0Saladin (Salah Ad-Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub, Al-Malik
An-Nasir Salah Ad-Din Yusuf I) (ca. 1137/38–
1193) Muslim king and warrior
In full, Saladin’s name was Salah Ad-Din Yusuf Ibn
Ayyub (“Righteousness of the Faith, Joseph, Son of
Job”), but he was also known as Al-Malik An-Nasir
Salah Ad-Din Yusuf I. Born about 1137 or 1138 in
Tikrit, Mesopotamia (now in modern Iraq and coin-
cidentally the same village where the Iraqi tyrant Sad-
dam Hussein would later be born), he was a member of
a prominent and influential Kurdish family from that
area. Soon after Saladin’s birth, his father moved the
entire family to Aleppo, now in modern Syria, and en-
tered the service of ‘Imad ad-Din Zangi ibn Aq Sonqur,
the governor of northern Syria. Thus, Saladin grew up
in what is now Syria, where his main studies focused
on the religion of Islam. This changed when he became
an aide to his uncle, Asad ad-Din Shirkuh, who served
as the military commander for nur-ad-din, the emir
of Syria. Shirkuh commanded four military expeditions
south into Egypt (1164 and 1167–69) to fight local rul-
ers who were resisting Syria’s overlordship with the help
of Crusaders in the Holy Land also fearful of Syria’s
overlords. Shirkuh also had to deal with political mat-
ters, and he became the enemy of Amalric I, the king
of Jerusalem, as well as Shawar, the caliph of Egypt.
Shirkuh ordered Shawar’s assassination, which was car-
ried out after Shirkuh’s own untimely death (1169).
His passing gave his nephew, Saladin, the chance to be-
come the head of Syrian forces in Egypt when he was
just 31 years old. In 1171, just two years later, Saladin
abolished the Fatamid caliphate in Egypt, which was
of Shi’ite religious backing, and replaced it with one of
Sunni Muslim control.
When Nur-ad-Din died in 1174, Saladin declared
himself sultan of Egypt and Syria. Working from Egypt,
he began his campaign to conquer the region that be-
came the Middle East. He was able to bring together a
small but devoted army of followers who marched into
what is now Syria to take control of that land. He went
on to bring together the states of Egypt, Mesopotamia,
Syria, and others under a Muslim regime headed by
him. Saladin saw this union as one that would extend
the influence of Islam to the rest of the world, and he
earned great respect from his fellow Muslims. When he
could not convince the leaders of Damascus to submit
to his rule, he invaded Syria and conquered that city.
The following year, 1175, the Syrian leader Rashideddin
tried twice to assassinate Saladin, who mustered an army
to invade Syria and destroy him. However, although
his army laid siege to Rashideddin’s fortress at Masyaf,
he suddenly withdrew permanently, a move that still
puzzles historians. He nonetheless continued his mili-
tary expansion by taking the city of Aleppo in northern