In a translated Turkish book, edited by egyptian historians I have, Ive read that the purchase of mamluks didnt start by the Ayyubids until the reign of Al-Salih ibn Al-Kamil ibn Al-Adil ibn Salahuddin, Saladins great grandson, who widely introduced mamluks into military service and Khwarazmian cavalry after the defeat of the Khwarazmian Sultan by Gengiz Khan.

A few observations:

1) Saladin's helmet: Saladin was renouned and greatly respected for his humility and the simple life he lead. It therefore would be appropriate that his personal arms were simple and functional rather than austentatious.

2) Curved swords: in that period the swords used by the Muslim army were straight. Turkish curved swords came later (see below).

3) Mamluks: in Saladin's time the Muslim army was mainly composed of "Arabic" peoples, loosely defined -- Berbers, Arabs, probably Persians. The later Mamluks were Turkish slaves trained exclusively to fight, some say in emulation of the military monastic orders (never heard of the Nubian mamluks -- that is very interesting). Baibers, who finally drove the Europeans out of the Levant, was a Turk, but not a Kwarisman. The Kwarismanian turks were invited in to fight the Mongols, but got out of control and attacked Egypt and the Crusader states and were with difficulty defeated.

Errors and omissions are categorically denied, and if pointed out will be re-written to conform to the most recent with currrent official history, which itself will be rewritten or simply expunged to the extent that it varies from the canon noted above. Oink. :D

1. Humility?? I dont get it, what do you mean Mark?

2. Thats exactly what I was talking about on SFI, if you have the book "Islamic Swords and swordsmiths" see portraits 80,81,82,83. These are the swords of that time in Syria, but if you look closely at the swords in the movie (I watched it three times now :D ) some swords are straight, and some are curved sabers. Perhaps Ridley or his historical dept. wanted to show the transition from straight to curved swords during that period?? Anyway, I believe the swords in the movie were fine, at least none of those Sinbad scimitars!

3. You are absolutely correct, same thing in my book, during Baibar's time, the Khwarazmians he invited to stay in cairo and syria got out of control and started pillaging and burning the countryside, thus he had to send his personal Mamluk guards to stop the rebellion, they cut noses, tongues, ears and popped the eyes of the Khwarazmians to scare them into submission. I also never heard of Nubian Mamluks myself. The only Mamluks I heard of were Kipchaq Turks and then replaced by Circassians.

I meant that Saladin was respected not only because he kicked infidel butt, but also because he lead a simple life and did not create a cult of personality around himself as so many powerful rulers did (and still do). No harem, no huge ornate palace, no wild parties, no booze. I remember reading somewhere that he drank only water, and slept on a small cot or mat. Whether it was a put-on or not, it gave him a more spiritual air that was welcomed after the debauchery so common among the Egyptian (and probably other) Sultans. Hence he was seen not only as the restorer of Muslim power in the area, but of Islamic faith and culture in general.

Well yeah, he has no palaces in either Syria or Egyot that are attributed to him. Only a fortress in Northern Syria, and one in Egypt.

I've just seen Kingdom of Heaven as well. I enjoyed it. I agree there were errors, but I give Ridley Scott points for trying to be more accurate than his predecessors.

My understanding of Salahuddin's Armies is that the core would have been a mixture of Kurds, Turkish mamluks, Turcoman tribesmen, professional Turkish soldiers and Bedouin tribesmen. Something that didn't really come across in the film, where the 'Saracens' were represented as a fairly homogenous mass. However I feel that trying to explain the ethnic complexity of a Medieval Muslim Army to a modern multiplex audience would have been an instant 'turn-off'.

With regards to the use of Arabic by Salaheddin and his commanders, I believe that Salaheddin was a multilingual man: he would have spoken in Kurdish to his Kurdish troops, Turkish to his Turkish Emirs and Arabic to his Arab Imams and civil servants (who would have all been Syrian and Egyptian). But since the film was made in Arab country i think that is why he had to show Salaheddin speaking Arabic. To have him him speaking in Turkish or Kurdish, while more accurate, would have probably lead to effigies of Ridley Scott being burned on the streets of Cairo and Baghdad!

