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Perhaps the only figure from the Third Crusade capable of matching King Richard the Lionheart's fame and charisma was his arch frenemy: the renowned Saladin. Of course, that wasn't his actual name. "Saladin" is the Anglicized form of his title, "Salah ad-Din", which translates to "Righteous of Faith". His mother knew him as Yusuf ibn Ayyub, which anyone who knows the basics of Arabic will recognize means he was the son of Ayyub. More specifically, our buddy Joe was born in 1137 to Najm al-Din Ayyub, a soldier of Kurdish descent who was banished from his native Tikrit for his loyalty to the upstart governor of Mosul, Imad al-Din Zengi. Ayyub's loyalty was handsomely rewarded, though, as Zengi appointed him governor of Baalbek and sponsored his young son's education. Apparently, Saladin wasn't a particularly exceptional student. He wasn't a dropout by any measure, but his schooling was pretty standard for your average medieval nobleman: studying the Qur'an, learning the sciences, and training in the art of cavalry as the Kurdish people were famous for.

What Saladin did excel in was passion. He grew up hearing of the ambitious plans of Nur ad-Din, Zengi's son who succeeded him in 1146, to unite the squabbling factions of the Islamic world in order to reclaim the territory conquered by the Crusaders over the past half century. In fact, Nur ad-Din's reconquest of the Crusader kingdom of Edessa in 1144 is what got the Pope all pissy enough to launch Crusade 2: Electric Boogaloo. You'd have thought that being more prepared than they were during the last clusterfuck of a Crusade, the sequel would've gone a lot better for them, but uh… no, certainly not. Nur ad-Din consolidated what few allies he managed to rally to his cause and kept Edessa from being reclaimed by the Crusaders, proving that his dream was possible. It was all the inspiration Saladin needed to lend his sword to the jihad. I know, "jihad" can be a scary word in modern imagination, but consider how the word "crusade" must've felt to the people back then who had been living there peacefully for 400 years until a bunch of crusty Frenchmen shouting "Deus vult!" showed up at their doorstep and started breaking all their shit. I can think of no greater scourge from the deepest pits of Hell.

Saladin's military career really got off the ground in 1169, when he joined his tutor and uncle, Shirkuh, on a mission to conquer the dying remnants of the Fatimid Caliphate. The Fatimids were once a thriving Shia state which stretched across the whole of North Africa, the only power big enough to threaten their Sunni rivals in Mesopotamia. At this point, though, the Fatimid state had crumbled down to pretty much just Egypt due to internal squabbles and uprisings in the Maghreb. In other words, it was ripe for the picking. Saladin and his uncle swiftly took control of Egypt, and Shirkuh was made vizier. Saladin really wasn't expected to be put into any position of power, as he was still considered to be young and inexperienced. See, 32 is young! That's what I'll be telling myself in eight years too. Shirkuh died two months after the conquest, however, apparently from excessive quinsy, a thing I didn't even know existed until I started reading up on this biography. Saladin was thus appointed as vizier instead, and to everyone's surprise, he was actually pretty damn good at it. He surrounded himself with strong-minded advisors and made sure all the major positions were filled by his close family, thus establishing the Ayyubid Dynasty as the dominant power in the region.

Now, technically, Saladin was still a vassal of Nur ad-Din, but like… now hear me out… he's got a giant fuckoff army and all the resources of Africa's beating heart. What if, hypothetically of course, Saladin were to march back into Syria and just… take it? And, hypothetically, if Nur ad-Din died in 1174 on his way to spank Saladin for his insubordination, well then who was gonna stop him? Nur ad-Din's son? Nah, ditching the hypotheticals, Saladin marched on Damascus and captured the city, making him sultan of both Egypt and Syria. That's not to say his reign was unopposed, though. Saladin had no shortage of petty kings and governors who were pissed off that he just overthrew their boss. Most famously, his meddling in Fatimid affairs and encroachment into Syria earned him the ire of the Nizari Assassins hiding away in the mountains of Masyaf. The Assassin leader, Rashid ad-Din Sinan, tried to have Saladin killed twice, but both times failed, so Saladin marched his army up to Masyaf in July 1176 to have a friendly little chat with the Old Man of the Mountain. Since stabbing the sultan clearly wasn't working, Sinan did the next best thing: sneak into Saladin's tent in the middle of the night and pin a threatening letter with a dagger just inches from his pillow. Thoroughly terrified, Saladin was now like "Oh hey man, when I said we should have a friendly little chat uhhh… I totally meant it! Let's talk peace terms buddy pal friend!" And so it was, and apparently Ayyubid relations with the Assassins skyrocketed after this. Probably for the better, as 9 out of 10 doctors generally agree that being friends with the Assassins is better for one's health than being their enemies. And the 1 out of 10 doctor is a Templar.

