The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin by Jonathan Phillips (review)

Following up on several books on the Crusades, Phillips narrows his interest to the Sultan Saladin (d. 1193), the Muslim warrior who recaptured Jerusalem from the Franks in 1187 and who is often considered as one of the most prominent figures of the Islamic Middle Age. By publishing this well-documented and readily accessible biography, Philips follows in most of the great Orientalists footstep. At some time or another during their lifetime, Lane-Poole, Gibb, Ehrenkreutz, or Lyons and Jackson, have been fascinated by the astonishing life of a Kurdish man who took the power in Egypt, fought his Muslim opponents and the Crusaders, built a dynasty and an empire, and became a legend in the West as well as in the Middle East.¹ Philips could rely on their work and on others. Indeed, he collected a great number of data in historical, literary, and archaeological sources and in the secondary materials produced by Western scholars. As for the works written in an Eastern language, especially in Arabic, he relied on translations.

Thus, Phillips was well equipped to produce an updated biography of Saladin as a man, a fighter for the Jihad, a ruler, and a legend. He privileged an interdisciplinary approach in order to cast light on the historical as well as the legendary Saladin. In particular, he used and sometimes compared Latin and Arabic romances and movies to show how a cultural transfer made aMuslim fighter of Christendom a universal hero. As an experienced historian, Phillips is always cautious in using medieval sources, especially the texts written by the men closely affiliated to Saladin, who tended to paint the sultan "in an advantageous light" (394), though it is not always easy (or possible) to distinguish hagiography and biography in these texts. In the end, Phillips produces a balanced portray of the Sultan.

In a way, Phillips is successful in offering a new perspective on Saladin, mostly thanks to the second part of his book, which deals with his legend ("Part 2: Afterlife," 308—396). Indeed, the first part of the book ("First Part: The Life of Saladin," 9—307) is far from uninteresting. However, it is mostly a political and military history of the first century of the Crusades and of Saladin's life, which have been often told. Phillips produces a broad panorama of the context that saw Saladin slowly emerging as a great Muslim figure. He elucidates societies largely dedicated to warfare, gives some insights about Saladin's personality, and shows how a warrior built an empire despite his Muslim and Christian opponents. This first part will be especially useful for readers who are unfamiliar with the history of the medieval Middle East and the Crusades.

The second part of the book is more interesting. Again, Phillips is not the only writer who has tried to understand how Saladin's legend developed and expanded. He relies on many studies, especially those recently published in the framework of the essays treating the memories of the Crusades in the last decades. Thus, he provides useful and obscure information about the evolution of the legend in the West as well in the East, especially during the Ottoman and the contemporary eras.

Phillips' contention that the process culminating in the legend of Saladin started early does not mean that medieval writers always depicted Saladin favorably. In the Latin West, where he soon emerged as a literary figure, Saladin was sometimes described as a murderer and a usurper. But amid these invectives, the positive image of a man who did not massacre the Christian defenders of Jerusalem in 1187 prevailed: "Saladin came to emerge from the crusade as a man of generosity, integrity, faith and culture" (355). In the Middle East, Saladin, like other rulers described by their hagiographers as fighters for the jihad, tended to win praise for his personal qualities (piety, generosity, etc.), though some authors were critical—for example, Ibn al-Athir (d. 1233 a.d.), who was...