of Tyre, the historian’s criticism seems perfectly justified.
Every time he seized a Frankish city or stronghold such as Acre, Ascalon, or Jerusalem, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn allowed the enemy soldiers and knights to seek refuge in Tyre, a city that had thus become virtually impregnable. The Franj of the littoral sent messages to the others overseas, and the latter promised to come to their rescue. Ought we not to say that in a sense it was Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn himself who organized the defence of Tyre against his own army?
Of course, there is no reproaching the sultan for the magnanimity with which he treated the vanquished. In the eyes of history, his repugnance for needless bloodshed, his strict respect for his commitments, and the touching nobility of his acts of compassion are as valuable as his conquests. Nevertheless, it is incontestable that he made a serious political and military error. He knew that by taking Jerusalem he was issuing a challenge to the West, and that the West would respond. In these conditions, to permit tens of thousands of Franj to entrench themselves in Tyre, the most powerful stronghold of the Levantine coast, was to offer an ideal beach-head for a fresh invasion. This was especially so since in the absence of King Guy, who was still a captive, the knights had found a particularly tenacious leader in the person of the man the Arab chroniclers would call al-Markish, the marquis Conrad of Montferrat, who had recently arrived from Europe.
Although he was not unaware of the danger, Saladin nevertheless underestimated it. In November 1187, a few weeks after the conquest of the holy city, he laid siege to Tyre. But he did so without great determination. This ancient Phoenician city could not have been taken without massive assistance from the Egyptian fleet. Saladin was well aware of this, yet he appeared before its ramparts supported by no more than ten vessels, five of which were burned by the defenders in a daring raid. The other ships then withdrew to Beirut. Once deprived of its fleet, the Muslim army could attack Tyre only across the narrow ridge connecting the city to the mainland. In these conditions a siege could easily drag on for months, especially since the Franj, effectively mobilized by al-Markish, seemed ready to fight to the bitter end. Most of his emirs, exhausted by this endless campaign, advised Saladin to call off the siege. Had he offered them enough gold, the sultan could probably have convinced some of them to remain. But soldiers were expensive in winter, and the state coffers were empty. He himself was weary. He therefore demobilized half his troops; then, lifting the siege, he headed north, where many cities and fortresses could be reconquered without great effort.
For the Muslim army, it was yet another triumphant march: Latakia, Ṭarṭūs, Baghras, Safid, Kawkab—the list of conquests was long. In fact, it is easier to name the towns the Franj retained: Tyre, Tripoli, Antioch and its port, and three isolated fortresses. But the most perceptive of Saladin’s entourage were not deceived. What was the use of piling up conquests if there was no guarantee that a fresh invasion could be effectively discouraged? The sultan himself seemed to view any new trial of strength with equanimity, ‘If the Franj come from beyond the seas, they will suffer the fate of those who have preceded them here’, he exclaimed when a Sicilian fleet appeared off the coast of Latakia. In July 1188 he even released Guy, after eliciting a solemn promise that he would never again take up arms against the Muslims.
This last generous gesture was to cost him dear. In August 1189 the Fra
nkish king broke his word and laid siege to the port of Acre. Guy’s forces were modest at first, but ships were soon arriving daily, pouring successive waves of Western fighters onto the beach.
After the fall of Jerusalem, Ibn al-Athīr reports, the Franj dressed in black, and they journeyed beyond the seas to seek aid and succour in all their lands, especially Rome the Great. To incite people to vengeance, they carried with them a painting of the Messiah, peace be upon him, bloodied by an Arab who was striking him. They would say: ‘Look, here is the Messiah and here is Muḥammad, the Prophet of the Muslims, beating him to death!’ The Franj were moved and gathered together, women included; those who could not come along would pay the expenses of those who went to fight in their place. One of the enemy prisoners told me that he was an only son and that his mother had sold her house to buy his equipment for him. The religious and psychological motivation of the Franj was so strong that they were prepared to surmount all difficulties to achieve their ends.
