- Typically movies/tv-shows present him as peaceful. Scholars typically have him as very merciful though. He frequently spared the populations of towns and fortresses he besieged and let them leave in peace so long as they agreed to not attack him again. There is a strategic benefit to this that is worth noting. Basically if Saladin marched his army up to a fortress he could have them agree to leave all in peace or be forced to take it by force at great cost and effort. If his enemies knew that if they surrendered they’d all be killed they wouldn’t surrender but if they knew they could surrender and leave in peace would encourage them to surrender if they knew there was no hope of holding out against him. After the disastrous defeat of the Crusaders at Hattin it was pretty easy to decide to surrender and leave than hope that a new opposition army could be formed to defeat him.
- The best evidence for Saladin’s habit of sparing many of those who opposed him comes to us from Ibn al-Athir. It’s not that he’s the only person to report it but rather that he didn’t seem to like Saladin very much. Ibn al-Athir had been loyal to Nur al-Din and his family and Saladin had effectively deposed Nur al-Din’s son. Ibn al-Athir then is not in a position to want to make Saladin look good by reporting his kindness (unlike, say, Imad ad-Din who actually worked for Saladin). In fact Ibn al-Athir holds it against Saladin at one point because Saladin’s policy of mercy actually meant that he couldn’t take the city of Tyre because it was so full of refugee Crusaders that he had no hope of taking it by force and as a coastal city it could support itself. There’s some debate as to whether this accusation is fair. Saladin moved on from Tyre early because he could only keep his army in the field for so long (Feudal Service restricted the length of time he could keep his army away from their normal work) and he had not yet taken Jerusalem at that time. He really needed to take the Holy City so he left Tyre early. Still, it didn’t help his later efforts to take Tyre and that city remaining in Crusader hands allowed Richard I to come to the Holy Land in a friendly port and probably contributed a lot to the eventual loss of Acre to the Crusaders.
Was Saladin peaceful/merciful?
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