Speaking of Templars, let's not forget the whole purpose of bringing these enemy territories into his fold: uniting the Muslim world into a front that could oust the Franks from the Holy Land. The grand prize was, of course, most sacred Jerusalem, which by this point in history was being ruled by a sniveling little boy with leprosy named Baldwin IV. Baldwin's youth and incompetence led everyone to assume it would be easy to wipe him off the map, but it turned out that the Leper King was more capable than he appeared. Crusader forces caught Saladin off guard at the Battle of Montgisard in November 1177, while Baldwin's lapdog Raynald of Châtillon got to work plundering the Red Sea and butchering the caravans of Muslim pilgrims, basically making it impossible to sustain a steady truce. It was a sticky situation which was only resolved by the even stickier situation that the Kingdom of Jerusalem found itself in when Baldwin kicked the bucket in 1185. Baldwin had appointed the son of his wife Sibylla (also named Baldwin) as his heir, but this eight year old boy also died the next year. To keep the squabbling nobles from killing each other over the throne, Sibylla was crowned Queen of Jerusalem… and then immediately proceeded to marry one of the contenders, Guy of Lusignan, defeating the whole purpose of her regency and pissing everyone off. In fact, Raymond III, Count of Tripoli, was so cheesed by this turn of events that he secured an alliance with Saladin just to spite Guy.

As humorous as this is, it didn't last. Raymond reconciled with Guy when he realized that oh yeah, Saladin's whole mission is to kick us all out. Indeed, Saladin set his trap by capturing the important Crusader fortress of Tiberias in 1187, forcing the Franks to mount a rescue. In July. In the Levant. During the daytime. Somehow, after living in the desert all these years, the Crusaders didn't think to pack sufficient water, and you can probably imagine what that does to an army. They were completely unprepared for Saladin's ambush near the village of Hattin, and were peppered with an unyielding rain of arrows from the cliffs. All the Crusaders were either killed or sold into slavery, with the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller in particular lined up one after another for beheading. Guy of Lusignan and Raynald of Châtillon were bound and brought to Saladin's headquarters. The men were weak and dying of thirst, and Saladin offered a nice frosty glass of ice water to the King of Jerusalem. Guy glugged it right down, and offered the glass to Raynald, but Saladin stepped in. Giving water to the enemy was a universal message of protection in the Middle East, and Saladin had given it to Guy, not Raynald. "If it had been so", Saladin grimly explained, "he would be safe". Saladin proceeded to reprimand Raynald for his unforgivable acts of cruelty and murder of innocents, and offered him one last option of mercy: convert to Islam, or die where he stood. Raynald refused conversion, so Saladin personally lobbed off his head right there and then. Guy was freed on the condition that he never take up arms against Saladin again, but even though he was standing right there when Raynald's head was swiped off its shoulders, Guy did not keep the peace. Bro, take a hint.

