Salahuddin Ayyubi: The Complete History of the Muslim Leader Who Retook Jerusalem

When Saladin died in Damascus in March 1193, his treasury reportedly held just 47 silver dirhams and one gold coin, according to his biographer Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad. The man who had ruled Egypt and Syria, defeated a Crusader army, and taken back Jerusalem had given most of his wealth away. That detail alone explains why his reputation outlasted his dynasty.

Salahuddin Ayyubi is a central figure in any serious Islamic history knowledge, but his life is often reduced to a single battle or a single city. This account follows the whole arc, from a Kurdish boyhood in Damascus to the treaty that ended the Third Crusade.

Salahuddin Ayyubi, known in Europe as Saladin, was a twelfth-century Muslim ruler who united Egypt and Syria, founded the Ayyubid dynasty, defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, and recaptured Jerusalem that October after nearly ninety years of Crusader control.

Who Was Salahuddin Ayyubi Before He Ruled Egypt?

Salahuddin was born in 1137 or 1138 in Tikrit, in present-day Iraq, to a Kurdish family whose men served as soldiers and administrators. His father, Najm al-Din Ayyub, governed the town, and the family moved to Damascus shortly after he was born. He grew up in a city that was then a center of religious scholarship, and early biographers describe a young man more interested in study than in command.

The path to power ran through his uncle, Shirkuh, a general in the service of Nur al-Din Zangi, the ruler of Syria. Nur al-Din wanted Egypt under Sunni influence, and Egypt was weak: the Fatimid caliphate there had lost control to its own viziers, and Crusader king Amalric of Jerusalem was threatening the Nile delta.

Salahuddin joined Shirkuh’s expeditions to Egypt between 1164 and 1169. Shirkuh became vizier in January 1169 and died two months later, and the Fatimid court chose his nephew to succeed him, partly because they expected the young officer to be easy to control. They were wrong.

How Did Salahuddin Unite Egypt and Syria?

Salahuddin turned a borrowed office into a kingdom in about fifteen years. As vizier, he repelled a combined Crusader and Byzantine attack on Damietta in 1169. When the last Fatimid caliph, al-Adid, died in 1171, Salahuddin ended the Fatimid caliphate and returned Egypt to Sunni rule, with prayers now said in the name of the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad.

He then began reshaping Cairo. Construction of the Citadel of Cairo started in 1176, new walls enclosed the city, and he founded madrasas to train Sunni legal scholars. Many of those institutions outlived him for centuries. He also endowed Sufi lodges and a hospital, using the waqf endowment system that funded so much of medieval Muslim public life.

When Nur al-Din died in 1174, Salahuddin moved into Syria and took Damascus. Aleppo fell in 1183, and over the next few years he gained loyalty or recognition from most of northern Mesopotamia. The scholar al-Qadi al-Fadil ran his chancery and wrote the letters that carried his messages across the region, which helped his case in the eyes of Baghdad. The campaigns were hard, sometimes involving Muslim rivals more than Crusaders, and critics at the time accused him of using the language of holy war to justify the consolidation of his own power.

What Happened at Hattin and the Capture of Jerusalem in 1187?

The Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187 was the decisive defeat of the Crusader states. Guy of Lusignan marched his army across the dry hills of Galilee to relieve Tiberias, and Salahuddin’s forces cut it off from water on a very hot day. By evening the army had collapsed, and the relic known as the True Cross was captured.

Salahuddin executed Raynald of Châtillon, a Crusader lord he blamed for attacking pilgrim and trade caravans, but he spared King Guy. With the field army gone, Crusader cities fell quickly, and Jerusalem surrendered on 2 October 1187 after a short siege negotiated by Balian of Ibelin.

The terms were notable. In 1099, Crusaders had killed a large part of Jerusalem’s Muslim and Jewish population when they took the city. Salahuddin instead allowed residents to buy their freedom, set at about ten dinars for a man, five for a woman, and one for a child.

Not everyone could pay, and historians note that some of the poor were enslaved, though Salahuddin and his brother al-Adil released many. Muslim authorities also cleaned the Dome of the Rock and restored the Aqsa Mosque’s prayer area, and a pulpit commissioned earlier by Nur al-Din was installed there.

