recognised as a sufi shaykh with many blessings. Ibn Marzuq himself was a
Hanbali and was also associated with al-Jilani, with whom he was in corres-
pondence.^' Baffingly, Ibn Marzuq asked Ibn Naja if he loiew of a man
called Shirkuh, and then proceeded to tell him the same story that al-Jilani
had related: that Shirkuh's approach would fail and that this was not the
opportune time. Ibn Naja then proceeded to Damascus to inform Nur
al-Din about his conversation with Ibn Marzuq, and Nur al-Din ordered
him to keep this information quiet. Clearly, Ibn Marzuq was acting in some
capacity for Nur al-Din and messages were being passed - via Ibn Naja -
between Damascus and the Sunni elements in Egypt, who were acting as his
informants. Ibn Marzuq's warning therefore has to be viewed in this light -
that the political situation in Egypt was not yet favourable - and it is in the
same light that one needs to view al-Jilani's message, for it was clear that
those in Baghdad as well as those in Damascus were preoccupied with the
affairs of Egypt. The very fact that Ibn Marzuq asked about Shirkuh is proof
that he knew of the approaching Sunni army.
There is no doubt that Ibn Naja's success in infiltrating the highest eche-
lons of the Fatimids, where he gained the direct audience of the caliph, can
lead to only one conclusion - that he was acting as an informant for Nur al-
Din. And for Saladin as well, for Ibn Naja would quickly establish himself as
one of his closest advisers in Egypt. Saladin kept Ibn Naja close to him and
constantly asked his advice. He used to address him as Amr Ibn al-As, afiier
the companion of the Prophet who conquered Egypt, thereby viewing Ibn
Naja's endeavours in restoring Sunnism to Egypt in the same fight as those
of Amr. To be compared to one of the companions of the Prophet demon-
strated how highly Saladin viewed Ibn Naja. As we shaU see, in the moment
of his greatest triumph Saladin did not forget him. In addition to Ibn
Marzuq, and also based in Fustat, was Abu Abdallah al-Kizani, who was a
respected sufi and a recognised poet. He was also a charismatic preacher and
had a following, based around the Mosque of Amr Ibn al-As. Al-Kizani
maintained close contact with Shirkuh and Saladin, and it is said that his
poetry found favour with Saladin. What was clear to Nur al-Din was that it
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was imperative to win over the support of men like Ibn Marzuq and
al-Kizani, who were capable of generating massive popular support within
the country, and Shirkuh made a point of visiting both men during his first
campaign. Of al-Kizani we shall hear once more, but this time in the most
macabre of circumstances.
Shirkuh's campaign
It was against this background of furtive messages and travelling informants
that Nur al-Din despatched Shirkuh to Egypt. The details of the three expe-
ditions which Shirkuh would lead into Egypt over the next four years are
well documented''^ and, salient facts apart, need not concern us greatly.
Although we assume that Saladin accompanied his uncle on this first foray
into Egypt, we have no evidence that he did. Surprisingly, Saladin himself
makes no mention of it and Ibn al-Athir - who was notoriously anti-Saladin
- hints that he remained behind in Syria. Given the senior role that he
played in the future campaigns, it seems highly likely that Saladin did travel
to Egypt, though he was probably not given an independent command.
No matter, over Saladin's early life the mist clung stubbornly. As Shirkuh's
army departed Damascus, two men stood aside watching it take its leave
while reciting aloud from a text of Ibn Batta, a Hanbali jurist who died in
997, in which the virtues of the Prophet are extolled. The two jurists were
• Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudama and his cousin Abd al-Ghani. The elder
of the two, Muwaffaq al-Din, had recently returned to Damascus from
Baghdad, where he had been personally initiated by al-Jilani, who had
invested him with his sufi cloak. In Damascus Muwaffaq al-Din established
himself as the city's greatest Hanbali jurist and became one of Saladin's
closest advisers, riding with him on his military campaigns, including the
As for the campaign itself, it is best labelled as a frustrating success. Nur
al-Din had sent Shirkuh at the head of a small exploratory force rather than
a large army, and this alarmed Shawar, who accompanied Shirkuh. 'You
have tricked us!' he railed, for the Egyptian army that blocked their path was
much larger, but Shirkuh dismissed his worries, for he had litde faith in the
fighting capabilities of the Egyptians: 'Most of them are peasants who are
gathered together by the beating of a drum and are scattered by that of a
stick.' And Shirkuh was proven correct, for having departed Damascus in
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4; T H E BATTLE F O R EGYPT
April 1164, Shawar was within a month reinstated as vizier. He had,
however, no intention of fulfilling his promise to Nur al-Din, and he now
offered Shirkuh 30,000 dinars to return home. One imagines Shirkuh
snarling at such an offer and demanding that Shawar pay one-third of the
country's revenue, as had been agreed. Seeing that Shirkuh was not going
to budge, Shawar then took an action that would ultimately spell his doom:
he invited Amalric and the Latin Kingdom to come to his aid. Amalric,
already alarmed by Shirkuh's presence in Egypt, wasted no time, and
marched with his army with haste. In the meantime Shirkuh had moved to
Bilbais, where in July 1164 he was besieged by a combined Fatimid-
Frankish force. How seriously Amalric pressed the siege is not clear, and
perhaps he was distracted by Nur al-Din, who had taken advantage of
Amalric's move into Egypt. To distract the Franks and relieve the siege of
Bilbais, Nur al-Din captured the casde of Harim which lay between Antioch
and Aleppo, and in August 1164 crushed a Frankish army and captured
Bohemond 111 of Antioch, Joscelin III of Edessa and Raymond 111 of
Tripoli, who were all thrown into a prison in Aleppo. Nur al-Din continued
to press and in October 1164 he besieged Banias, which fell. This greatly
alarmed Amalric, who was troubled by its loss and that of Harim, and who
wished to retire from Egypt. In any case it appears that Shirkuh did not
suffer unduly during the siege and, since his army was not a match for
Amalric's, a setdement was reached and by October he was back in
Damascus.
