The author is aware that the Battle of Hattin was an especially important event in the eventual re-conquest of the city of Jerusalem and as a result he gives the event its due. He provides a detailed account of Saladin's behavior and treatment of the crusaders in the wake of the battle. Perhaps most interesting is his description of Saladin's face as "shining with joy" as roughly seven hundred captive Christian knights were beheaded in front of him, on his orders, in the wake of victory at Hattin. Imad Al Din also provides useful and detailed overviews of Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem. His history of the fall of Jerusalem ends with Saladin's death. His work titled Lightning of Syria chronicles Saladin's life and deeds from 1175.
His works have a celebratory tone when writing of Saladin's victories and portrays them as the beginning of a new era for Islam. He describes Saladin only in the most glowing of terms. For example, he writes of Saladin:
victorious in his [Saladin's]decision, accompanied by victory, escorted by glory, He had tamed
the indomitable colt of his desires , and made fertile the meadow of his wealth. His hope had an
easy passage , his paths were fragrant, his gifts poured out, his sweetness perfumed the air, his
power was manifest, his authority supreme. (1)
Another interesting aspect of Imad al Din's account, also found in the account of Ibn al Athir, is his claim that Christian women fought in crusader armies. He notes:
Among the Franks there were indeed women who rode into battle with cuirasses and helmets,
dressed in men's clothes; who rode out into the thick of the fray and acted like brave men
although they were but tender women, maintaining that all this was an act of piety, thinking to
gain heavenly rewards by it, and making it their way of life. Praise be to him who led them into
such error and out of the paths of wisdom! On the day of battle more than one woman rode
out with them like a knight and showed (masculine) endurance in spite of the weakness (of her
sex); clothed only in a coat of mail they were not recognized as women until they had been
stripped of their arms. Some of them were discovered and sold as slaves.(2)
These claims are not always accepted by scholars as there are no crusader accounts that support the Muslim claims. Both sides in the crusades, Christian and Muslim, viewed women in combat as taboo, so it is unlikely that either army would have accepted their women as formal members of their armies. To the contrary, it would have been in the interests of Muslim chroniclers to portray Christian women as warriors as this would have been viewed as shameful to the Christian army. While it is likely that Christian women participated occasionally in various aspects of siege warfare, defending a town's walls for example, there is little reason to believe that Christian women participated in combat to the extent mentioned by Muslim chroniclers.
1. Francisco Gabrieli. Arab Historians of the Crusades.(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 146.
2. Francisco Gabrieli. Arab Historians of the Crusades.(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 207.