From the first days of September, Guy’s troops began to receive wave after wave of reinforcements. Thus began the battle of Acre, one of the longest and most gruelling of all the Frankish wars. Acre is built on a peninsula shaped like a protruding nose: to the south is the port, to the west the sea; to the north and east two solid city walls form a right angle. The city was doubly encircled. Around the ramparts, firmly held by the Muslim garrison, the Franj formed an ever thicker semicircle, but they had to deal with Saladin’s army at their rear. At first, Saladin tried to trap the enemy in a pincer movement, hoping to decimate them. But he soon realized that this would be impossible, for although the Muslim army won several successive victories, the Franj immediately compensated for their losses. Every sunrise saw fresh batches of fighters arrive, from Tyre or from beyond the seas.
In October 1189, as the battle of Acre raged, Saladin received a message from Aleppo informing him that the ‘king of the Almān’, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, was approaching Constantinople, en route to Syria, with two hundred, perhaps two hundred and sixty, thousand men. The sultan was deeply worried, or so we are told by the faithful Bahā' al-Dīn, who was with Saladin at the time. In view of the extreme gravity of the situation, he felt it necessary to call all Muslims to jihād and to inform the caliph of the development of the situation. He therefore sent me to visit the rulers of Sinjar, Jazīra, Mosul, and Irbil, to implore them to come with their soldiers to participate in the jihād. I was then to go to Baghdad to urge the prince of the faithful to react. This I did. In an effort to rouse the caliph from his lethargy, Saladin sent him a letter saying that the pope who resides in Rome has ordered the Frankish peoples to march on Jerusalem. At the same time, Saladin sent messages to leaders in the Maghreb and in Muslim Spain inviting them to come to the aid of their brothers, since the Franj of the West have acted in concert with those of the East. Throughout the Arab world, the enthusiasm originally aroused by the reconquest was giving way to fear. It was being whispered that the vengeance of the Franj would be terrible, that there would be a new bloodbath, that the holy city would be lost once more, that Syria and Egypt would both fall into the hands of the invaders. Once again, however, luck, or providence, intervened on Saladin’s behalf.
After crossing Asia Minor in triumph, in the spring of 1190 the German emperor arrived at Konya, the capital of the successors of Kilij Arslan. Frederick soon forced the gates open and then sent emissaries to Antioch to announce his imminent arrival. The Armenians of southern Anatolia were alarmed at the news. Their clergy dispatched a messenger to Saladin begging him to protect them against this new Frankish invasion. In the event, no intervention by the sultan would be necessary. On 10 June, a stifling dog-day afternoon, Frederick Barbarossa went for a swim in a little stream at the foot of the Taurus Mountains. Somehow, probably as the result of a heart attack, he drowned—in a place, Ibn al-Athīr explains, where the water was barely hip-deep. His army dispersed, and thus did God spare the Muslims the maleficence of the Germans, who constitute a particularly numerous and tenacious species of Franj.
The German danger was thus miraculously removed, but it had paralysed Saladin for several months, preventing him from joining the decisive battle against the troops besieging Acre. The situation at the Palestinian port was now at an impasse. Although the sultan had received sufficient reinforcements to hold his position against any counter-attack, the Franj could no longer be dislodged. Gradually, a modus vivendi was established. Between skirmishes, knights and emirs would invite one another to banquets and would chat together quite calmly, sometimes even playing games, as Bahā' al-Dīn relates.
One day, the men of the two camps, tired of fighting, decided to organize a battle between children. Two boys came out of the city to match themselves against two young infidels. In the heat of the struggle, one of the Muslim boys leapt upon his rival, threw him to the ground, and seized him by the throat. When they saw that he was threatening to kill him, the Franj approached and said: ‘Stop! He has become your prisoner, forsooth, and we shall buy him back from you.’ The boy took two dinars and let the other go.
Despite the carnival atmosphere, the belligerents were hardly living in enviable conditions. There were many dead and wounded, epidemics were raging, and it was not easy to get supplies in winter. It was the position of the Acre garrison that was of greatest concern to Saladin. As more and more vessels arrived from the West, the sea blockade grew ever tighter. On two occasions, an Egyptian fleet comprising several dozen ships had managed to cut a path to the port, but their losses had been heavy, and the sultan soon had to resort to trickery to resupply the besieged soldiers. In June 1190 he armed an enormous ship in Beirut, filling it with grain, cheese, onions, and sheep.
