Saladin’s condolence letter to King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (1182)

Source : al-Qalqašandī: Kitāb Ṣubḥ al-aʿšā fī ṣināʿat al-inšāʾ, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Rasūl Ibrāhīm, 14 vols, Cairo: Maṭbaʿa al-amīriyya, 1913–1922, vol. 7, pp. 115–116, trans. Eric Böhme.

To: Baldwin IV (1174-1185)

Text

May God grant the praised king, the protector of Jerusalem (ḥāfiẓ bayt almaqdis), with ever-increasing happiness, joyful bliss, lavish prosperity, and lasting success. May He make him happy with the inherited rule over his people (mulk qawmihi mā wurriṯa). May He who guides him lead him to the good that time brings and brings about.

Our letter was sent to him after receipt of that news which has burdened the hearts of the sincere, the death notice from the herald who we wished was insincere in his speech concerning the righteous and most revered king (al-malik al-ʿādil al-aʿazz), to whom Allah has bestowed good like to no other of his kind. He bestowed his bliss upon the earth, just as He has bestowed his place upon it. May it [our letter] express the necessary measure of consolation as well as regret for his loss, through which the blows of fate are magnified.

Yet Allah, blessed be He, has mitigated the calamity by making His Son the heir (al-wāriṯ). He has made the misfortune forgotten by preserving his very origin through him. He has granted him two favours: kingship (mulk) and youth (šabāb). May He make pleasant to him what he has obtained and rain it on his father’s grave, to whom – if possible – redemption would be due.

It is incumbent upon the envoy (rasūl), the guiding leader (al-raʾīs al-ʿamīd) Muḫtār al-Dīn – may Allah perpetuate his prosperity – to offer consolation from his tongue in our stead and to describe the sadness that has seized us at the passing away of that friend and the emptiness in his place. How could the master
of a house not feel saddened at the departure of his neighbours?

We address the king with our letter, our request, and our affection, which is his inheritance deriving from our affection for his father. May he return the greeting in like manner. May he do good works to be among their followers [i.e. the righteous]. May he know that we are to him what we were to his father: unclouded affection, true profession of faith, love whose bond is firm in life and death, and a mind that judges with openness in this world, regardless of what contrasts (muḫālafāt) exist in religion (dīn).

Let him be completely at ease with us, confident and unafraid. Let him rely on us with the confidence of the son who took over from his father [not] the burdens that the latter had to bear. May Allah perpetuate his longevity, watch over his rule, make him succeed with benevolence and inspire him to trust the intentions of the Friend (ṣadīq).

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