Who's Your Favorite CONQUEROR? - Page 3

Salah ad-Din Al-Ayyubi, better known to his foes and to history simply as Saladin, is one of the great human figures in the cultural and military history of the Middle East. Saladin, a Kurdish Muslim born in Takrit in present day Iraq was both a spiritual and military leader. At the height of his power he ruled over Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Hejaz, and Yemen. Through political savvy and through devotion to his faith and country, he gained the unmatched respect of both his followers and adversaries, while at the same time capturing the most highly contested prize of the Middle Ages: The Holy Land.

Saladin is best known for finally expelling European Crusaders from Palestine, which had been besieged during several crusades and been under French control during the middle of the 12th century. He was devoted to recapturing the Holy Land. Like his European contemporaries, Saladin used religion as a justification for war, and inspired his followers, observers of Sunni Islam, to do the same. However, his motivation to drive the Europeans back was not motivated by ethnic hatred. In fact, he allowed any defeated Christian army to return home freely, and granted total amnesty to remaining Christian worshipers. This was in spite of the devastation done on Jerusalem by the Crusaders during their original takeover.

Saladin’s humanity did not go unnoticed. He was renowned for his personal character by seemingly any that met him. He had about him the chivalrous qualities of a knight. Chivalry was a venerable term and understood to embody all the knightly qualities of “humility, compassion, courtesy, devotion, mercy, purity, peace and endurance.” René Grousset, a Frenchman, wrote “It is equally true that his generosity, his piety, devoid of fanaticism, that flower of liberality and courtesy which had been the model of our old chroniclers, won him no less popularity in Frankish Syria than in the lands of Islam.”