. Saladin and the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. played extraor-dinary pomp on the occasion ; yet we do not hearof Saladin among his brilliant staff, nor did the latter,despite his religious instinct, ever perform that jour-ney which to Moslems is the crowning act of of course took a prominent part in the warsof Nur-ed-din, in the conquest of Harim (Harenc)from the Franks in 1162, and the ensuing captureof fifty Syrian fortresses, whereby the kingdom ofZengys cautious son was extended to Marash onthe border of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum on thenorth, and southward to Banias at
. Saladin and the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. played extraor-dinary pomp on the occasion ; yet we do not hearof Saladin among his brilliant staff, nor did the latter,despite his religious instinct, ever perform that jour-ney which to Moslems is the crowning act of of course took a prominent part in the warsof Nur-ed-din, in the conquest of Harim (Harenc)from the Franks in 1162, and the ensuing captureof fifty Syrian fortresses, whereby the kingdom ofZengys cautious son was extended to Marash onthe border of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum on thenorth, and southward to Banias at the foot of MountHermon, and to Bozra in the Hauran. In all this Saladin had no share : if he had takenthe smallest part in any warlike operation we may besure his admiring biographers would have recordedit. It was not until Shirkuh made his memorableexpeditions to Egypt that the future Sultan of theMoslems emerged from his voluntary retirementand stepped boldly into his uncles place as the truesuccessor of Zengy in the role of Champion of aM&MMmm CHAPTER VI. THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT. 1164-1169. FOR two centuries Egypt had suffered therule of a dynasty of heretical Caliphs whoboasted a descent from Fatima, the daughterof the Prophet Mohammed, and were hence knownas the Fatimids. They professed the peculiar mys-tical philosophy of the Shiites,^ maintained theincarnation of the Divine Reason in the Imamssprung from Aly and Fatima, and believed in thecoming of the Mahdy, the last inspired leader ofthe same elect descent. Notwithstanding the rigidorthodoxy of the vast majority of the Egyptians,who followed the teaching of the great SunniteImam esh-Shafiy,—whose tomb in the desert, out-side the southern wall of Cairo, is still an object ofprofound reverence,—the Fatimid Caliphs imposedtheir authority with little difficulty upon a peopleaccustomed to submission and pliable in matters offaith ; and for several generations wielded a powerwhich stood unrivalled among Mohammeda
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