As for the armour and weapons, while some of it is anachronistic (the mail and plate armour worn by Alexander Siddiq looks 15th century rather than 12th) I give him credit for at least including genuine Islamic armour. In addition there is very little Islamic armour surviving from the 12th century anyway, so RS is entitled some artistic license. I also give him credit for having some of the Muslims wearing lamellar armour.

Overall I liked this film, it tried to stick to the main historical facts, although it did take liberties with the details, but that is unavoidable in a film.

K.O.H.
 

I just got back from viewing this film and the details that we notice will , of course go unnoticed by the uniniated .
I thought it was a terriffic film on the whole and despite the overabundance of Orlando Bloom these days , he did a workmanlike job in his role .

I thought the subject matter was handled quite well and equably ; I find Scott's films to be among the best cinematic offerings around these days .

I actually left the theater tired out by being swept up in the experience .

Can't wait for the DVD < rubs hands in anticipation > :D

I do not think that Saladin could speak Kurdish (although he was a kurd). His father died when he was in an early age, and he was sent from childhood to a Sunni Islamic religious school in Damascus. He lived all his life in Damascus, and died there. When I visited his tomb, I got goosebumps all along my spine, with a tingling feeling (unexplainable). He probably knew arabic and a little turkish (as turkish troops were gaining more attention rapidly in the region).

Actually, they say that the DVD will be 195 minutes long. Thats 50 minutes extra! I also had a feeling that there would be an extended DVD version since I got out of the cinema, because in the trailer, there were many scenes that werent shown in the movie.

Fifty more minutes ?!
Oboy !
< Rubs hands even harder>

I will bet you dollars to donuts that the first DVD of this film released will not be the extended version . :rolleyes:

I have been fooled a couple of times by this Hollywood distribution trick . :mad:

As usual :mad:

While it has been a long time since I read 'Saladin in His Time' by P.H. Newby, note to self, must re-read it :), i'm pretty sure Salaheddin was in his 20ies when his father died. Add to that he was from a large and clannish family, when his uncle Assad-ed-din Shirkuh was sent to Egypt by Nur-ed-din Mahmud the Emir of Damascus, Salaheddin accompanied him. I'm pretty sure he spoke to his uncle in Kurdish. he also had his brother and Nephews all appointed to prominant positions.

I agree with you about the Turkish though, Nur-ed-din Mahmud, Salaheddin's original sovereign and mentor was himself a Turk and most of the emirs in his armies and Saladin's own armies would have been Turks. I think knowing Turkish would have essential for a 12th century Muslim military commander.

You know you spoke of the feeling you got at Saladin's tomb .
Although I have never been to the Middle East . I have felt that same thing at St. Basil's in Moscow for some reason .

Gettysburg battlefield is like walking into a Van de Graff generator .
Even though we were not there when history was made the energy still lingers ,for me, in a palpable way .

Unfortunately, I can't find my books (so I have to apologize for not oftering references _yet_), so I have to rely on memory and Britannica:

Salahadin (himself a kurd) was from the family of atabegs - Turk-seljuk warlords, who were supposedly "protecting" Baghdad Caliphat. With time this family and its seljuk's was becoming more and more powerful.

In 1169 Salahadin marched into Cairo, slaughtered around 40,000 black mamluks (Nubians etc.), their families, disbanded other parts of Cairo garrison and replaced it with his seljuks.

Concerning Salahadin's "white" mamluks he was the first one to introduce them into Egypt. Till that time only seljuks used to purchase slave boys from Caucasus and Kipchak territories (eventually stretching from Khorezm to Hungary), and put them into service as "guard" units. With Salahadin this practise was greatly expanded, mostly through buying kipchaks from Cuman Kipchak regions (Modern Crimea and Ukraine) and northern caucasus kipchaks.

