Saladin, born the night his family fled Tikrit, died having given his wealth away
According to his biographer, Saladin was born on the very night his father was banished from the Iraqi fortress of Tikrit. The boy who preferred religious study to soldiering went on to rule Egypt and Syria, retake Jerusalem in 1187 and die in Damascus having handed much of his fortune to his subjects.
Yusuf ibn Ayyub was born around 1137 to a Kurdish family; Salah ad-Din, Righteousness of the Faith, was an honorific. His father had helped the defeated army of the Mosul ruler Zengi escape across the Tigris, earning Zengi's lasting favour and a new post at Baalbek. Saladin grew up largely in Damascus, spoke Kurdish and Arabic, knew Turkish and Persian, and could recite a famous anthology of Arabic poetry by heart. He also knew the bloodlines of Arabian horses.
His career began under his uncle Shirkuh, a commander for the Syrian ruler Nur al-Din. In 1164 the two went to Fatimid Egypt to restore the ousted vizier Shawar, and a long struggle for control followed. After Shawar was killed and Shirkuh died in 1169, the young Fatimid caliph made Saladin vizier. When the caliph died in 1171, Saladin, a Sunni, abolished the Shia Fatimid Caliphate and aligned Egypt with the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad.
After Nur al-Din's death in 1174 he entered Damascus peacefully at its governor's invitation, then took Hama and Homs and defeated rival Zengid lords in 1175, when the Abbasid caliph proclaimed him Sultan of Egypt and Syria. The Assassins, an Ismaili sect, tried twice to kill him and failed. He captured Aleppo in 1182, though Mosul held out. At its height his Ayyubid realm reached from Nubia and Yemen to Upper Mesopotamia.
In 1187 his army crushed the Crusaders at Hattin and captured Jerusalem, a turning point even though the Crusader kingdom survived in reduced form until the late 13th century. He then faced the Third Crusade, including Richard the Lionheart. His piety had a hard edge: in 1191 he ordered the execution of the philosopher al-Suhrawardi for heresy. Saladin died in Damascus on 4 March 1193 and lies in a mausoleum beside the Umayyad Mosque; he is often called the most famous Kurd in history.
Source: Saladin
