Joseph François Michaud - The History of the Crusades (Vol.1-3)

Before the enterprise, hopes of success had dazzled the minds of all; but when it had failed, they, as generally, perceived the injustice of it. The Christians all became aware of the evils with which Jerusalem was menaced, and reproached Amaury with not being able to preserve peace, or knowing how to make war. In the mean time Noureddin’s general entered the capital of Egypt in triumph.

Chirkou hoisted his standard on the towers of Cairo, and Egypt, which thought it had received a liberator into its bosom, soon found that he was a master. Chaver paid with his life the evils he had inflicted upon his country; he was killed in the camp of Chirkou, and his authority became the reward of the conqueror. The caliph, who, in order to save himself, had demanded the head of his first minister appointed the general of Noureddin as his successor, styling him in his letters, the victorious prince . It was thus that the degraded monarch of Egypt jested with his own favours by flattering a man he did not know, and for whose death he was, most likely, desirous; an image of blind fortune, who scatters at hazard good and evil, and views her favourites and her victims with equal indifference.

Some time after, the caliph of Cairo, always invisible in his palace, was deposed by the orders of Noureddin, and died peaceably without knowing that he had lost his empire. His treasures served to appease the murmurs of the people and the soldiery; the black flag of the Abassides displaced the green standard of the children of Ali, and the name of the caliph of Bagdad was heard of only in the mosques. The dynasty of the Fatimites, which reigned more than two centuries, and for which so much blood had been shed, was extinguished in a single day, and found not even one defender. From that time the Mussulmans had only one religion and one cause to defend; Egypt and Syria obeyed the same chief, and the richest provinces of the East were united under the powerful hand of Noureddin.

The sultan of Aleppo and Damascus had spread the terror of his arms from the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris to the sources of the Nile; he had everywhere governors and armies; and posts of pigeons, which he had established, carried at the same time his orders into the principal cities of Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. The justice of his laws and his victories over the Christians had created for him such a reputation for sanctity among the Mussulmans, that a shower of rain which fell in the midst of a drought, was considered by them as a miracle granted to his prayers. During the war of Egypt he had taken several fortresses belonging to the Franks; and the destruction of the Christian colonies was still the aim of all his labours and all his exploits. Full of confidence in the protection of Mahomet, the devout Noureddin employed his leisure in constructing, with his own hands, a pulpit, which he meant himself to place in the principal mosque of Jerusalem.

The sultan of Damascus was preparing to commence what the Mussulmans called a sacred war, and for the success of which public prayers had been offered up, but this glory was reserved for a young warrior brought up in armies, whose name was yet unknown in the East.

Saladin, [298]this young warrior, was sprung from the people who inhabit the mountains situated beyond the Tigris. His father Ayoub, and his uncle Chirkou, after the example of the warriors of their nation, who fight for pay under Mussulman powers, had left Curdistan to serve in the troops of the sultan of Bagdad. They had both attained high military employments; but Chirkou, a violent and brutal man, having run through the body with his sword an officer of justice, the two brothers were obliged to take to flight, and came to offer their services to the Attabeks of Syria, whom they assisted in their wars against the Christians. The young Saladin, although he was brought up at the court of Damascus, under the eye of an ambitious father, did not at first appear to be eager for either fortune or glory. In his youth he was fond of dissipation and pleasures, and remained a long time a stranger to the cares of politics or the dangers and labours of war. Having followed his uncle Chirkou in his first expeditions to Egypt, he had distinguished himself by the defence of Alexandria; but he suffered so much, that when Noureddin commanded him to return to the banks of the Nile, he sought pretexts to avoid obedience. When the sultan repeated his orders, Saladin set out, as he himself said afterwards, with the despair of a man who is led to death. “Thus it is,” says the historian Hamad Eddin, who was for a long time his secretary, “that men know not what they refuse or what they desire; but God, who knows all things, sports with their designs, which always terminate according to the views of Providence.”

At the death of Chirkou, the caliph of Egypt, who trembled for his power, named Saladin to the post of vizier, because he thought him the least capable, by his talents or reputation, of usurping the supreme authority. The son of Ayoub deceived both the king and the army, who saw in him nothing but a young dissipated soldier, without ambition. But he changed his conduct and reformed his manners; hitherto he had appeared fit only for the idleness and the obscurity of a seraglio; but, all at once, he came forth a new man, like one born for empire. His gravity inspired the respect of the emirs; his liberality secured him the suffrages of the army; and the austerity of his devotion rendered him dear to all true believers. A religious revolution which he brought about without trouble or the effusion of blood, made known his prudence and humanity, and showed that fortune destined him for extraordinary things. The caliph of Bagdad felicitated him publicly with having annihilated the sect of the Fatimites, and made him a present of a vest of honour. His name was celebrated by the poets, and mixed with those of Mahomet and Noureddin in the public prayers.

Saladin, master of Egypt, sent for his father Ayoub, and wished to associate him with himself in the government. When Ayoub arrived at Cairo with all his family, he was compared to Jacob, and Saladin to the patriarch Joseph, whose name he bore. Aided by the counsels of his father, Saladin stifled all plots devised against him, and restrained the ambition and jealousy of the emirs.

In a council in which his son had spoken too openly of his projects, Ayoub, brought up among the intrigues of the courts of Asia, exclaimed with vehemence against all traitors, and swore he would cut off the head of even Saladin himself, if he received orders from the sultan of Damascus to do so. When left alone with his son, he reproached him with his indiscretion and imprudence. “I have spoken against you,” added he, “before your rivals and enemies; but know that if Noureddin should come to attack you, I would be the first to take arms; if he required only the tribute of a sugar-cane from us, he should not obtain it of me.” According to the advice of Ayoub, Saladin spoke only of his perfect submission to the commands of his master, and took honour to himself as being the lowest of the slaves of Noureddin, to whom he sent deputies and presents; but he could not destroy all his suspicions. Noureddin had determined upon going into Egypt himself, when death surprised him, and delivered Saladin from the uneasiness which a jealous and vindictive master naturally inspired.

At the death of Noureddin, the empire founded by the Attabeks declined towards its ruin. The sultan of the Attabeks only left a child to succeed him, the emirs already began to quarrel for the divisions of his power, and Syria was about to return to the chaos into which the fall of the Seljoucides had plunged it. The Mussulman nations, terrified at the evils before them, eagerly sought the yoke of Saladin, and recognised with joy for their master a warrior who was the only person capable of defending their religion or their dominions. Saladin inherited not only the power of Noureddin, but was anxious to follow up the projects of his predecessor, and nothing pleased his ambition more than the idea of pursuing the war against the Christians.