HOW DID JERUSALEM FALL TO SALADIN?
After the Second Crusade’s failure, the Moslems grew ever stronger. King Baldwin III of Jerusalem was unequal to stopping the expansion of Sultan Nur-ad-Din. When in 1162, Baldwin III died, his throne went to his brother, Amalric I. He, too, could mainly watch as Nur-ad-Din strengthened his control of the Middle East. In 1169 A. D., Nur-ad-Din, heeding a call for help from the Fatimid caliph, a prisoner of his generals, sent Salah-ad-Din Yusuf, a promising young Kurd from Tikrit in what is now Iraq, at the head of an army to Egypt. Saladin, as the general is known, took control of that land as its vizier. After two years he abolished the Fatimid caliphate and founded a new dynasty in Egypt with himself as its first sultan. This dynasty is known as the Ayyubids after the name of Saladin’s birth clan. Sultan Saladin restored Egypt to the Sunni camp, where it has mostly stayed till now. When Nur-ad-Din died in 1174, Saladin began to take control of Syria. After a few years he ruled an emp