Concerning the languages he spoke - it's certain he did speak arabic, I did not see the movie, but it seems natural for him to use arabic as a diplomatic language.

Now concerning languages that were used by mamluks among themselves in general it was always their own language - turks spoke turkish dialects (kipchak), mongols I think spoke kipchak too,
georgians spoke kartli, adighas- adighe, other caucasians (armenians, chechens etc.) spoke usually adighe or kartli, depending on which one was dominant.

Concerning that only kipchaks and circassians were mamluks - Ali-Bey, Mehmed Beg and most of post XVII century mamluks were georgians (megrel tribe, western georgia), some of prominent mamluk leaders before were Mongol or Seljuk. It's important that in arabic literature word "cherkes" can mean anything from around Caucasus.

It's interesting that mamluks were so isolated in their national community that very often they did not develop any islamic identity (great example is Rustam's memoirs and to some extent famous correspendence of XIX century mamluks with russian tzar and georgian kings).

Empu Gandreng tempering (nyepuhan) with his lips on the red hot blade for the infamous keris of Ken Aroek. Sorry guys, can't show you Empu Nyi sombro doing nyepuhan with her lips. I'll get banned from this forum! :D
http://www.kampungnet.com.sg/albums/..._019.sized.jpg

STOP! STOP! Can someone please tell this Malay prince that a keris is NOT a stabbing weapon but a holy talisman?
http://www.kampungnet.com.sg/albums/..._062.sized.jpg

These are screenshots of some of the best Malay movies produced in Singapore in the 1960s. You can see the keris in its (Malay) cultural context. Check out others at www.kampungnet.com.sg

More to come...

Thanks for the pics Rahman. Interesting the completely wrong (to my understanding at least) grip and thrust used in the second pic. Feel free to send me that pic of empu Sombro in a private e-mail. ;)

No, there was no pic... just pulling your 'leg' :D

That grip in the second pic is not unusual, but you can also see the normal grip in other pics in our gallery.

The interesting thing is, I've been playing with the Jogja and Solo keris and I can easily pivot the hilt from a normal to a reverse grip as in the photo. But I can never do that with a Malay hilt. Guess there's still a lot more to learn... :)

On mamluks:
Here is the article of Bernard Lewis (very distinguished western scholar of Islam):
http://www.venusproject.com/ecs/Slav...ddle_East.html

See Chapter 9 for mamluks. Some quotes:
"Ahmad b. Tulun (d. 884), the first independent ruler of Muslim Egypt, relied very heavily on black slaves, probably Nubians, for his armed forces; at his death he is said to have left, among other possessions, twenty-four thousand white mamluks and forty-five thousand blacks."

"In 1169 Saladin learned of a plot by the caliph's chief black eunuch to remove him, allegedly in collusion with the Crusaders in Palestine. Saladin acted swiftly; the offender was seized and decapitated and replaced in his office by a white eunuch. The other black eunuchs of the caliph's palace were also dismissed. The black troops in Cairo were infuriated by this summary execution of one whom they regarded as their spokesman and defender. Moved, according to a chronicler, by "racial solidarity" (jinsiyya), they prepared for battle. In two hot August days, an estimated fifty thousand blacks fought against Saladin's army in the area between the two palaces, of the caliph and the vizier."

P.S. I really doubt that there were any significant numbers of arabs in Salahadin's forces.

But most of Saladins armies came from Cairo and Damascus, and Turkish troops werent that common in Saladins time. The only mamluks in Saladins army were his personal bodyguards. The rest of the army mainly came from barracks in Damascus, Aleppo and Cairo, all arab cities.

Arab cities does not mean arab armies (the cities always remained arab, even under mamluk sultanate).