Nonetheless, Saladin kept his momentum going. By September, he was at the gates of Jerusalem, having marched virtually unopposed thanks to his generous offers of gold and protection to any town that willingly surrendered. Jerusalem was defended by Balian of Ibelin, a veteran of Hattin who had arranged with Saladin the safe passage of his wife and children on the condition that he did not make war on the sultan ever again. Evidently, Jerusalem was more important than family, as Balian now stood on the besieged walls. Saladin, nothing if not a generous man, went out of his way to find Balian's family himself and escort them to safety in Tripoli regardless of the broken oath. When the city finally surrendered, though, Saladin was absolutely pissed with Balian. He threatened to breach the walls and secure it by force, but Balian counter-threatened to kill every Muslim and burn every mosque in the city. Saladin decided that the bloodshed was not worth it, and orchestrated a peaceful surrender, even freeing captives whose ransom hadn't been paid. Jerusalem at last returned to what had been the status quo for 400 years: in Muslim hands, with Christian pilgrims having complete freedom to travel to and from the city. Things were, at last, right with the world… you know, unless you asked the Pope, which someone did, and the Pope died of a heart attack on the spot. Bit overdramatic, but okay. With his dying breath, the Pope called for Crusade 3: Revenge of the Frogs.

While Guy waited for big brothers to arrive to beat up that meanie Saladin for him, he needed a place to crash. Tyre seemed a good option at first, but when they wouldn't let him in, he decided that Acre would suffice. Acre was under Muslim control, however, so Guy hunkered down for a siege in 1189. Saladin then proceeded to counter-siege the siege (a "siegewich" if you will), not wanting to push his luck when fresh enemies were on their way. One of the Crusader kings, Frederick Barbarossa, died on the way to the Holy Land, falling into a river and drowning like a little bitch. The effort was therefore left to the King of England, Richard the Lionheart, who arrived in the summer of 1191. Richard was a ferocious and tactically genius military commander, so taking Acre became a trivial matter. Saladin was forced to end the siegewich and begin peace negotiations with Richard, but stalled on paying up for the Crusaders' Muslim POWs. Frustrated with this, Richard had all the prisoners lined up in view of Saladin's army, and butchered them all to a man. This… was, and is, an incredibly controversial move which, on the one hand, wasn't exactly out of place in medieval warfare, but on the other hand, was certainly still an atrocity that shocked the Muslim world.

Still, though they never met in person, Saladin and Richard had come to respect one another as honorable men and worthy opponents. After wiping the floor with Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf in September, Richard had even proposed that his sister Joan marry Saladin's brother Al-Adil. He would've made them King and Queen of Jerusalem, probably tying everything up in a nice little bow, but Richard was insistent that Al-Adil convert to Christianity, so the deal was abandoned. Richard had a clear shot at Jerusalem after Arsuf, but he opted to withdraw, fearing that there was no way he could keep the city if he took it without resupplying. Saladin took the opportunity to try and retake his lost stronghold at Jaffa in 1192, but his efforts were thwarted by Richard in August. The losses weighed heavily on Saladin, and it certainly didn't help that he was suffering from chronic gastrointestinal issues. Luckily for him, Richard and his men were also demoralized and tired of fighting, so peace agreements were made. Richard left the Holy Land to settle matters on the other side of the known world, while Saladin returned to Damascus to prepare for his Hajj. Sadly, he'd never make it. His illness perpetually degraded his health and mind, until eventually his God called him to rest on March 4, 1193. Saladin, for all his faults and failures, left behind a legacy in the imaginations of East and West alike which cannot and should not be understated.

Design notes, thankfully, since Saladin has long since been romanticized as a central character in Western imaginings of the Crusades, there's a shit load of artwork of him out there to reference. I tried to start with contemporary artwork, but it seems the internet only has one image to offer in this category: a pre-1185 portrait by Ismail al-Jazari. It's awesome to have, but a little too simplistic for my purposes. I took the main silhouette from it and extrapolated the rest of the composition with layers from a rendition by Angus McBride. For more of the nitty gritty details like the belt and the shoulders, I referenced a 1584 engraving by André Thevet and "Saladin the Victorious" by 19th century French artist Gustave Doré. His turban, meanwhile, is mostly taken from a 1625 painting of Saladin and Guy of Lusignan by Dutch artist Jan Lievens. I also opted to throw onto his cape the Eagle of Saladin, an emblem which is most famously used today in the flag of Egypt because a variant was used as Saladin's personal standard. It's a really cool image, if a pain in the ass to draw. Thin stripes of color surrounded by black are always a nuisance. There's definitely some room for clean up with this piece, but I'm not as disappointed with the end result as I thought I was going to be. The colors really brought the line art back together. Everyone needs a little splash of color in their lives, no?

