Download Crusades Handout and questions - mr

Saladin and the Crusaders
By Vickie Chao
2
The fall of Jerusalem was a cruel wakeup call to Muslims. They desperately wanted
it back. To attain that goal, they needed a
strong leader who could unite the rival
factions. At the time, there was simply no
such candidate available. So they had to wait
-- for eighty-eight years! On October 2, 1187,
a sultan named Saladin conquered Jerusalem
and brought the Holy Land back in the hands
of Muslims.
3
Saladin was born into a prominent
Kurdish family in Tikrit in 1137 or 1138. His
full Arabic name was Salah ad-Din Yusuf Ibn
Ayyub, which means "The Righteousness of
the Faith, Joseph, Son of Job."
5
1
At the turn of the 12th century, the
Middle East was in crisis. Just a couple years
before, on Tuesday, November 27, 1095,
Pope Urban II made a public speech at the
Council of Clermont. As he addressed the
gathering crowd, he urged his fellow
countrymen to forsake whatever they had and
march on to the Holy Land. He wanted them
to free Jerusalem from the Turks and restore
it as a Christian city. Pope Urban's passionate
pleas and powerful closing remark ("God
wills it!") moved the audience and initiated
the First Crusade. In no time, more than sixty
thousand Christian warriors signed away their
lives, ready to fight the Islamic Turks. After
enduring years of hardship, they finally
achieved what they had set out to do in the
first place. They captured Jerusalem on July
15, 1099. Immediately following the success,
the Crusaders began a killing rampage,
slaughtering as many as thirty thousand
Jerusalem residents, regardless of their faiths.
They killed not only Muslims, but also Jews
and even Christians!
In September 1171, the last Fatmid caliph
(Al-Adid) died. Upon his demise, Saladin
proclaimed Egypt a return to Sunnite Islam
(from Shiite) and renewed his allegiance to
Nur al-Din. As an ambitious young man,
Saladin wanted to build his own empire. But
he did not want to have any conflict with his
overlord. So he put his dream on hold for
three years. When Nur al-Din died in 1174,
Saladin founded the Ayyubid dynasty and
began a series of military aggressions. His
first target was Syria. From 1174 to 1186,
Saladin worked zealously in consolidating his
power. Over the short span of twelve years,
he enlarged his empire from the original
holding of Egypt to include Syria, northern
Mesopotamia, and Palestine. Throughout the
expansion, he tried to stay out of the
Crusaders' way. He did that not because he
was afraid of his enemies, but because the
time was not ripe yet. Despite his best efforts,
Saladin could not avoid every skirmish. When
a conflict became inevitable, he and his men
fought bravely and often emerged victorious.
During this period, he had only one major
setback. On November 25, 1177, the
combined forces of Baldwin IV (the king of
Jerusalem), Raynald of Chatillon (the prince
of Antioch; also spelled as Reginald or
Reynald), and the Knights Templar ambushed
the overconfident Saladin at Montgisard and
nearly wiped out his entire army. Only one
tenth of his forces made it back to Egypt.
6
After recovering from this humiliating
defeat, Saladin rebuilt the military and scored
a major victory against the Crusaders the
following year. For the next few years, the
story was more of the same. Saladin and the
Crusaders exchanged blows from time to
time. While the fight was always on, both
sides had an understanding that they should
leave the Muslim pilgrims alone. In January
1187, Raynald of Chatillon broke the truce
and looted a caravan of rich pilgrims on the
Hajj. After confiscating their possessions, he
held them hostage and treated them badly.
When Saladin heard the news, he was very
angry. He decided that he must respond to
this challenge. So he prepared his troops and
set out to do away with the Crusaders once
and for all. Saladin's force confronted the
Crusaders in early July 1187. Knowing that
his enemies had just traveled across a
scorching desert and were now very
dehydrated, he strategically placed his
soldiers in front of Lake Tiberias (also called
Sea of Galilee). To get to the water, the
Crusaders, led by Guy of Lusignan (the new
king of Jerusalem) and Raynald of Chatillon,
must fight first. And they did. On the fateful
day of July 4, 1187, a great battle broke out
near Hattin. The exhausted Christian knights
were no match for the well-rested Muslim
warriors. After hours of fighting, they finally
surrendered. Saladin brought Guy of
Lusignan and Raynald of Chatillon to his tent.
He spared the former, but personally
decapitated the latter. He told the king of
Jerusalem that Raynald of Chatillon deserved
to die because of his attack on the innocent
Muslim pilgrims.
