SALADIN. By EDWARD GIBBON.

[Malek al-Nasir Salah ed-Din Abu Modhafer Yusuf, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, born 1137, died 1193. Of Kurdish descent he finally rose from a subordinate rank to royal power. His name stands embalmed in history and tradition as the most noble and chivalrous of those Saracen rulers whom the Christian powers fought against during the Crusades.]

The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral tribes of the Kurds, a people hardy, strong, savage, impatient of the yoke, addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their national chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seems to identify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks; and they still defend against the Ottoman Porte the antique freedom which they asserted against the successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to embrace the profession of mercenary soldiers; the service of his father and uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin, and the son of Job or Ayub, a simple Kurd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree, which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. So unconscious was Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house that he constrained the reluctant youth to follow his Uncle Shiracouh into Egypt; his military character was established by the defense of Alexandria, and, if we may believe the Latins, he solicited and obtained from the Christian general the profane honors of knighthood. On the death of Shiracouh, the office of grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest and least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his father, whom he invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his equals, and attached the army to his person and interest. While Noureddin lived, these ambitious Kurds were the most humble of his slaves; and the indiscreet murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who loudly protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead his son in chains to the foot of the throne. “Such language,” he added in private, “was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals; but we are now above fear and obedience, and the threats of Noureddin shall not extort the tribute of a sugar-cane.” His seasonable death relieved them from the odious and doubtful conflict; his son, a minor of eleven years of age, was left for a while to the emirs of Damascus, and the new lord of Egypt was decorated by the caliph with every title that could sanctify his usurpation in the eyes of the people.

Nor was Saladin long content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled the Christians of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir; Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protector; his brother subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy Arabia; and at the hour of his death, his empire was spread from the African Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia. In the judgment of his character, the reproaches of treason and ingratitude strike forcibly on our minds, impressed, as they are, with the principle and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in some measure be excused by the revolutions of Asia, which had erased every notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his benefactor, his humane and generous behavior to the collateral branches; by their incapacity and his merit; by the approbation of the caliph, the sole source of all legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishes and interest of the people, whose happiness is the first object of government. In his virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired the singular union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin and Saladin are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constant meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and sober color over their lives and actions.

The youth of the latter was addicted to wine and women, but his aspiring spirit soon renounced the temptations of pleasure for the graver follies of fame and dominion. The garment of Saladin was of coarse woolen, water was his only drink, and while he emulated the temperance, he surpassed the chastity of his Arabian prophet. Both in faith and practice he was a rigid Mussulman; he ever deplored that the defense of religion had not allowed him to accomplish the pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times each day, the sultan devoutly prayed with his brethren; the involuntary omission of fasting was scrupulously repaid, and his perusal of the Koran on horseback between the approaching armies may be quoted as a proof, however ostentatious, of piety and courage. The superstitious doctrine of the sect of Shafei was the only study that he deigned to encourage. The poets were safe in his contempt, but all profane science was the object of his aversion, and a philosopher who had vented some speculative novelties was seized and strangled by the command of the royal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to the meanest suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was only for a kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of equity. While the descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed his garments, he was affable and patient with the meanest of his servants. So boundless was his liberality that he distributed twelve thousand horses at the siege of Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than forty-seven drachms of silver and one piece of gold coin were found in the treasury; yet in a martial reign, the tributes were diminished, and the wealthy citizens enjoyed without fear or danger the fruits of their industry. Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were adorned by the royal foundations of hospitals, colleges, and mosques, and Cairo was fortified with a wall and citadel; but his works were consecrated to public use, nor did the sultan indulge himself in a garden or palace of private luxury. In a fanatic age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of Saladin commanded the esteem of the Christians: the Emperor of Germany gloried in his friendship, the Greek emperor solicited his alliance, and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps magnified, his fame both in the East and West.