The Book of Saladin by Tariq Ali

Author:Tariq Ali [Ali, Tariq]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781859842317
Publisher: Verso
Published: 1998-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

A traitor is executed; Usamah entertains the Sultan with lofty thoughts and lewd tales

TEN DAYS AFTER SHADHI’S death, Salah al-Din returned to Damascus. A courier had informed him of the event, and since receiving the news he had, uncharacteristically, not spoken to anyone after giving the orders to lift the siege and return home. He insisted on being completely alone when he stopped to pray at Shadhi’s grave before entering the citadel.

I was summoned to his chamber in the afternoon. To my amazement he hugged me and wept. When he had recovered his composure he spoke, but in a voice heavy with emotion and barely audible.

“One night during the siege the sky grew dark and it began to rain. As we covered our heads with blankets, several soldiers approached me holding a tall, dark man captive. The prisoner, who was groaning, had insisted on pleading his case before me. My men had little alternative but to agree to his request, since my battle orders are very firm on this question. Any prisoner condemned to death has the right to appeal directly to the Sultan. I asked them why they were intent on killing him. A short soldier, one of my best archers, replied: ‘Commander of the Brave, this man is a Believer. Yet he betrayed us to the enemy. If it were not for him we would have taken Reynald’s castle.’

“I looked at the prisoner, who stared down at the earth. The rain and the wind had stopped, but the evening was still black. No stars had appeared in the sky. I looked at his bloody, bearded face and became angry.

“‘You are an apostate, wretch. You betrayed the jihad, you betrayed your fellow-Believers to this devil, this butcher who has killed our men, women and children without mercy. You dare appeal to me for your life. By your actions you have forfeited my grace.’

“He remained silent. Once again I asked him to explain himself. He refused to speak. As the executioner was preparing the sword to decapitate him, the traitor whispered in my face: ‘At the exact moment that your swordsman removes my head from my body, someone very dear to you will also die.’

“I was enraged and walked away, refusing to dignify his death with my presence. I am told, Ibn Yakub, that Shadhi died that same evening, leaving us alone to count the empty days that lie ahead. He was more than a father to me. Long years ago he never left my side during a battle. It was as if I possessed two pairs of eyes. He guarded me like a lion. He was friend, adviser, mentor, someone who never shied from telling me the truth, regardless of whether or not it gave offence. Now he has fallen victim to death’s cruel arrow. Men like him are rare and irreplaceable. I wish we could bring him back to life with our tears.

“How had that blasphemer, punished before the eyes of Allah, known that Shadhi, too, would die?

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