The Grave of Saladin


They buried him that day in the garden house in the Citadel of Damascus, at the hour of the "asr العصر" prayer. The sword which he had helped through the Holy War was laid adjacent to him : " he brought it with him to Paradise." He had given away everything, and the cash for the internment must be acquired, even to the straw for the blocks that made the grave. The service was as basic as a poor person's burial service. A striped material secured the undistinguished coffin. No artist was permitted to sing a lament, no evangelist to make speech. At the point when the huge number, who thronged about the gate, saw the bier, a great wailing went up, and so distraught were the people that they could not form the words of prayer, but only cried and groaned. All eyes were wet, and there were few that did not weep aloud. Then every man went home and shut his door, and the empty silent streets bore witness to a great sorrow. Only the weeping secretary and those of the household went to pray over the grave and indulge their grief. The next day the people thronged to the tomb, praying, lamenting, reciting the Koran, and invoking the blessing of God upon him who slept beneath.

It was not till the close of a second year that the body of the Sultan was interred by a son's loving care in the oratory on the northern side of the Kellasa, beside the great Omayyad mosque, where it lies now. Over it the faithful chancellor, who was soon to follow his master, wrote the epitaph: “O God, accept this soul, and open to him the gates of heaven, that last victory for which he hoped.

“ I entered into this oratory,” says a later biographer, “ by the door which gives on the Kellasa, and after reciting a portion of the Koran over the grave, I invoked God’s mercy on its dweller. The warden showed me a packet containing Saladin's clothes, and I saw among them a short yellow vest with black cuffs, and I prayed that the sight might be blessed to me."

The savvy doctor Abd el Latif composed, to some degree pessimistically, that as far as anyone is concerned this was the main occurrence of a King's demise that was genuinely grieved by the general population. The mystery of Saladin's energy lay in the affection for his subjects. What others tried to accomplish by dread, by seriousness, by magnificence, he accom plished by generosity. In the paramount words which he talked, not well before his demise, to his best dearest child, ez Zahir, on rejecting him to his common government, he uncovered the wellspring of his own quality.

“My son,” he said, “ I commend thee to the most high God, the fountain of all goodness. Do His will, for that way lieth peace. Abstain from the shedding of blood; trust not to that; for blood that is spilt never slumbers. Seek I0 ruin I/ze luarts of tlzy people, and watch over their prosperity ; for it is to secure their happiness that thou art appointed by God and by me. Try to gain the hearts of thy emirs and ministers and nobles. I have become great as I am because I have won men's hearts by gentleness and kindness”.

Death of Saladin



At the point when Saladin was guaranteed that King Richard of England had truly taken ship and left the nation to Europe, Saladin started an advance through the land which had been won and held at so incredible cost. He went by every one of the fortresses "and boss urban areas, looking at their guards, giving requests for fortications, and putting in each a solid army of stallion and foot. At Beyrut, on the Ist of November, he got the Prince of Antioch, Bohemond the Stammerer, who taken an interest in the arrangement of peace; the meeting was heartfelt, and the Prince was given terrains in the plain of Antioch to the estimation of 15,000 gold pieces a year. At Kaukab—at no time in the future to be called Belvoir—he discovered his antiquated worker of early days, Karakush the developer of the dividers of Cairo, who had grieved in jail at Acre as far back as the surrender. There were no censures, yet just the welcome because of old and attempted commitment. On the fourth of November Damascus yet again acclaimed its Sultan. He had not been inside its doors for a long time, and his open levee the following day was thronged with old companions and glad subjects. The artists had no words uncommon and sufficiently rich for the considerable event.

Once more Saladin was at home among his child ren. We see him sitting in his summer house in the castle grounds, with his younger children about him. Envoys from the Franks were announced, but when they came into his presence, their shaven chins, cropped hair, and strange clothes frightened little Abu Bekr, who began to cry. The father, thinking only of the child, dismissed the ambassadors with an excuse, before they had even delivered their message. Older sons were there, grown men who had fought in his battles, and with these and his brother, el Adil, he went day after day hunting the gazelle in the spacious plains about Damascus. He had thoughts of going to Mekka on pilgrimage, the supreme duty of the pious Moslem; he wished to visit again that Egypt which had been_ his stepping stone to power; but the time passed, and the pilgrims came back from Arabia, and Saladin was still at Damascus, revelling in the delights of a peaceful home.

On Friday the 20th of February, he rode out with Baha d din to meet the caravan of the Hajj. He had not been well of late, and it was the wet season; the roads were streaming after heavy rains, and he had imprudently forgotten to wear his usual quilted gambeson. That night he had fever. The next day he could not join his friends at dinner, and the sight of the son sitting in the father's seat brought tears to many eyes—they took it as an omen. Each day the Sultan grew worse, his head was racked with pain, and he suffered internally. On the fourth day the doctors bled him; and from that time he grew steadily worse. The fever parched his skin, and he became weaker and weaker. On the ninth day his mind wandered; he fell into a stupor and could no longer take his draught. Every night Baha ed din and the chancellor el Fadil would go to see him, or at least to hear the doctors’ report; and sometimes they would come out streaming with tears, which they strove to command, for there was always a multitude outside the gates waiting to learn from their faces how the Master was. On Sunday, the tenth day of the illness, medicine gave some relief, the sick man drank a good draught of barley water, and broke into a profuse perspiration. “We gave thanks to God . . . and came out with lightened hearts." It was but the last effort. On Tuesday night the faithful secretary and chancellor were summoned to the castle, but they did not see the Sultan, who was sinking fast. There was a divine with him, repeating the confession of faith and reading the Holy Word; and when he came to the passage “He is God, than whom there is no other God,—who knoweth the unseen and the seen,—the Compassionate, the Merciful," the Sultan murmured, “True "; and when the words came, “ In Him do I trust," the dying man smiled, his face lighted up, and he rendered his soul to his Lord.

Saladin died on Wednesday, the 4th of March, 1193, at the age of fty ve.