" Saladin’s Legacy: Some Thoughts" Topic
9 Posts
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Tango01 | 28 Aug 2018 3:44 p.m. PST |
"The Egyptian Sultan Saladin (r. 1171-1193), a Sunni Muslim Kurd, is often celebrated for his chivalrous virtues and deeds during the crusading era. In popular modern film and literature, in both the east and the west, Saladin is depicted as a man of honor and reason, not swept up in the religious passions of his day, and thus a sort of modern role model for enlightened behavior in times of conflict. Yet such heroic popular narratives of medieval military leaders are rarely, if ever, fully accurate and in Saladin's case there is considerable evidence to demonstrate he was much more of a man of his times than suggested by otherwise romanticized views of his career. To provide one of the better-known examples of Saladin's behavior that would support the popular narrative emphasizing Saladin's generosity and reasonableness, one might consider Beha ed-Din's account of a woman in the crusaders' camp during the Third Crusade whose three-month-old baby was kidnapped one night by Muslim thieves and kidnappers, whose job it was to regularly harass Christians in the crusader camps in this way. It was customary for the thieves to then bring all they had taken to the Sultan's tent to present to him, after which Saladin would then usually return it to the thieves so they could profit from their actions. In this case, the thieves reportedly then sold the child in a slave market. When the Christian mother learned of what happened, she was shocked and weeping, until the "princes of the Franks" reportedly told her that Saladin was compassionate man and that they would permit her to go to him and ask for her child back. She did as they suggested and Saladin ordered that the child be found and returned to him. He then gave the child back to the weeping mother, and then Saladin had mother and child safely returned to the crusaders' camp….." Main page link Amicalement Armand |
Robert Burke | 28 Aug 2018 6:01 p.m. PST |
The author of the piece fails to mention the biggest difference between the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders and Saladin's capture of Jerusalem. The Crusaders besieged Jerusalem and had to fight their way into the city. The Christian defenders surrendered the city to Saladin after receiving terms. The common practice of the time was that if a city surrendered then the inhabitants were spared (although I'm sure there were exceptions). But if the city had to taken by siege then the victorious army was allowed to loot it. I'm not justifying the practice, merely pointing out that you should not compare apples and oranges. |
Perris0707 | 28 Aug 2018 8:47 p.m. PST |
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JAFD26 | 28 Aug 2018 11:05 p.m. PST |
In some more peaceful future, a city named for Saladin will have a baseball team called "The Ordinals" |
Sgt Slag | 29 Aug 2018 9:29 a.m. PST |
The accounts I read, stated that Saladin started out chivalrous, but that he learned cruelty from the Europeans, adopting their behaviors over time. What I read portrayed the Europeans as barbarians, when they arrived, learning to appreciate cleanliness and bathing, after living in the Middle East for a while, finding it difficult to return to barbaric Europe, years later. Based on what the Europeans did to Constantinople, as they journeyed to the Holy Land, for their crusade, I found the account plausible, overall. Cheers! |
Tango01 | 29 Aug 2018 11:40 a.m. PST |
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Perris0707 | 29 Aug 2018 1:00 p.m. PST |
The sad fact of the matter is that ALL of the participants in warfare of that era (Crusades), whether Muslim, pagan, or Christian committed rape, pillage, and massacre routinely when taking cities, not to mention enslaving many thousands. Whether Byzantine, Crusader, Muslim, Mongol, etc it really did not make any cultural difference. Any one culture could be cruel and/or merciful at any given time. Saying any differently is just pushing/accepting a modern political or religious agenda. Individual leaders could be merciful from time to time, or by their personal nature. John II Komnenus springs to mind as one particularly merciful warrior of that time. Richard I does not fall into that category, nor does Salah ad din. Portraying the Europeans of the 11th Century as "barbarians" is an outdated at best viewpoint. |
Robert Burke | 29 Aug 2018 8:20 p.m. PST |
It's always a mistake to judge people of the past by modern day standards. We can rightly say that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were monsters because they were monsters by the standards of any day. The myth that Saladin was more chivalrous than his contemporaries is just that, a myth. |
gregmita2 | 30 Aug 2018 10:32 a.m. PST |
It's pretty silly to claim that Saladin "learned cruelty from the crusaders" when he fought more against other Muslims than against the crusaders, and his worst atrocities were committed while fighting against other Muslims. In fact, some contemporary Muslim sources condemned him for exactly that. Remember that he was the one responsible for forcibly converting Egypt to Sunni Islam, when previously it had been the heartland for Shia Islam. He was the one who circulated the false story that Caliph Umar burned the Great Library. (If these books agree with the Koran, they are unnecessary. If these books contradict the Koran, they are heretical.) This was to justify his destruction of Shiite learning. |
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