A group of Muslims boarded the ship, Bahā' al-Dīn explains. They were dressed like Franj; they had also shaved their beards, sewn crosses to the mast, and positioned pigs prominently on the deck. Then they approached the city, slipping alongside the enemy vessels. When they were stopped the Franj said, ‘You seem to be heading for Acre.’ Our soldiers, feigning astonishment, asked, ‘Haven’t you taken the city?’ The Franj, who thought they were dealing with their own congeners, replied, ‘No, we have not yet taken it.’ ‘Well then’, our soldiers replied, ‘we will moor near the camp, but there is another ship behind us. You had better alert them so that they do not sail into the city.’ The Beirutis had indeed noticed that there was a Frankish ship behind them. The enemy sailors headed towards it immediately, while our brothers unfurled all sails for a rush to the port of Acre, where they were greeted with cries of joy, for hunger was stalking the city.
But such stratagems could not be repeated too often. If Saladin’s army could not loosen the vice, Acre would eventually capitulate. As the months dragged on, the chances of a Muslim victory, of a new Ḥiṭṭīn, seemed increasingly remote. The influx of Occidental fighters, far from waning, was still on the rise. In April 1191 the king of France, Philip Augustus, disembarked with his troops in the environs of Acre; he was followed, at the beginning of June, by Richard the Lionheart.
This king of England (Malik al-Inkitar), Bahā' al-Dīn tells us, was courageous, energetic, and daríng in combat. Although of lower rank than the king of France, he was richer and more renowned as a warrior. On his way east he had seized Cyprus, and when he appeared before Acre, accompanied by twenty-five galleys loaded with men and equipment for war, the Franj let out cries of joy and lit great fires to celebrate his arrival. As for the Muslims, their hearts were filled with fear and apprehension.
The 33-year-old red-headed giant who wore the English crown was the prototype of the belligerent and flighty knight whose noble ideals did little to conceal his baffling brutality and complete lack of scruples. While no Occidental was impervious to his charm and undeniable charisma, Richard himself was in turn fascinated by Saladin, whom he sought to meet immediately upon his arrival. Dispatching a messenger to al-‘Ādil, he asked him to arrange an interview with his brother. The sultan answered without a mom
ent’s hesitation: ‘Kings meet together only after the conclusion of an accord, for it is unthinkable for them to wage war once they know one another and have broken bread together.’ He nevertheless authorized his brother to meet Richard, provided each would be accompanied by his own soldiers. Contacts continued, but without much result. In fact, Bahā' al-Dīn explains, the intention of the Franj in sending messengers to us was primarily to probe our strong and weak points. Our aim in receiving them was exactly the same. Although Richard was sincere in his desire to meet the conqueror of Jerusalem, he had decidedly not come to the Middle East to negotiate with him.
While these exchanges continued, the English king was actively preparing for the final assault on Acre. The city was now completely cut off from the outside world, and racked by famine as well. Only a few elite swimmers could still reach it, at the risk of their lives. Bahā' al-Dīn relates the adventure of one of these commandos.
It was one of the most curious and exemplary episodes of this long battle. There was a Muslim swimmer by the name of ‘Isā who used to dive under enemy ships at night and come up on the other side, where the besieged soldiers awaited him. He usually carried money and messages for the garrison, these being attached to his belt. One night, when he had dived down carrying three sacks containing a thousand dinars and several letters, he was caught and killed. We found out very quickly that some misfortune had befallen him, for ‘Isā regularly informed us of his safe arrival by releasing a pigeon in our direction. That night we received no signal. A few days later, some inhabitants of Acre happened to be walking along the water’s edge and saw a body washed up on the shore. As they approached it, they recognized ‘Isā the swimmer; the gold and the wax with which the letters were sealed were still attached to his belt. Who has ever heard of a man fulfilling his mission in death as faithfully as though he were alive?