How Did the Third Crusade End?

The loss of Jerusalem triggered the Third Crusade, led by Richard I of England and Philip II of France. The Crusaders besieged Acre from 1189 and captured it in July 1191, and Richard defeated Salahuddin’s army at Arsuf that September. He did not reach Jerusalem, though, because the roads were long, the army was tired, and the city’s defenses were strong.

The war was brutal on both sides. After Acre surrendered, Richard ordered roughly 2,700 Muslim prisoners killed in August 1191 when ransom payments fell behind schedule, a decision that shadowed his reputation among Muslim chroniclers for generations.

Both sides eventually accepted a compromise. The Treaty of Ramla, signed in September 1192, left Jerusalem in Muslim hands, gave Crusaders a strip of coastline from Tyre to Jaffa, and allowed unarmed Christian pilgrims to visit the holy sites.

Contemporary accounts describe a surprising mutual respect. When Richard fell ill, Salahuddin reportedly sent fruit, ice, and his own physician. Whether every detail is accurate or not, both sides recorded the story, which suggests how each wanted its commander remembered.

Salahuddin died on 4 March 1193 at about fifty-five. He was buried in a mausoleum next to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, where Kaiser Wilhelm II laid a wreath and funded a new marble tomb in 1898.

What Does Salahuddin’s Story Add to Islamic History Knowledge?

Salahuddin’s career matters because it shows how Islamic politics and scholarship were tied together in the twelfth century. His Sunni revival in Egypt relied on madrasas, and his circle included thinkers such as the physician and philosopher Maimonides, who worked for his vizier al-Qadi al-Fadil. Sources also report that Jews were invited back to Jerusalem after 1187.

His legacy is complicated, as it should be in any honest survey of Islam religion history. His dynasty, the Ayyubids, ruled Egypt until 1250 and Syria for a few decades longer, but his empire was divided among relatives almost as soon as he died. European writers, including Dante, nonetheless treated him as a model of chivalry, placing him among the virtuous non-Christians in Limbo.

The main dates of his life fit into one short sequence:

1. 1137/1138 - Born in Tikrit, grows up in Damascus.
2. 1169 - Becomes vizier of Egypt after Shirkuh’s death.
3. 1171 - Ends the Fatimid caliphate and restores Sunni rule in Egypt.
4. 1174 - Takes Damascus after Nur al-Din’s death.
5. 1187 - Wins at Hattin and retakes Jerusalem.
6. 1192 - Signs the Treaty of Ramla with Richard I.
7. 1193 - Dies in Damascus.

FAQ

Who was Salahuddin Ayyubi?
He was a Kurdish-born Muslim ruler of the twelfth century who founded the Ayyubid dynasty and united Egypt and Syria. He is best known for defeating the Crusaders at Hattin in 1187 and recovering Jerusalem.

When did Saladin retake Jerusalem?
Salahuddin’s forces took Jerusalem on 2 October 1187 after the city’s Crusader defenders agreed to surrender. Christians had held it since 1099.

Was Saladin merciful to the people of Jerusalem?
Most sources describe the surrender as relatively orderly, with ransom terms instead of a massacre. Historians still note that some poorer residents were enslaved, so the picture is mixed but far less violent than the Crusader capture in 1099.

What was the Treaty of Ramla?
It was the 1192 agreement between Salahuddin and Richard I that ended the Third Crusade. Jerusalem stayed under Muslim rule, the coast stayed with the Crusaders, and unarmed pilgrims could visit the holy sites.

Where is Saladin buried?
He is buried in a mausoleum beside the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria. Kaiser Wilhelm II visited in 1898 and funded the marble sarcophagus that stands there beside the original wooden tomb.

Islamic history knowledge deepens fastest when you read the people who were present, and Saladin is lucky to have two good ones. Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad, who served at his court, wrote a biography available in English translation, and Ibn al-Athir’s chronicle offers a rival perspective from a historian who admired him but did not flatter him.

Read a chapter of each, then compare how they describe Hattin and the surrender of Jerusalem. The differences will teach you more about how history gets written than any summary could.