An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades

INTRODUCTION
ii
al-Mawsil, Mecca — and that did not end until he was an octogenarian.
As young Usamah one evening entered the town carrying
as trophy the head of a huge lion which he bagged, his grandmother 8
met him and warned him against his uncle, assuring him that such
a thing would alienate him from his uncle, instead of endearing
him to his heart (infra, p. 156). This episode proved "the last
straw" and tolled the death-knell of Usamah's life in Shayzar.
With all that, Usamah shows a remarkable degree of selfrestraint
and hardly has an unkind word against his uncle in all
his narrative. And when finally in the year 552/1157, Shayzar was
destroyed by the earthquake, and his cousin, Sultan's son, perished
with his family, Usamah's heart was evidently deeply moved with
sorrow and sympathy. He wrote a touching elegy in verse in which
he said:
The blood of my uncle's children, like that of my father's children, is
my blood,
Notwithstanding the hostility and hatred they showed me. 9
That Usamah was brought up in a wholesome atmosphere of
gallant and aristocratic behavior — in spite of the aforementioned
episode — is evinced by various other instances.
His grandfather
and uncles are often referred to by the Arab chronicles as "the
Kings of Shayzar." One uncle was a high official in the Fatimite
court of Egypt (infra, p. 239).
Usamah's own son, Murhaf, became
later "one of the amirs" of Egypt and a table companion and
comrade-at-arms of the illustrious Saladin. It was evidently this
Murhaf who pleaded the case of his octogenarian and forsaken
father before Saladin, who consequently summoned Usamah, in
the year 11 74, from Hisn-Kayfa and installed him in a palace
in Damascus.
§alih ibn-Yahya 10 tells us that Usamah was " one of
those treated as great [min al-mu'a^amin'} by the Sultan [Saladin]
who put no one above him in matters of counsel and advice."
Saladin appointed him governor of Beirut, which he soon after
delivered into the hands of the Franks without offering resistance.
A nephew of Usamah, Shams-al-Dawlah, was sent by Saladin in
1 1
90 as his ambassador extraordinary to the court of the Almohades
8 " His mother" according to ibn-al-Athlr, At&beks in RectteU historiens orientaux,
vol II.pt II, pp 190-200, quoted by al-Rawiatayn, vol I, p 112
* 10
Al-Rav4atayn, vol I, p. 106.
Ta'rikh, pp. 3S-36.