Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi

An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (Arabic: صلاح الدين يوسف بن أيوب‎ / ALA-LC: Ṣalaḥ ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, Kurdish: سەڵاحەدینی ئەییووبی‎ / ALA-LC: Selahedine Eyubi), known as Salah ad-Din or Saladin (saladin 1137 – 4 March 1193), was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and the first to hold the title of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish ethnicity, Saladin led the Muslim military campaign against the Crusader states in the Levant. During his reign, Saladin has been described as the de facto Caliph of Islam and at the height of his power, his empire included Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen and other parts of North Africa.

Early Life

Saladin was born in Tikrit in modern-day Iraq. His personal name was "Yusuf"; "Salah ad-Din" is a laqab, an honorific epithet, meaning "Righteousness of the Faith"His. family was most likely of Kurdish ancestry, and had originated from the village of Ajdanakan near the city of Dvin in central Armenia. The Rawadiya tribe he hailed from had been partially assimilated into the Arabic-speaking world by this time. In 1132, the defeated army of Imad ad-Din Zengi, the ruler of Mosul, found their retreat blocked by the Tigris River opposite the fortress of Tikrit, where Saladin's father, Najm ad-Din Ayyub served as the warden. Ayyub provided ferries for the army and gave them refuge in Tikrit. Mujahed al-Din Bihruz, a former Greek slave who had been appointed as the military governor of northern Mesopotamia for his service to the Seljuks, reprimanded Ayyub for giving Zengi refuge and in 1137 banished Ayyub from Tikrit after his brother Asad al-Din Shirkuh killed a friend of Bihruz. According to Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, Saladin was born on the same night that his family left Tikrit. In 1139, Ayyub and his family moved to Mosul, where Imad ad-Din Zengi acknowledged his debt and appointed Ayyub commander of his fortress in Baalbek. After the death of Zengi in 1146, his son, Nur ad-Din, became the regent of Aleppo and the leader of the Zengids.

Saladin, who now lived in Damascus, was reported to have a particular fondness for the city, but information on his early childhood is scarce. About education, Saladin wrote "children are brought up in the way in which their elders were brought up". According to his biographers, Anne-Marie Eddé and al-Wahrani, Saladin was able to answer questions on Euclid, the Almagest, arithmetic, and law, but this was an academic ideal and it was study of the Qur'an and the "sciences of religion" that linked him to his contemporaries. Several sources claim that during his studies he was more interested in religious studies than joining the military. Another factor which may have affected his interest in religion was that, during the First Crusade, Jerusalem was taken by the Christians. In addition to Islam, Saladin had a knowledge of the genealogies, biographies, and histories of the Arabs, as well as the bloodlines of Arabian horses. More significantly, he knew the Hamasah of Abu Tammam by heart. He spoke Kurdish and Arabic.