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.Saladin, for all his learning and compassion, envisaged aperpetual jihad against Christendom.Coexistence, eventoleration, might be possible, but Christians would always bethe enemy.Saladin tied jihad inextricably to the notion of ananti-Christian and later anti-Western holy war.He nevercould have anticipated the long-term consequences of thisfor his treasured Islam.As Armstrong points out in her book, modern Islam iscommonly miscast as a religion of the sword. AlthoughIslam is neither more nor less inherently violence prone thanany other religion, many people think of it as a warrior faith.There is a lingering misperception of Islam as an inordinatelyaggressive religion within which violence, specifically theSaladin-style jihad, plays an integral part.Television news-casts in Europe and North America deliver unsettling images REMEMBERING SALADIN 105Saladin s tomb in a domed mausoleum (at left) in Damascus.Themoney for Saladin s funeral had to be borrowed, as he had givenall of his money away to those less fortunate.of death and destruction into living rooms seemingly everyevening.People see the twisted wreckage of cars and buses,shattered buildings, and torn bodies, and are told it is all aconsequence of jihad.Pictures are beamed in of childrencarrying automatic rifles and chanting bloodcurdling slogansand everything is attributed to a fanatical obsession withjihad.Skyscrapers explode and collapse before the television 106 SALADINaudience s eyes, and we are told it is because some Muslimin some faraway land declared a jihad against the infidels.In each case, the jihad in question represents a perversion ofthe Koran and a sad misreading of the Koranic message thatSaladin espoused.Yet it was the notion of jihad embeddedin this message that Saladin changed so radically.He, ofcourse, never would have countenanced terrorism every-thing about him would have argued against it.As he told hissons, spilled blood, especially innocent blood, never rested.Saladin could be a fierce warrior, but indiscriminate killingand senseless destruction always caused him great sorrow.And yet, the modern interpretation of jihad is a lethaldistillation of his vision of holy war.However unintention-ally, Saladin helped release the forces that today cast such adark pall over Islam.Saladin s legacy, then, lies neither in his devotion toGod, nor in his apparently limitless compassion, nor in hislegendary generosity.The world does not remember him forthe copious tears he shed so readily for widows and orphans,nor does his name conjure up images of the hospitals andcolleges he founded with his own money.Saladin s goodnature and good humor are lost in the mists of time.Instead, history remembers him as the sultan who declaredholy war against all Christianity.Saladin emerges unjustlybut understandably as the architect of the jihad we know alltoo well.Yet the struggle, the jihad that Saladin really fought,took place in his own heart.Torn between the purity of faithand the impurity of the material world, Saladin projectedhis own anxieties outward.Saladin transformed the ongoingconflict between Islam and Christianity into far more than astruggle for temporal power between religious systems.None of the many mistakes he made seems so serious orunforgivable as this.Saladin s shortcomings, though, were those of a manstriving to transcend this life and to better serve the God he REMEMBERING SALADIN 107loved.He hoped that his flawed life would be acceptable toAllah and that his sins, many and enduring as they were,would ultimately be forgiven.The Kurdish boy who grew upto become the Sultan of Islam could take comfort from theKoran one final time in his eternal rest Surely those whobelieve and those who leave their homes and fight in the wayof God, may hope for His benevolence, for God is forgivingand kind (Koran, 2:218). CHRONOLOGY1096 1099 The First Crusade is fought and leads to the capture ofJerusalem by the Christians in 1099.1138 Saladin is born.1144 Imad al-Din Zengi conquers the Christian-controlledCounty of Edessa.1146 Zengi is assassinated; his son Nur al-Din succeeds him.1147 1149 The Second Crusade is fought.The Crusaders fail totake Damascus.1152 The young Saladin goes to study under his uncle Shirkuhat Aleppo.1154 Saladin s father, Ayyub, paves the way for his son spolitical career by convincing Damascus to ally itselfwith Nur al-Din.1156 At age 18, Saladin rejoins his father in Damascus.1164 1168 Saladin accompanies Shirkuh on several campaigns inEgypt, including defending the city of Alexandria duringa siege by the Franks.1169 Saladin becomes vizier of Egypt.1171 The last Fatimid caliph dies.Saladin assumes controlof Egypt.1174 Nur al-Din dies.Saladin marches on Damascus and takespower in Syria.The caliph in Baghdad proclaims Saladinto be the sultan of Syria and Egypt.1174 1186 Saladin consolidates his power through a series ofbattles against rebellious cities, chief among them Mosuland Aleppo.1187 Saladin invades Palestine and defeats the Frankish armiesled by Guy of Jerusalem and Raymond of Tripoli at Hattin.He moves on to capture Jerusalem that same year.1188 Saladin s Palestinian campaign gives him all of the importantstrong points in the region except for Tripoli, Tyre, and thefortress at Krak des Chevaliers.108 CHRONOLOGY1188 1191 The siege of the Muslim city of Acre ends in Saladin sgreatest defeat against English king Richard the Lionheart.1192 Richard and Saladin agree to a truce that requires them toshare control over the Holy Land.1193 Saladin dies at age 55.109 BIBLIOGRAPHYAl-Qur ân.Trans.Ahmed Ali.Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UniversityPress, 1994.Armstrong, Karen.Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today sWorld.New York: Anchor Books, 1988. .Islam: A Short History.New York: The ModernLibrary, 2000.Armstrong, Karen.Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet.SanFrancisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.Dupuy, R.Ernest and Trevor Dupuy, eds.The Encyclopedia of MilitaryHistory, 2nd ed.New York: Harper & Row, 1986.Lyons, Malcolm Cameron and D.E.P.Jackson.Saladin: The Politics ofHoly War.London: Cambridge University Press, 1982.Newby, P.H.Saladin in His Time.London: Phoenix Press, 1983.Nicolle, David.Saladin and the Saracens.Illus.Angus McBride.Editedby Martin Windrow.Men-At-Arms, no.171.Oxford, England: OspreyPublishing, 1986.Nicolle, David.Saracen Faris, AD 1050 1250.Illus.Christa Hook.Editedby Martin Windrow.Men-At-Arms, no.10.Oxford, England: OspreyPublishing, 1994.Oldenbourg, Zoé.The Crusades.Trans.Amy Carter.London: Weidenfeldand Nicolsen, 1966.Regan, Geoffrey.Lionhearts: Richard I, Saladin, and the Era of the ThirdCrusade.New York: Walker and Company, 1998.Reston, James Jr.Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in theThird Crusade.New York: Doubleday, 2001.Stearns, Peter, ed.The Encyclopedia of World History, 6th ed.Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.Wise, Terence.Armies of the Crusades.Illus.G.A.Embleton.Edited byMartin Windrow.Men-At-Arms, no.75.Oxford, England: OspreyPublishing, 1978.110 FURTHER READINGFirestone, Reuven.Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam.New York:Oxford University Press, 1999.Gabrieli, Francesco, ed.Arab Historians of the Crusades.Trans.FrancescoGabrieli.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.Hillenbrand, Carole.The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives.London:Routledge, 2000.Maalouf, Amin and Jon Rothschild.The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.New York: Schocken Books, 1984.Madden, Thomas F.A Concise History of the Crusades.Lanham, Maryland:Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.Riley-Smith, Jonathan.The Crusades: A Short History.New Haven:Yale University Press, 1990.111 WEB SITESSaladin Homepagehttp://www.acsamman.edu.jo/~ms/crusades/saladin/saladin [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.Saladin, for all his learning and compassion, envisaged aperpetual jihad against Christendom.Coexistence, eventoleration, might be possible, but Christians would always bethe enemy.Saladin tied jihad inextricably to the notion of ananti-Christian and later anti-Western holy war.He nevercould have anticipated the long-term consequences of thisfor his treasured Islam.As Armstrong points out in her book, modern Islam iscommonly miscast as a religion of the sword. AlthoughIslam is neither more nor less inherently violence prone thanany other religion, many people think of it as a warrior faith.There is a lingering misperception of Islam as an inordinatelyaggressive religion within which violence, specifically theSaladin-style jihad, plays an integral part.Television news-casts in Europe and North America deliver unsettling images REMEMBERING SALADIN 105Saladin s tomb in a domed mausoleum (at left) in Damascus.Themoney for Saladin s funeral had to be borrowed, as he had givenall of his money away to those less fortunate.of death and destruction into living rooms seemingly everyevening.People see the twisted wreckage of cars and buses,shattered buildings, and torn bodies, and are told it is all aconsequence of jihad.Pictures are beamed in of childrencarrying automatic rifles and chanting bloodcurdling slogansand everything is attributed to a fanatical obsession withjihad.Skyscrapers explode and collapse before the television 106 SALADINaudience s eyes, and we are told it is because some Muslimin some faraway land declared a jihad against the infidels.In each case, the jihad in question represents a perversion ofthe Koran and a sad misreading of the Koranic message thatSaladin espoused.Yet it was the notion of jihad embeddedin this message that Saladin changed so radically.He, ofcourse, never would have countenanced terrorism every-thing about him would have argued against it.As he told hissons, spilled blood, especially innocent blood, never rested.Saladin could be a fierce warrior, but indiscriminate killingand senseless destruction always caused him great sorrow.And yet, the modern interpretation of jihad is a lethaldistillation of his vision of holy war.However unintention-ally, Saladin helped release the forces that today cast such adark pall over Islam.Saladin s legacy, then, lies neither in his devotion toGod, nor in his apparently limitless compassion, nor in hislegendary generosity.The world does not remember him forthe copious tears he shed so readily for widows and orphans,nor does his name conjure up images of the hospitals andcolleges he founded with his own money.Saladin s goodnature