Most of the western sources seem to refer to him as "seljuk" leader, de-facto conquering Egypt from local rulers. While there can be some misunderstanding of this on my part, and to be honest - I've never seen an exact and detailed description of Salahadin's army (and among people I asked - no one seems to be able to quote one), so I personally believe that one should rely on indirect things, like the quote above - 50,000 Nubian slave (mamluk) soldiers of Cairo garrison seem to contradict "The only mamluks in Saladins army were his personal bodyguards. The rest of the army mainly came from barracks in Damascus, Aleppo and Cairo, all arab cities".

Nowhere have I read that the Seljuks were ever the de-facto rulers of those cities, they were only the De-facto rulers of Baghdad. The Nubian slave guards were not called mamluks. These were simply called guards, mainly used for garrisons and were mostly infantry, the real mamluks were the turkish slave horsemen. There is an excellent book entitled "Mamluks" by Al-Baz Al Areeni, I believe translated into arabic from turkish, contains info from more that 20 arab sources (even primary) and more than 30 european sources. It contains info from the beginning of the mamluks, until their end in 1517, covers everything, from daily life, to food, to the barracks they lived in, to the time when the mamluks graduate from the tibaq as professional 'fursan'. No where does he include nubian guards as mamluks, yes they are mentioned, and mentioned alot, along with khwarazmians, but not as mamluks.

Many Islamic states used slave warriors or mamluks from very early on. The 'Abbassid Khalifas were using Turkish mamluks in the 9th century, Ahmad ibn Tulun was himself the son of a Turkish mamluk. Nur-ed-din Mahmud's father Emad-ed-din zenki was originally a mamluk in the Seljuq army. However these mamluks were usually relatively few in number and acted as a body guard to the ruler. The exception was the Fatimids who had large numbers of Nubian slave infantrymen and the later Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. Salaheddin had a bodyguard of several hundred mamluks called the halaqa, i.e. ring.

The rest of Salaheddin's army was a mixture. he disbanded most of the old Fatimid army after he seized power in Egypt because their loyalty to him was suspect. His light cavalry would have been made of up Turcoman horse-archers who had settled in Syria and Northern Iraq. His heavy cavalry was made up of Kurds, free Turks who had settled in the cities of syria and Northern Iraq for one or two generations, sons of mamluks and a small number of Arabs from the bedouin tribes of Syria, Palestine and Egypt. he would have had some Arab heavy infantry from the Syrian cities as well as bedouin infantry.

With regards to weapons, both straight swords and curved sabres were used. The Arabs and Kurds fought in the traditional way with sword and lance, they used straight swords. Troops of Turkish origin prefered curved sabres. there is a straight sword in the Topqapi Museum in Istanbul which is attributed to Salaheddin Yusef ibn Ayyub. The Topqapi Museum also has several Mamluk swords from the 14th and 15th centuries which are also straight. Arab miniature paintings and Coptic bibles from the 12th and 13th centuries invariably show straight swords with downcurved quillons and spherical pommels.

The film interestingly shows Salaheddin using a sword with a divided point. One of the Prophet's Muhammad's swords was also said to have had a bifurcated point. Salaheddin was undoubtedly a very pious Muslim (of the old-fashioned tolerant kind, not like a modern wahabi), but I have no idea if he would have gone as far as using a sword modelled on the Prophet's. Finally Salaheddin is often described as wearing a mail-lined kazaghand and a mail coif over which he wore a yellow skullcap and a white head cloth. But he may have worn more elaborate armour on certain occasions.

Saladins sword! Ive never heard of such thing, in Dr.Uncal Yuncel's book, there is a sword in Topkapi attributed to Najmadeen Ayyub, Saladins father, but he clearly states that there is no sword attributed to saladin is in the sarai.

In this pic, posted I believe by eftihis some months ago, the middle saber is typical turkish, while the rest of the swords are arab syrian.