Shirkuh returned to Syria smarting by what had taken place. He now
plotted revenge on Shawar and his duplicitous behaviour, and for two years
he prepared his forces and tried to convince Nur al-Din of the merits of a
second campaign. Nur al-Din, however, still hesitated and Shirkuh, know-
ing the man he served, wrote to the Abbasid caliph, requesting him to urge
Nur al-Din to restore Sunnism to Egypt. The caliph's enthusiastic response
naturally found favour with Nur al-Din, as Shirkuh had expected.®^ But it
was not revenge that motivated Nur al-Din but the fear that Egypt would
fall to the Franks. As for Saladin, it was d
uring this period, in 1165, that
he was appointed by Nur al-Din to the post of shihna (police-chief) of
Damascus. However he did not remain in that position for long: he appears
to have resigned out of frustration at the interference and stubbornness of
the qadi, with whom he had to work closely and who was none other than
Zengi and Nur al-Din's favourite Kamal al-Din al-Shahrazuri. Saladin was
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SALAD I N
clearly not the first or last to be so frustrated, since the satirist and poet
al-Wahrani pictures angels complaining on the Day of Judgement that
Kamal al-Din was insisting on a day for himself'
In 1167, with Saladin definitely by his side, Shirkuh was finally ordered
to move. A vicious sandstorm greeted them on the way, which nearly laid
Shirkuh's plans to waste, but disturbing news also greeted them: Amalric's
army was already in Cairo, for the king had been informed of Shirkuh's
advance and had written to warn Shawar. In return, he had been offered
400,000 dinars to defend the Fatimid caliphate from Syrian encroachment.
The news of Amalric's presence alarmed Shirkuh and he turned to the one
city of whose loyalty he could be certain: he wrote to Alexandria asldng for
their help. The response was immediate and positive, and the Alexandrians
threw off any nominal Fatimid loyalty they may have had and, placing the
city in the hands of Najm al-Din Ibn Masai, who was the son of a previous
vizier, they rose up in rebellion. Arms were gathered, as was money, ready
to be used in Shirkuh's service. The message of support was delivered to
Shirkuh by Sharif al-Idrisi of Aleppo, who happened to have been in
Alexandria at the time, and who one assumes Imew Shirkuh personally.
Leaving a regiment of Franks in Cairo - to the scandal of the Sunnis
who were shocked by the fact that infidels now protected them - Amalric
set off immediately in pursuit of Shirkuh, who had retired as far south as
Ashmunain, and it was there, at Babain in March 1167, that the two armies
clashed. A war veteran, Shirkuh had studied his enemy well and had calcu-
lated that Amalric would employ his main strength, which was the cavalry
charge, for it had been used previously against the Fatimid armies with
devastating success. But Shirkuh had noted that the charge went only in one
direction and could not be easily reversed and surmised that, confronted by
the light Turkish cavalry, it would have problems. The key was to get out
of the way of the charge and then attack it from the flanks, and for that to
succeed it was necessary to employ one of the favourite Muslim tactics - the
feigned retreat to suck in the charge. To succeed, it had to be well executed,
for the timing was crucial; if the retreat was too quick there was the danger
that the enemy could drive through the Muslim army, while if the retreat
was delayed for too long the flanks could themselves be sucked into battie.
As commander-in-chief it was Shirkuh who would give the signal for the
flanks to attack, but, above all, he needed a commander who could control
the centre and time the feigned retreat correctiy. In the heat of battie it
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4: T H E BATTLE F O R EGYPT
would be necessary to keep a cool head, and Shirkuh now turned to Saladin
to assume that responsibility. For the first time, Saladin emerges as an
individual in his own right.
