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Originally Posted by M.carter
I do certainly believe that there were some turkish elements in saladin's army, but regarding the mamluks, I still stand to my point that these were only a few, and were employed as Saladin's personal guard. I mean, logically, why would Saladin, in Egypt or southern Syria, go all the way to far eastern anatolia to recruit soldiers, when he certainly had a lot of them in the lands he was in, the caliph certainly could send him some troops. Yes, there was certainly turkish soldiers in saladins army other than mamluks, I believe mainly baltajis, but most of it i believe would be consisted of arabs. Saying that his armies were only made up of turks sounds very illogical.
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I don't think anyone is saying that Salaheddin's army was exclusively Turkish, but Turks would have been in the majority. In the 12th century there were Turks settled in Syria and Iraq. Futhermore he wouldn't have needed to go to eastern Anatolia to purchase Turkish slaves, they were easily available in the slave markets of Cairo, Damascus and Aleppo.
Finally were would Salaheddin have got all these Arab soldiers from? A 12th century Muslim ruler would not have considered the urban population of Cairo or Damascus or the
fellahin of the countryside soldierly material. These cities did have a military class of Turkish and Kurdish origin whose family business had been soldiering for several generations. Salaheddin himself was one of these. His father Ayyub, his uncle Shirkuh, his brothers Abu-bakr and Turan-Shah were all soldiers. If Salaheddin had not become Sultan, doubtless his children would also have soldiers.