Description
Perhaps the only figure from the Third Crusade capable of matching King Richard the Lionheart's fame and charisma was his arch frenemy: the renowned Saladin. Of course, that wasn't his actual name. "Saladin" is the Anglicized form of his title, "Salah ad-Din", which translates to "Righteous of Faith". His mother knew him as Yusuf ibn Ayyub, which anyone who knows the basics of Arabic will recognize means he was the son of Ayyub. More specifically, our buddy Joe was born in 1137 to Najm al-Din Ayyub, a soldier of Kurdish descent who was banished from his native Tikrit for his loyalty to the upstart governor of Mosul, Imad al-Din Zengi. Ayyub's loyalty was handsomely rewarded, though, as Zengi appointed him governor of Baalbek and sponsored his young son's education. Apparently, Saladin wasn't a particularly exceptional student. He wasn't a dropout by any measure, but his schooling was pretty standard for your average medieval nobleman: studying the Qur'an, learning the sciences, and training in the art of cavalry as the Kurdish people were famous for.

What Saladin did excel in was passion. He grew up hearing of the ambitious plans of Nur ad-Din, Zengi's son who succeeded him in 1146, to unite the squabbling factions of the Islamic world in order to reclaim the territory conquered by the Crusaders over the past half century. In fact, Nur ad-Din's reconquest of the Crusader kingdom of Edessa in 1144 is what got the Pope all pissy enough to launch Crusade 2: Electric Boogaloo. You'd have thought that being more prepared than they were during the last clusterfuck of a Crusade, the sequel would've gone a lot better for them, but uh… no, certainly not. Nur ad-Din consolidated what few allies he managed to rally to his cause and kept Edessa from being reclaimed by the Crusaders, proving that his dream was possible. It was all the inspiration Saladin needed to lend his sword to the jihad. I know, "jihad" can be a scary word in modern imagination, but consider how the word "crusade" must've felt to the people back then who had been living there peacefully for 400 years until a bunch of crusty Frenchmen shouting "Deus vult!" showed up at their doorstep and started breaking all their shit. I can think of no greater scourge from the deepest pits of Hell.

Saladin's military career really got off the ground in 1169, when he joined his tutor and uncle, Shirkuh, on a mission to conquer the dying remnants of the Fatimid Caliphate. The Fatimids were once a thriving Shia state which stretched across the whole of North Africa, the only power big enough to threaten their Sunni rivals in Mesopotamia. At this point, though, the Fatimid state had crumbled down to pretty much just Egypt due to internal squabbles and uprisings in the Maghreb. In other words, it was ripe for the picking. Saladin and his uncle swiftly took control of Egypt, and Shirkuh was made vizier. Saladin really wasn't expected to be put into any position of power, as he was still considered to be young and inexperienced. See, 32 is young! That's what I'll be telling myself in eight years too. Shirkuh died two months after the conquest, however, apparently from excessive quinsy, a thing I didn't even know existed until I started reading up on this biography. Saladin was thus appointed as vizier instead, and to everyone's surprise, he was actually pretty damn good at it. He surrounded himself with strong-minded advisors and made sure all the major positions were filled by his close family, thus establishing the Ayyubid Dynasty as the dominant power in the region.

Now, technically, Saladin was still a vassal of Nur ad-Din, but like… now hear me out… he's got a giant fuckoff army and all the resources of Africa's beating heart. What if, hypothetically of course, Saladin were to march back into Syria and just… take it? And, hypothetically, if Nur ad-Din died in 1174 on his way to spank Saladin for his insubordination, well then who was gonna stop him? Nur ad-Din's son? Nah, ditching the hypotheticals, Saladin marched on Damascus and captured the city, making him sultan of both Egypt and Syria. That's not to say his reign was unopposed, though. Saladin had no shortage of petty kings and governors who were pissed off that he just overthrew their boss. Most famously, his meddling in Fatimid affairs and encroachment into Syria earned him the ire of the Nizari Assassins hiding away in the mountains of Masyaf. The Assassin leader, Rashid ad-Din Sinan, tried to have Saladin killed twice, but both times failed, so Saladin marched his army up to Masyaf in July 1176 to have a friendly little chat with the Old Man of the Mountain. Since stabbing the sultan clearly wasn't working, Sinan did the next best thing: sneak into Saladin's tent in the middle of the night and pin a threatening letter with a dagger just inches from his pillow. Thoroughly terrified, Saladin was now like "Oh hey man, when I said we should have a friendly little chat uhhh… I totally meant it! Let's talk peace terms buddy pal friend!" And so it was, and apparently Ayyubid relations with the Assassins skyrocketed after this. Probably for the better, as 9 out of 10 doctors generally agree that being friends with the Assassins is better for one's health than being their enemies. And the 1 out of 10 doctor is a Templar.

