Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi

Sultan of Egypt and Syria, he ended Fatimid rule, won the Battle of Hattin and recovered Jerusalem in 583 AH (1187 CE), sparing its inhabitants.

Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub was born in 532 AH (1137 or 1138 CE) in Tikrit, into a Kurdish family. He grew up in Baalbek and Damascus in the service of Nur al-Din Zengi, and in the 560s AH went with his uncle Shirkuh on campaigns to Egypt. When Shirkuh died in 564 AH, Salah al-Din became vizier of Egypt.

In 567 AH he ended the Fatimid caliphate and restored the Friday sermon in the name of the Abbasid caliph, bringing Egypt back to the Sunni fold; he founded madrasas to support this. After Nur al-Din’s death he gradually united Egypt and Syria under his rule.

In Rabiʿ al-Akhir 583 AH (July 1187) he defeated the Crusader army at Hattin, and on 27 Rajab 583 (2 October 1187) Jerusalem surrendered to him. Unlike the massacre of 1099, he let the inhabitants go on payment of a ransom and freed many who could not pay. He had the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa purified, and installed Nur al-Din’s minbar. During the Third Crusade he defended the region for years, ending with the Treaty of Jaffa (Ramla) with Richard I in 588 AH.

He died in Damascus on 27 Safar 589 AH and was buried beside the Umayyad Mosque. His companion and biographer Ibn Shaddad records that he left so little wealth that it did not cover the cost of his burial, having given his money away. Muslims and non-Muslims alike remember him for courage, generosity and chivalry.