Red Nile: The Biography of the World’s Greatest River (24 page)

Either way they tried to kill Saladin three times before he captured the Nile and stopped the Franks in their headlong invasion. The Assassins were sent from the clifftop eyrie of Hassan al-Sabah, the old man of the mountain, an impregnable fortress naturally called ‘the eagle’s nest’. Hassan al-Sabah, the Osama bin Laden of his time, commanded absolute loyalty. His motivation was simply to seek power for his Ismaili Shia sect – the Assassins – a sect that would eventually become known as the sole inheritor of the Ismaili mantle. They continue to this day, currently headed by the Aga Khan dynasty. Strange to think that a reference to the playboy Aga Khan in a 1960s pop song – ‘Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)’ by Peter Sarstedt – connects to the Assassins of the eleventh century. The Nile connection remains: the playboy Aga Khan’s father, Aga Khan III, was buried in 1957 at Aswan, his favourite wintering spot (and also François Mitterrand’s). Remember, Aswan is where Herodotus foolishly claimed that the Nile started and where Eratosthenes first measured the world from down the bottom of a dark well.

Back to the crusades. Little is written about Saladin’s appearance: he
was small and frail, it is said, with a short neat beard. Some accounts say it was red. More mention is made of his pensive, almost melancholy face, which would light up with a comforting smile to put people who were talking to him at their ease. He was always generous with visitors, urging them to stay and eat even if they were infidels; he would satisfy all their requests, accord them full honours. He could not bear to let people depart his house disappointed, and of course there were many who took advantage of this. Baha al-Din reveals that his generosity was legendary. Once a Frank called Brins of Antioch arrived unexpectedly at his tent and asked for territory that had been taken by Saladin four years earlier. Saladin promptly gave it back. His treasurers always kept a portion of the royal hoard hidden from their master, because if he knew of it he would spend it immediately. ‘There are people’, said Saladin, ‘for whom money is less important than sand. If you are such a person it is foolish to pretend otherwise.’ He had no taste for finery. When the fabulous palaces of the Fatamid caliphs fell to him, he gave them to his emirs, saying he was better suited to a vizier’s lodgings than a grand palace. Besides, he liked a good siege tent best of all.

He had two aims: to unify the Arab world and to reconquer Jerusalem from the European invaders. The Assassins thought differently. At first they were driven by their own warped notions of Islamic purity. Then the logic of assassination soon became justification enough – they had perfected the means to kill, therefore they were always available to kill, perhaps for the leanest reason. The crusaders had taken Jerusalem, now the ultimate prize of the Nile awaited them – if they could stop Saladin. The Assassins would be their weapon, guns for hire in the Middle East.

The first attacker appeared at Saladin’s tent door in 1175 during the siege of Aleppo. We can only imagine he didn’t announce his presence like an Avon door-to-door saleswoman. He would have been stealthy. The stealthiest. But still, Saladin was surrounded by the best in the way of associate warriors. An emir sensed that this intruder was not who he pretended to be, a court insider, and barred his way.

There was no verbal confrontation – standard operating procedure among the hashish-using Assassins was utter silence. They were the Trappists of Terminal Prejudice. The answer to a fool is silence . . . or in this case a scything dagger blow to the arm. The knife was sharp, made of Damascus steel. Even now its exact structural strength is a mystery to metallurgists, but this super-sharp steel was the preferred weapon
of the Assassins. Often the blade had an inlaid groove – for poison. Assassins specialised in the use of poisoned knife blades: even if the stab did not kill, the poison would do its insidious work. The venom of a horned viper was commonly used, promising a hideous death by destruction of the blood system. Only quick action and application of an ammonia solution (or plain urine if that was not available) allowed an increased chance of survival. So, exit one emir looking for someone to pee on his cut arm. But exit also the Assassin. The emir, though cut, had managed to bring out his scimitar and in one blow cleave the attacker from clavicle to waist.

In 1176, when Saladin was again campaigning in Aleppo, there came a second attack. This time the Assassin burst into Saladin’s tent and attempted to stab him in the head. By now the warrior leader was prepared. He had under his fez a chainmail head-covering. The attacker went for his neck, but here Saladin was wearing a high mail collar attached to a thick tunic. Saladin’s guards arrived just as a second and a third Assassin burst in upon him. His reputation as divinely protected only increased when he miraculously escaped any injury from this concerted attempt to get rid of him.