7
After the decisive victory at Hattin,
Saladin marched toward Jerusalem and
conquered it on October 2, 1187. While
thrilled by the triumph, he had no intention of
carrying out another massacre on the Holy
Land as the Crusaders had done previously in
1099. He told the terrified Christians that they
could leave the city after paying a ransom.
This noble gesture spared many lives and
avoided major bloodshed.
8
The loss of Jerusalem sent a shockwave
across Europe. Almost immediately, Pope
Gregory VIII made an emotional plea, calling
for the Third Crusade. (The Second Crusade
took place between 1144 and 1150.) The
German king, Frederick Barbarossa,
answered it and assembled an army of
100,000. The sheer size of his force
concerned even Saladin. But as it turned out,
there was really nothing to worry about. En
route to Jerusalem, Frederick Barbarossa
accidentally fell off his horse and drowned.
After his death, his military simply lost
interest and returned home. Now with
Frederick Barbarossa gone, the newly
crowned king of England, Richard I (or
Richard the Lion-Heart), and king of France,
Philip II, became the co-leaders of the Third
Crusade. Before Richard left for the Middle
East, he refitted his military with the best
equipment at the time, using the proceeds
from a special tax called "Saladin tithe" that
his father, Henry II, had levied in 1188. When
Richard was at last ready for the journey, he
took off with more than 12,000 men in early
1191. They arrived at Acre on June 8 and
subdued it a month later. Upon entering the
city of Acre, Richard offered Saladin a deal.
In exchange of the 2,700 Muslim POWs that
he had captured, Saladin needed to free all his
Christian prisoners, return the True Cross that
he had confiscated at Hattin, and pay a
ransom of 200,000 gold pieces. Saladin tried
to drag on the negotiation, and that frustrated
Richard a great deal. When the king of
England couldn't stand it anymore, he ordered
the execution of all the Muslim captives in
view of Saladin and his army. To retaliate,
Saladin also slaughtered most of his Christian
hostages.
9
To Richard, the aim of the Third Crusade
was to reclaim Jerusalem. Nonetheless, as he
was getting closer and closer to the Holy
Land, he came to realize that he simply did
not have enough resources to hold it forever.
In September 1191, Richard made a startling
decision when he was just miles away from
Jerusalem. He decided to turn around and go
back to Acre.
1898, the German Kaiser (Emperor) Wilhelm
II visited Damascus and decided to restore the
tomb. He offered a white marble sarcophagus
in place of the original wooden one and hung
a silver lamp above the tomb. The newly
renovated mausoleum bears the inscription,
"Oh Allah, be satisfied with this soul and
open to him the gates of paradise, the last
conquest for which he hoped."
Copyright © 2012 edHelper
10
Saladin and Richard were bitter rivals.
Yet, they had mutual respect for each other.
For example, when Richard lost his horse in
one of their encounters, Saladin gave him a
replacement so the king of England could
fight on. As the Third Crusade dragged on,
neither side was able to claim a total victory.
At last, Saladin offered Richard a truce in
1192. Both men agreed that Christians would
keep the coastal cities from Jaffa to Tyre, and
Muslims would retain Jerusalem. In exchange
for giving up the Holy Land, Christian
pilgrims would be allowed to enter the city
and worship at the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher. After the treaty was signed,
Richard left for Europe in October 1192.
Upon his departure, he boldly told Saladin
that he would raise more money and come
back to reclaim Jerusalem. Saladin replied
that he would rather lose the Holy Land to
Richard than to anyone else.
11
On March 4, 1193, only six months after
the conclusion of the Third Crusade, Saladin
died in Damascus. When his friends and
relatives scrambled to prepare for his funeral,
they discovered that this powerful yet
extremely generous Muslim sultan did not
leave behind enough money to pay for his
own grave. They buried him in a modest
mausoleum next to the Umayyad Mosque (or
the Grand Mosque of Damascus). For the
next seven centuries, Saladin's tomb stood
quietly and became rather neglected. Then, in
Review Questions
1. What year did Christians attack and claim Jerusalem? Who ordered them to do this?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
2. Saladin began his empire in Egypt. Which were the first three regions he took over?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
3. Who were Guy de Lusignan and Raynald de Chatillon? Why did Saladin fight them? Was
Saladin justified in fighting the two Christian despots?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
4. When King Richard conquered Jerusalem, what did he do to the Muslims living there?
Why would he do this? What would it take to give orders of that type??
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
5. When Saladin conquered Jerusalem, what did he do to the Christians living there? Explain
why you think Saladin acted differently from the Christian conquerors.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
5. Do you agree with Richard's decision of not advancing to Jerusalem and trying to reclaim
it? What would YOU have done if you were in King Richard’s place? Explain your reasons.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________