Saladin

Saladin was a Kurd and the nephew of Shirkuh, who had conquered Egypt for Nur ad-Din in 1169. Saladin secured Egypt on the death of his uncle, fought off crusader attacks and in 1171 ended the Fatimid caliphate and founded the Ayyubid. Saladin quarrelled with Nur ad-Din whose death in 1174 enabled him to seize Damascus; henceforth he portrayed himself as the champion of Islam against the Christians, though he always faced Muslim enemies, usually the Zengids whom he fought many times before finally gaining Aleppo in 1183.

Saladin was known as a hero of Islam. He united Arab forces and recaptured the holy city of Jerusalem from Christian Crusaders in the 12th century A.D. Of Kurdish origin. Saladin became the vizier of Egypt in 1169 and then took full control of the country in 1171; he later built the famed Citadel in Cairo. His conquest of Jerusalem in 1188 prompted the Third Crusade, led by Richard I of England; Richard's forces defeated Saladin in several battles, but could not retake Jerusalem. Saladin and Richard signed an armistice in 1192, and the two are often linked in histories of the era.
In 1177 he invaded Jerusalem from Egypt but was surprised and defeated by Baldwin IV at Mons Gisardi. In June 1179 he returned the favour at Marj Uyun and in September destroyed the new strategic castle at Jacob's Ford. After fighting in Mesopotamia he mounted a major attack on Jerusalem in 1183 which failed because the Christians refused battle and two attacks upon Kerakin in 1184 also miscarried. After a final war with the Zengids in 1187 Saladin invaded Jerusalem, attacked Tiberias with a huge army, and lured King Guy of Jerusalem into battle at Hattin where on 4 July the European knights were annihilated. Saladin seized Jerusalem, Acre, and most of the kingdom, offering clemency to all who surrendered. But at Tyre Conrad of Montferrat rallied resistance and Saladin did not press the siege.

He took inland strongholds and in 1188 moved against Tripoli and Antioch, though without challenging their chief cities. Perhaps he hoped, by picking off weak places, to encourage the strong to capitulate, but new crusaders were arriving from the West. King Guy was released by Saladin, perhaps to divide the Christians, and after a quarrel with Conrad he led the arriving crusaders to besiege Acre in August 1189. Saladin's inaction in these months was partly a result of declining health and partly because of discontent within his army, although the two were related.
Saladin has been criticized because his indecision immediately after Hattin robbed him of the fruits of his victory, but it should be noted that his style was to provoke his enemies until they did something that delivered them into his hands. This was how he won at Hattin and this was why even a battlefield defeat like Arsuf left his army able to limit the territorial gains of the Third Crusade.
After several expeditions into Egypt, where the Ftimid remained the most important of the successor kingdoms established after the fall of the Abbasid Empire, Saladin assumed full military power on the death of Shirkuh in 1168. He was successful in repulsing the combined French-Byzantine invasion of Amalric, King of Jerusalem, and a victory which opened the way for him to move his armies up into the Transjordan area. The Fatimid caliphate was crushed by 1171, and on the death of Nur-ad-Din 3 years later, Saladin began the conquest of the Frankish lands and of the old Zengid Empire. He shortly occupied Damascus and married the widow of Nur-ad-Din. He thus faced increased hostility from two sides: from the Zengid rulers at Mosul, who were in no way enthusiastic about his conception of the holy war, and from the Latin forces under Baldwin IV, the Leper King. The complexities of operating on two fronts at the same time were reduced somewhat by diplomatic negotiations with Baldwin and Raymond of Tripoli as well as with the Byzantine emperor and certain of the Italian maritime cities. In the former case the result was essentially negative. A series of provisional treaties served to forestall an attack on the vulnerable western side, for Baldwin proved to be quite capable of containing Saladin, although he was unable to do him any damage. But in the latter case not only were assurances of nonintervention given, but material aid was obtained