Speaking of Templars, let's not forget the whole purpose of bringing these enemy territories into his fold: uniting the Muslim world into a front that could oust the Franks from the Holy Land. The grand prize was, of course, most sacred Jerusalem, which by this point in history was being ruled by a sniveling little boy with leprosy named Baldwin IV. Baldwin's youth and incompetence led everyone to assume it would be easy to wipe him off the map, but it turned out that the Leper King was more capable than he appeared. Crusader forces caught Saladin off guard at the Battle of Montgisard in November 1177, while Baldwin's lapdog Raynald of Châtillon got to work plundering the Red Sea and butchering the caravans of Muslim pilgrims, basically making it impossible to sustain a steady truce. It was a sticky situation which was only resolved by the even stickier situation that the Kingdom of Jerusalem found itself in when Baldwin kicked the bucket in 1185. Baldwin had appointed the son of his wife Sibylla (also named Baldwin) as his heir, but this eight year old boy also died the next year. To keep the squabbling nobles from killing each other over the throne, Sibylla was crowned Queen of Jerusalem… and then immediately proceeded to marry one of the contenders, Guy of Lusignan, defeating the whole purpose of her regency and pissing everyone off. In fact, Raymond III, Count of Tripoli, was so cheesed by this turn of events that he secured an alliance with Saladin just to spite Guy.

As humorous as this is, it didn't last. Raymond reconciled with Guy when he realized that oh yeah, Saladin's whole mission is to kick us all out. Indeed, Saladin set his trap by capturing the important Crusader fortress of Tiberias in 1187, forcing the Franks to mount a rescue. In July. In the Levant. During the daytime. Somehow, after living in the desert all these years, the Crusaders didn't think to pack sufficient water, and you can probably imagine what that does to an army. They were completely unprepared for Saladin's ambush near the village of Hattin, and were peppered with an unyielding rain of arrows from the cliffs. All the Crusaders were either killed or sold into slavery, with the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller in particular lined up one after another for beheading. Guy of Lusignan and Raynald of Châtillon were bound and brought to Saladin's headquarters. The men were weak and dying of thirst, and Saladin offered a nice frosty glass of ice water to the King of Jerusalem. Guy glugged it right down, and offered the glass to Raynald, but Saladin stepped in. Giving water to the enemy was a universal message of protection in the Middle East, and Saladin had given it to Guy, not Raynald. "If it had been so", Saladin grimly explained, "he would be safe". Saladin proceeded to reprimand Raynald for his unforgivable acts of cruelty and murder of innocents, and offered him one last option of mercy: convert to Islam, or die where he stood. Raynald refused conversion, so Saladin personally lobbed off his head right there and then. Guy was freed on the condition that he never take up arms against Saladin again, but even though he was standing right there when Raynald's head was swiped off its shoulders, Guy did not keep the peace. Bro, take a hint.