I stand corrected. please excuse my rusty memory. In my defense I will say that it has been a long time since I read up on this stuff! I also don't have Dr Yuncel's book. :)

In his 'Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era, 1050-1350: Islam, Eastern Europe and Asia Vol 2', David Nicolle refers to a sword from the Army Museum in Istanbul which is attributed to Salaheddin. Nicolle himself however has doubts about this saying he believes it is actually 13th or 14th century. It is a straight sword by the way.

I knew I had read something somewhere about a 'Sword of Saladin' in Istanbul! :D

BTW I don't really recommend the book, it was a disappointment. No photos at all, just line drawings.

I just saw Kingdom of Heaven together with a friend of mine who is a maven of all things European medieval (clothings, material artefacts etc).
He loved this movie because the Crusader stuff looked quite authentic.
I found the swords being more or less in accord with what I know about Islamic armies of the time.
Otherwise, this movie is a pure and unadulterated junk. There is no plausible story that binds the plot together (there is no plot as such ...), the characters are unexplainable and do not develop at all and the entire 2 h 25 min enterprise plods thru with as much excitement as one can get driving slowly over a speed bump.
If you, guys, want to see a lot of Islamic-looking weapon props, - plunk $8.50 and buy a ticket.
If you are expecting a semblance of an intelligent and fascinating story of the Crusade era, rent yourself "Robin Hood" ( either the Kevin Costner's one or the cartoon version from Disney). Compared to the Kingdom of Heaven, these two are truly Shakesperean.....

Ooh, thats a bit harsh.

Mind you, I've had few weeks to think think things over and look some things up, mainly in 'Saladin in his Time' by PH Newby and Hattin 1187 by david Nicolle, the only 2 books I have to hand at the moment.

Ridley Scott has taken bigger liberties with history than I thought. Salaheddin's Army at Hattin and Jerusalem was about 45,000 men, not 200,000. For some reason Count Raymond of Tripoli has become 'Tiberias' in the film (although he did have a castle at lake Tiberias), and Balian of Ibelin, who was a real person BTW, was at the battle of Hattin and was captured by Salaheddin. he was released after promising never to take up arms against Salaheddin again. A promise he broke by commanding the defenders at Jerusalem.

The other thing that irritated me is that Salaheddin's generals don't have names, you just have 'the hardliner' acted by Khaled En-Nabawy and 'the moderate' acted by Alexander Siddiq. I think these are meant to represent Salaheddin's 2 main commanders at Hattin. His nephew Taqi-ed-Din and Muzaffar-ed-Din Goqbori. The scenes showing Muslims praying are also wrong as they are all spaced out. Finally when Salaheddin is reciting the 'Fatiha' over the Muslim dead, it was edited in a way that most pious muslims would find rather blasphmemous.

Saying all that, I still liked this film. :D

Yeah, the army was probably no more than 45,000 men. Some sources say that balian was captured and released on the condition of never carrying arms against muslims again, but when he reached Jerusalem, the people begged him to defend them, and he wrote to saladin about that, and to Saladins chivalry, he allowed him to break his promise. Other sources say that he escaped from the field (fled in reality :D ) and ran away to Jerusalem.

But then, this movie isnt supposed to be a documentary, just a good movie.

Agreed
 

" But then, this movie isnt supposed to be a documentary, just a good movie. "

And Scott makes some of the best Eye Candy ; The Duellists is like a animated oil painting .

david Nicolle was bit confusing. he mentioned at one point that Balian was captured and at another that he managed to escape near the end of the battle, without ever mentioning that there were two versions. I need the rest of my books!

Nicolle did say that Balian was absolved of his oath to Salaheddin by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Although, to be fair to Scott, he did portray the patriarch as a treacherous b*st*rd.

Going back to the subject of weapons and armour for a bit, I've just remembered that the film showed some knights wearing closed helms (The scene when they try to kill Balian at his estate). I was wondering, considering that this film takes place around the year 1187, what is the earliest that great helms show up in European art?