Saladin received a message from the eagle’s nest, from Sinan, the new Master of the Assassins. The messenger asked to speak in private to Saladin. The Sultan dismissed his guard apart from two Mamluks, slave soldiers from eastern Europe known for their fighting abilities, and their loyalty.

The messenger insisted he could not deliver his message unless they were alone. ‘These men are like my sons,’ said Saladin. ‘They and I are as one.’ At this the messenger turned to the two and said, ‘If I ordered you in the name of my master to kill this Sultan, would you do so?’ They drew their swords and said in unison, ‘Command us as you wish.’ The messenger then left with the two Mamluks, having delivered his message all too clearly: even your closest ones can be got to. No one can be trusted.

Derren Brown, the well-known stage hypnotist, has shown conclusively that it is not very difficult to implant a suggestion that can result in an attempted assassination. Perhaps this story reflects the fact that this ability was used by the Assassins. It has certainly been suggested before that hypnotism was one of the many tricks they used in their nefarious quest for total power.

Naturally Saladin was getting a little perturbed, if not annoyed, by
all this attention. No more Mr Nice Guy. He decided to attack the eyrielike fortress in Masyaf. Sinan, the Master of the Assassins, was absent at the time. When he heard about the siege he asked for another interview with Saladin at the top of a nearby mountain. Believing he had the Master within his power, Saladin sent troops to arrest him. But such was the power of suggestion surrounding Sinan that the troops returned shamefaced saying their limbs had been attacked by some strange force impeding their ability to attack.

Such suggestion worked on Saladin’s mind too. Protecting himself with a ring around his tent of lime and ashes (a guard against both snakes and demons), he lay down to uneasy sleep. He ordered lights to be lit surrounding the whole camp and the guard to be relieved every half-hour. No one attacked and next morning there were no footprints in the ashes. Yet, next to his bed lay some scones, still hot, lying in a shape peculiar to the Assassins – a circle with a zigzag line, a snake across the ring of Solomon. There was also a note, which read: ‘By the Majesty of the Kingdom! What you possess will escape you, in spite of all, but ultimate victory remains to us: understand that we hold you, and that we reserve you till your reckoning be paid.’

Saladin gave a terrible cry and his guard appeared instantly. Never one to be foolishly proud, the Sultan realised that he would be killed unless he lifted the siege of Masyaf. Which he did, departing so hastily that he left some of his artillery behind. At the bridge of Munkidh, his withdrawal noted, he received a safe-conduct from the Master of the Assassins.

Saladin prided himself on never being too proud. So he decided to try a different approach – conciliation. If the Franks could pay the killers he would pay more, and he would pay them with compliments. His combination of money and flattery worked. He successfully wooed them away from their old employers, one of whom was Amalric the Frankish King.

Saladin fought many battles and succeeded in ending the hundred-year occupation of the Holy Land by European immigrants. He also kept the Nile from becoming a Christian river, so to speak, five centuries after the Arabs had wrested it from the first Christians.

Saladin was old now, and tired from all his troubles. He passed his last days surrounded by his family. He had always suffered poor health but now, at fifty-five, he seemed prematurely aged. He died soon afterwards. His personal wealth at the time of his death was one dinar of
Tyre gold and forty-seven dirhems of silver. He owned no property, no goods, and even his horse had been given away before he died.

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Moses of the Nile no. 2

One is not afraid to hold a snake in someone else’s hand
.
Egyptian proverb

Saladin’s great adviser in matters concerning Egypt and the Nile was the Jewish polymath Moses Maimonides. In the twelfth century the Jews much preferred Muslim rule to that of the intolerant Franks. Many migrated from Christian kingdoms to live in Muslim lands. Alexandria then had over 3,000 Jews. Cairo had a Jewish population of 2,000. In Muslim Morocco Jews were not harmed but one had to hide one’s religion; not so in Saladin’s Egypt, where Jews could practise openly and hold high office in government.

