Salah el din al ayoubi biography definition dictionary

Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub [ a ] c. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade , he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. Alongside his uncle Shirkuh , a Kurdish mercenary commander in service of the Zengid dynasty , [ 6 ] Saladin was sent to Fatimid Egypt in , on the orders of the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din.

With their original purpose being to help restore Shawar as the vizier to the teenage Fatimid caliph al-Adid , a power struggle ensued between Shirkuh and Shawar after the latter was reinstated.

Saladin children

Saladin, meanwhile, climbed the ranks of the Fatimid government by virtue of his military successes against Crusader assaults and his personal closeness to al-Adid. After Shawar was assassinated and Shirkuh died in , al-Adid appointed Saladin as vizier. In the following years, he led forays against the Crusaders in Palestine , commissioned the successful conquest of Yemen, and staved off pro-Fatimid rebellions in Egypt.

Not long after Nur ad-Din died in , Saladin launched his conquest of Syria, peacefully entering Damascus at the request of its governor. By mid, Saladin had conquered Hama and Homs , inviting the animosity of other Zengid lords, who were the official rulers of Syria's principalities; he subsequently defeated the Zengids at the Battle of the Horns of Hama in and was thereafter proclaimed the ' Sultan of Egypt and Syria ' by the Abbasid caliph al-Mustadi.

Saladin launched further conquests in northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, escaping two attempts on his life by the Assassins before returning to Egypt in to address local issues there. By , Saladin had completed the conquest of Islamic Syria after capturing Aleppo but failed to take over the Zengid stronghold of Mosul.

When was saladin born

Under Saladin's command, the Ayyubid army defeated the Crusaders at the decisive Battle of Hattin in , capturing Jerusalem and re-establishing Muslim military dominance in the Levant. Although the Crusaders' Kingdom of Jerusalem persisted until the late 13th century, the defeat in marked a turning point in the Christian military effort against Muslim powers in the region.

Saladin died in Damascus in , having given away much of his personal wealth to his subjects; he is buried in a mausoleum adjacent to the Umayyad Mosque. Alongside his significance to Muslim culture , Saladin is revered prominently in Kurdish , Turkic , and Arab culture.