Nonetheless, Saladin kept his momentum going. By September, he was at the gates of Jerusalem, having marched virtually unopposed thanks to his generous offers of gold and protection to any town that willingly surrendered. Jerusalem was defended by Balian of Ibelin, a veteran of Hattin who had arranged with Saladin the safe passage of his wife and children on the condition that he did not make war on the sultan ever again. Evidently, Jerusalem was more important than family, as Balian now stood on the besieged walls. Saladin, nothing if not a generous man, went out of his way to find Balian's family himself and escort them to safety in Tripoli regardless of the broken oath. When the city finally surrendered, though, Saladin was absolutely pissed with Balian. He threatened to breach the walls and secure it by force, but Balian counter-threatened to kill every Muslim and burn every mosque in the city. Saladin decided that the bloodshed was not worth it, and orchestrated a peaceful surrender, even freeing captives whose ransom hadn't been paid. Jerusalem at last returned to what had been the status quo for 400 years: in Muslim hands, with Christian pilgrims having complete freedom to travel to and from the city. Things were, at last, right with the world… you know, unless you asked the Pope, which someone did, and the Pope died of a heart attack on the spot. Bit overdramatic, but okay. With his dying breath, the Pope called for Crusade 3: Revenge of the Frogs.

While Guy waited for big brothers to arrive to beat up that meanie Saladin for him, he needed a place to crash. Tyre seemed a good option at first, but when they wouldn't let him in, he decided that Acre would suffice. Acre was under Muslim control, however, so Guy hunkered down for a siege in 1189. Saladin then proceeded to counter-siege the siege (a "siegewich" if you will), not wanting to push his luck when fresh enemies were on their way. One of the Crusader kings, Frederick Barbarossa, died on the way to the Holy Land, falling into a river and drowning like a little bitch. The effort was therefore left to the King of England, Richard the Lionheart, who arrived in the summer of 1191. Richard was a ferocious and tactically genius military commander, so taking Acre became a trivial matter. Saladin was forced to end the siegewich and begin peace negotiations with Richard, but stalled on paying up for the Crusaders' Muslim POWs. Frustrated with this, Richard had all the prisoners lined up in view of Saladin's army, and butchered them all to a man. This… was, and is, an incredibly controversial move which, on the one hand, wasn't exactly out of place in medieval warfare, but on the other hand, was certainly still an atrocity that shocked the Muslim world.

Still, though they never met in person, Saladin and Richard had come to respect one another as honorable men and worthy opponents. After wiping the floor with Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf in September, Richard had even proposed that his sister Joan marry Saladin's brother Al-Adil. He would've made them King and Queen of Jerusalem, probably tying everything up in a nice little bow, but Richard was insistent that Al-Adil convert to Christianity, so the deal was abandoned. Richard had a clear shot at Jerusalem after Arsuf, but he opted to withdraw, fearing that there was no way he could keep the city if he took it without resupplying. Saladin took the opportunity to try and retake his lost stronghold at Jaffa in 1192, but his efforts were thwarted by Richard in August. The losses weighed heavily on Saladin, and it certainly didn't help that he was suffering from chronic gastrointestinal issues. Luckily for him, Richard and his men were also demoralized and tired of fighting, so peace agreements were made. Richard left the Holy Land to settle matters on the other side of the known world, while Saladin returned to Damascus to prepare for his Hajj. Sadly, he'd never make it. His illness perpetually degraded his health and mind, until eventually his God called him to rest on March 4, 1193. Saladin, for all his faults and failures, left behind a legacy in the imaginations of East and West alike which cannot and should not be understated.

Design notes, thankfully, since Saladin has long since been romanticized as a central character in Western imaginings of the Crusades, there's a shit load of artwork of him out there to reference. I tried to start with contemporary artwork, but it seems the internet only has one image to offer in this category: a pre-1185 portrait by Ismail al-Jazari. It's awesome to have, but a little too simplistic for my purposes. I took the main silhouette from it and extrapolated the rest of the composition with layers from a rendition by Angus McBride. For more of the nitty gritty details like the belt and the shoulders, I referenced a 1584 engraving by André Thevet and "Saladin the Victorious" by 19th century French artist Gustave Doré. His turban, meanwhile, is mostly taken from a 1625 painting of Saladin and Guy of Lusignan by Dutch artist Jan Lievens. I also opted to throw onto his cape the Eagle of Saladin, an emblem which is most famously used today in the flag of Egypt because a variant was used as Saladin's personal standard. It's a really cool image, if a pain in the ass to draw. Thin stripes of color surrounded by black are always a nuisance. There's definitely some room for clean up with this piece, but I'm not as disappointed with the end result as I thought I was going to be. The colors really brought the line art back together. Everyone needs a little splash of color in their lives, no?