Maimonides was born in Muslim Spain and then settled in Palestine, which was then under crusader rule. But he found living under the Europeans so wretched that he moved to Cairo. He was a lawgiver and a physician as well as a wise man whose counsel was sought on every subject. In Egypt he wrote his philosophical masterpiece – still in print today – entitled
The Guide for the Perplexed
. Could there be a better title for a philosophical work? It was said that Richard I ‘the Lionheart’ (1157–99) was so impressed by Maimonides that he offered him the position of vizier in his own court. In fact it was probably Amalric I, the French-descended crusader King of Jerusalem, who was interested in Maimonides. But wisely the sage declined. He correctly predicted that any pact between the Europeans and the Egyptians (there were several short-lived ones) would quickly be over, leaving any physician to the Franks stranded with the enemy. So he restricted himself to helping Saladin and his family.

Saladin suffered from malaria, endemic along the banks of the Nile, but his health was never good; he used to take medicines of all kinds. Maimonides had a different view. He counselled that minor ailments should not be medicated, because that makes the body grow passive in its ability to fight infection. He believed mainly in a healthy regimen as a way of avoiding illness in the first place – a view in tune with current
theories about boosting the immune system rather than relying on intrusive pharmacological solutions. Maimonides quoted Hippocrates, ‘Nature cures diseases.’ He told Saladin, ‘I have warned you, advised you and urged you to rely on nature as it is quite adequate in most cases if left alone and undisturbed.’

When Saladin’s nephew, Taqi, who surrounded himself with a bevy of maidens, became impotent, he asked Maimonides for ways to ‘enhance his ardour’ as his over-exertions in the bedroom had left him emaciated, febrile, light headed and weak. Maimonides set to work and wrote a book for the prince entitled
On Sexual Intercourse
. (He had a knack for book titles.) He prescribed aphrodisiacal treatments and methods, yet also strongly counselled temperance in erotic pursuits. Maimonides denounced concupiscence in eating, drinking and copulation; sexual intercourse, though apparently energy enhancing, was really, like drinking, a form of disinhibition – which if it went too far resulted in spending all one’s energies. As with drinking if one imbibes with friends, in a happy atmosphere with much laughter, the emotion will influence the intercourse in a positive way. But negative emotions such as anxiety, sorrow and aversion only work to reverse the palliative effects of intercourse. He counselled against intercourse with unattractive women, those with dark hearts and no laughter. He also considered women that were too young or too old a strain on the erotic energies of the Prince.

He prescribed black pepper imported from India to improve the sex drive. Hot spices mimic the sweating and rising blood rate of an intimate encounter. Maimonides saw them as a way to trick the body into sexual compliance. Honey water and a little wine were also recommended, though an excess of alcohol, anticipating Shakespeare, stimulated a desire that could not be matched by the performance. In between several learned quotations Maimonides says he will reveal a ‘wondrous secret never before revealed’. This is one of the marvels of medieval Islamic literature – the utter flexibility of content from the obscene to the religious within a page. Maimonides says the Prince must mix some oils with saffron-coloured ants and use the blend to massage the penis for two or three hours before sexual intimacy. The resulting erection, the sage confides, remains even after the act. Medieval Viagra, or a treatment guaranteed to wean the Prince off sex for life? No doubt the formic acid in the ant-bite venom had some effect; it is interesting to note that formic acid is often used in the leather-tanning process.

He suggests making an infusion of alcohol with the herbal plant known as oxtongue. Oxtongue was used in Roman times as an elixir to dispel melancholy. Indeed European herbalists used it for this purpose, giving the herb the name ‘borage’. This was the same succulent as the nepenthe remarked on by Homer. This, according to Pliny, was a drug that left one with absolute forgetfulness – medieval Rohypnol by the sound of it. Maimonides advises the Prince to inhale aromatics, myrrh and nutmeg especially. He ends his sex treatise with a blessing: ‘May the Lord lengthen your days with pleasures, and may those delights be attached to eternal delights for the sake of God’s kindness and goodness.’

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The well of Joseph

Breasts are two but the milk is the same
. Sudanese proverb

Cairo was watered by the Nile and by a series of wells, not very deep, which reached below the Nile to the shallow water table beneath. But the Nile was no place to defend the Nile. Saladin needed a fortress. There was nowhere better than the site of Ibn al-Haytham’s imprisonment a century before: the edge of the Moqattam Hills. It was high, dry and rocky, with the vast quarries of the Pharaohs still in evidence.