The Book of Saladin

The second book in a series called Ali's Islam Quintent (1998), Tariq Ali’s historical novel The Book of Saladin is the fictional memoir of Kurdish Saladin who overcame the Crusaders in 1187.

As the story opens, the narrator confides that his family died in a house fire and that he wishes he could have died with them. He recalls a winter night in Cairo in 1181 before the fire when he received a visit from his old friend, the philosopher and physician, Rabbi Musa ibn Maymun. The men are discussing the unfairness that Maymun has encountered in his travels, specifically, being forced to pretend he believes in a false Muslim prophet.

Another guest knocks at the door. It is the Sultan, Yusuf Salah-ud-Din (or Saladin), there to see Maymun. The Sultan needs recommendations for a scribe who can write his story. Maymun suggests the Jewish narrator, Isaac ibn Yakub, become the Sultan's traveling scribe.



Excited by the prospect of becoming the Sultan's scribe, Isaac visits the Sultan's palace in Cairo. There, he meets Shadhi, an old Kurdish warrior in his nineties who taught the Sultan how to ride and fight. When the Sultan joins Isaac for breakfast, they discuss Isaac's work as a scholar of history intent on charting the past of the Jewish people. He follows the method of "the great Tabari," in that he writes chronologically. For this reason, they start at the beginning of the Sultan's life.

The Sultan expresses his luck at having not been the eldest son as he had more freedom. He was an ordinary boy without the power of a Sultan that frightens Isaac now as he sits before him. The Sultan says, "Fate and history conspired to make me what I am today."

The Sultan describes his relationship with his paternal grandmother. She had predicted Saladin would be a great warrior based on a dream that she had in which a huge snake approached Saladin's pregnant mother. Just as the snake approached Saladin's mother, her pregnant belly opened, and a baby walked out. The baby used a sword to cut the snake's head off. "It is written in your stars and Allah himself will be your guide," She says.



The dictation ends, and the Sultan encourages Isaac to follow him in his daily duties and take note of anything he deems important. The Sultan's Kadi, al-Fadil, gives the Sultan a report that one of his officers murdered another.

The story of the two officers is that the officer Kamil took a second wife, Halima, who did not love him. He confides in his friend and higher officer, Messud, that he loves her, discussing all of her best qualities. While Kamil is away, Halima seduces Messud, and the two begin an affair. Meanwhile, Kamil's mother uncovers the relationship, and Kamil encounters his wife and friend in the throes of passion. Enraged, Kamil kills his friend and cuts off the "offending member," shouting that he would have given his wife to Messud had he only asked.

Kadi believes that Kamil should be punished, as Messud outranked him and was well-loved by the soldiers. He suggests that Kamil be beheaded, but the Sultan refuses, saying that the murder was committed in a "fit of uncontrollable passion." Halima comes before the Sultan. As an adulteress, the people would usually stone her to death, but Saladin encourages her to tell her story, starting from childhood. Afterword, having witnessed her beauty, he has her taken to his harem.



The Sultan reveals that he became the son who absorbed his father's attentions after his oldest brother, Shahan Shah, died and his other brother, Turan Shah proved to be undisciplined. Saladin's father gave him a hunting hawk and a horse and confided his fears and worries in him.

The Saladin family moves to Damascus and is hired by the supreme ruler there as soldiers. Saladin and his brother learn how to fight on the ground and on horseback from the soldiers that guard them. In his adulthood, Saladin becomes a great Kurdish military leader and is tasked with retaking Jerusalem, which is occupied by the Crusaders. Using his intelligence, strategy and exceptional leadership, Saladin succeeds. He is given Sultanship over Egypt and Syria.

The political tales of Saladin are interspersed with his youthful escapades, told by the old servant Shadhi. The novel also focuses on Isaac's struggles with his new position, and his lust for Halima and the subsequent neglect of his wife.



The novel was well-received. Simon Carell of the Sunday Times claims the novel "overturns demonizing stereotypes of Salah-al-din, portraying, instead, the “barbarian” Western invaders. Publishers' Weekly lauded the novel for "Weaving political intrigue, gay and straight love, betrayal, cross-dressing, rape, assassination, and crimes of passion."