and good humor are lost in the mists of time.Instead, history remembers him as the sultan who declaredholy war against all Christianity.Saladin emerges unjustlybut understandably as the architect of the jihad we know alltoo well.Yet the struggle, the jihad that Saladin really fought,took place in his own heart.Torn between the purity of faithand the impurity of the material world, Saladin projectedhis own anxieties outward.Saladin transformed the ongoingconflict between Islam and Christianity into far more than astruggle for temporal power between religious systems.None of the many mistakes he made seems so serious orunforgivable as this.Saladin s shortcomings, though, were those of a manstriving to transcend this life and to better serve the God he REMEMBERING SALADIN 107loved.He hoped that his flawed life would be acceptable toAllah and that his sins, many and enduring as they were,would ultimately be forgiven.The Kurdish boy who grew upto become the Sultan of Islam could take comfort from theKoran one final time in his eternal rest Surely those whobelieve and those who leave their homes and fight in the wayof God, may hope for His benevolence, for God is forgivingand kind (Koran, 2:218). CHRONOLOGY1096 1099 The First Crusade is fought and leads to the capture ofJerusalem by the Christians in 1099.1138 Saladin is born.1144 Imad al-Din Zengi conquers the Christian-controlledCounty of Edessa.1146 Zengi is assassinated; his son Nur al-Din succeeds him.1147 1149 The Second Crusade is fought.The Crusaders fail totake Damascus.1152 The young Saladin goes to study under his uncle Shirkuhat Aleppo.1154 Saladin s father, Ayyub, paves the way for his son spolitical career by convincing Damascus to ally itselfwith Nur al-Din.1156 At age 18, Saladin rejoins his father in Damascus.1164 1168 Saladin accompanies Shirkuh on several campaigns inEgypt, including defending the city of Alexandria duringa siege by the Franks.1169 Saladin becomes vizier of Egypt.1171 The last Fatimid caliph dies.Saladin assumes controlof Egypt.1174 Nur al-Din dies.Saladin marches on Damascus and takespower in Syria.The caliph in Baghdad proclaims Saladinto be the sultan of Syria and Egypt.1174 1186 Saladin consolidates his power through a series ofbattles against rebellious cities, chief among them Mosuland Aleppo.1187 Saladin invades Palestine and defeats the Frankish armiesled by Guy of Jerusalem and Raymond of Tripoli at Hattin.He moves on to capture Jerusalem that same year.1188 Saladin s Palestinian campaign gives him all of the importantstrong points in the region except for Tripoli, Tyre, and thefortress at Krak des Chevaliers.108 CHRONOLOGY1188 1191 The siege of the Muslim city of Acre ends in Saladin sgreatest defeat against English king Richard the Lionheart.1192 Richard and Saladin agree to a truce that requires them toshare control over the Holy Land.1193 Saladin dies at age 55.109 BIBLIOGRAPHYAl-Qur ân.Trans.Ahmed Ali.Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UniversityPress, 1994.Armstrong, Karen.Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today sWorld.New York: Anchor Books, 1988. .Islam: A Short History.New York: The ModernLibrary, 2000.Armstrong, Karen.Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet.SanFrancisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.Dupuy, R.Ernest and Trevor Dupuy, eds.The Encyclopedia of MilitaryHistory, 2nd ed.New York: Harper & Row, 1986.Lyons, Malcolm Cameron and D.E.P.Jackson.Saladin: The Politics ofHoly War.London: Cambridge University Press, 1982.Newby, P.H.Saladin in His Time.London: Phoenix Press, 1983.Nicolle, David.Saladin and the Saracens.Illus.Angus McBride.Editedby Martin Windrow.Men-At-Arms, no.171.Oxford, England: OspreyPublishing, 1986.Nicolle, David.Saracen Faris, AD 1050 1250.Illus.Christa Hook.Editedby Martin Windrow.Men-At-Arms, no.10.Oxford, England: OspreyPublishing, 1994.Oldenbourg, Zoé.The Crusades.Trans.Amy Carter.London: Weidenfeldand Nicolsen, 1966.Regan, Geoffrey.Lionhearts: Richard I, Saladin, and the Era of the ThirdCrusade.New York: Walker and Company, 1998.Reston, James Jr.Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in theThird Crusade.New York: Doubleday, 2001.Stearns, Peter, ed.The Encyclopedia of World History, 6th ed.Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.Wise, Terence.Armies of the Crusades.Illus.G.A.Embleton.Edited byMartin Windrow.Men-At-Arms, no.75.Oxford, England: OspreyPublishing, 1978.110 FURTHER READINGFirestone, Reuven.Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam.New York:Oxford University Press, 1999.Gabrieli, Francesco, ed.Arab Historians of the Crusades.Trans.FrancescoGabrieli.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.Hillenbrand, Carole.The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives.London:Routledge, 2000.Maalouf, Amin and Jon Rothschild.The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.New York: Schocken Books, 1984.Madden, Thomas F.A Concise History of the Crusades.Lanham, Maryland:Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.Riley-Smith, Jonathan.The Crusades: A Short History.New Haven:Yale University Press, 1990.111 WEB SITESSaladin Homepagehttp://www.acsamman.edu.jo/~ms/crusades/saladin/saladin [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]