44 ISLAM AT WAR
Nur-al-Din took the city in April 1154. He struck no blow, but simply
presented himself as the champion of the people. His astute politics and
virtuous nature accomplished the job. The city was opened to him, and
he was made its ruler by acclaim. Finally, more than fifty years after the
fall of Jerusalem, Muslim Syria was in the hands of one ruler. Thus, for
the first time, a united resistance to the crusaders could be mounted.
But any campaign against the invaders had to be delayed, for in 1156
a great Byzantine army, led by the Emperor Manuel, advanced south from
Constantinople. This was the last great Byzantine army, and the last mili-
tary revival in the empire’s thousand-year history. The imperial soldiers
recaptured much of Anatolia from the Turks and then turned south into
Syria. The emperor’s host had come, not to make war with the Muslims,
but to retake Antioch. It had always been an imperial city and the crusaders
had vowed to return it to the empire if they took it. This vow, of course,
meant nothing more to the Franks than any of their other vows, and Ma-
nuel meant to have his city back. He took it in the summer of 1156. This
was important to Nur-al-Din, for no attacks against the crusaders were
possible while the Byzantines were in the field.
In 1163, Egypt fell into a worse disorder than normal even for that
debased caliphate. Caliph Shawar, the new ruler, appealed to Nur-al-Din
for help. The Damascene ruler sent an army, commanded by Shirkuh and
accompanied by the general’s young relative Saladin. The principal reason
for this expedition was to keep the crusaders out of the Nile caliphate,
which would be impossible without better government than the Egyptians
had been providing. The Franks also intervened, and in 1164 Shirkuh,
who had been successful, was threatened by a large army from Jerusalem.
In response to this threat, Nur-al-Din responded brilliantly by threatening
the fortress of Harim, near Antioch. In an open battle, he crushed the
remaining crusader army in Syria and menaced the heart of the Frankish
kingdoms, thus forcing the Christians to withdraw from Egypt. But the
strategic fruit of Nur-al-Din’s victory was minor, and his general had to
withdraw from the south in the face of growing Egyptian hostility. Soon,
in fact, the Egyptians under Shawar openly allied with the crusaders
against the Syrians.
In March 1167 at al-Babayn, a village near the Nile, a combined Franco-
Egyptian army faced the Syrian force under the wily Shirkuh. Saladin
himself commanded the center of the Muslim force, and when the heavy
Christian knights charged, he feigned retreat, drawing them into a trap.
The allied force was decimated, and the Muslims took Alexandria, a city
whose Muslim populace had not welcomed the Christian alliance.
In 1168 a new wave of crusaders appeared, spurred on by the disasters
of the previous year, and another round of fighting broke out in Egypt.