On the eve of the battle men firom Alexandria arrived to fight with
Shirkuh, though they were clearly not of the same quality as Shirkuh's own
men, since sources claim that many died in the ensuing battle. As far as the
batde itself was concerned, Shirkuh's tactics had been well worked out for,
as he had expected, Amalric charged the centre and Saladin, on his uncle's
instructions, made the feigned retreat. The Muslim cavalry closed in, and
the army, led by Shawar and Amalric, suffered many casualties. The day
belonged to Shirkuh, who proved why he was regarded in such high esteem,
but the victory had not been a decisive one and neither army suffered major
losses. Shirkuh then headed north, where he was welcomed by Alexandria
and its governor, al-Rashid Ibn al-Zubayr. There he was certain of a base,
arms and money. Ibn al-Zubayr is an intriguing character whose story is
worth telling. Originally from Aswan, he went to Alexandria, where he
studied under al-Silafi. He was clearly a man of many talents, especially
poetry, and this brought him to the attention of the Fatimids who, in 1144,
sent him to the Yemen as ambassador and religious propagandist. This ap-
pears strange, as it is likely that since he had studied under al-Silafi he was a
Sunni, though this is nowhere explicitiy stated. The reaction of the Yemenis
adds to this confusion. When Ibn al-Zubayr arrived in the Yemen, some of
the poets there wrote a verse to the Faimid caliph with the line, 'You sent
to us the banner of the Rightiy Guided, but he is a black banner'. This verse
could be interpreted literally, since Ibn al-Zubayr, who was originally from
Aswan, could have had black sldn. But there is a deeper interpretation,
which was that their banner was white (the colour of the Fatimids) and that
the black banner was of course that of the Abbasids. This implies that Ibn
al-Zubayr was a Sunni, but the mystery remains: could the Fatimids have
despatched a Sunni to propagate their religion? On his return from the
Yemen, he was placed in charge of the diwans of Alexandria, but when
Shirkuh invaded Egypt, he openly supported him - support which would
ultimately cost him his life.
While in Alexandria Shirkuh pondered what his next step would be.
Amalric and Shawar were closing in fast on the city and it was clear what
their strategy was: they would starve it out, for the Prankish fleet was already
blockading the port. Despite his military victory at Babain, Shirkuh found
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SALAD I N
himself in a precarious position. If he remained in Alexandria then the siege
of the city would be gradually tightened until it fell, but if he abandoned it
and retreated to Syria he would lose his only loyal base and with it any hopes
of ever capturing Egypt. The people of Alexandria had stood by him bravely
and he Icnew that Shawar would show them no pity. Retreat was therefore
not an option. The choice that he finally settled on was brave and daring:
he would split his already small force and he would slip out of Alexandria,
while there was still time, in order to challenge and distract Amalric's
army - even if he was incapable of defeating it. The other part of his army
would remain in Alexandria and hold the city until he or Nur al-Din could
come to its aid. To hold Alexandria for him, a task which would certainly
entail severe hardship, he turned to Saladin, in whom he had the utmost
confidence.
The emergence of Saladin and the siege of
Alexandria
'What I went through in Alexandria,' Saladin later recalled, 'I shall never
forget.' Aged 30 and in charge of 1,000 men, Saladin now endured his
sternest challenge. Of the loyalty of his and Shirkuh's men he had no doubt,
but wou
ld the people of Alexandria hold firmi' Admittedly they had rallied
to the cause and had fought with enthusiasm, but would their resolve
remain strong once the food ran out!' Of what stuff were the Egyptians
made? Despite their willingness, the Alexandrians were by nature traders,
desperate to resume their trading, and not fighters, and Saladin knew that
he could not rely on them. Enthusiasm - no matter how well intended -
could never compensate for lack of military discipline. No matter, Saladin
was determined to hold the city. Equally determined that it should fall
was Shawar, for he could not afford to tolerate an open rebellion of such
magnitude - Alexandria and its people needed to be taught a painfial lesson.
And so the siege tightened and orchards were cut down to construct siege
engines, which towered over the city. Catapults capable of throwing large
stones over great distances were now used, and they wreaked great damage.
William of Tyre writes that Amalric ordered that all messengers leaving the
besieged city be intercepted and thoroughly questioned. For three months,
from April to July 1167, the people of Alexandria endured hunger, but they
held firm, since many of them were themselves refixgees from Ascalon and
• 66 •
4: T H E BATTLE F O R EGYPT
they understood what was at stake. Shawar then tried to test the city's
loyalty and despatched a message: 'Surrender Saladin', he urged, but the
response was swift and reflected the mindset of the besieged city: 'God
forbid we surrender Muslims to the Franks and Ismailis'. Meanwhile fresh
Christian forces, accompanied by Ai'chbishop Frederick of Tyre, set sail for
Egypt, and so the city was invested totally by sea as well as by land. It was
during this painful siege that Saladin first came into contact and forged deep
friendships with those who supported the Sunni cause in Egypt. 'I shall
never have another friend like him', said Saladin of Ibn Masai, and it was
during this period that their friendship was born.^^ Ibn Masai had been
quick to throw in his lot with Shirkuh and his loyalty would shortly be
severely tested. It was also during this period that the Alexandrians got to
Icnow Saladin, and they approved of what they saw. In the years to come,