SOURCE: “The Structure of Politics in the Reign of Saladin” in From Saladin to the Mongols: Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193–1260, State University of New Yirk Press Albany, 1977, pp. 15–39, 414–21.

In the following essay, Humphreys analyzes the political structure under which Saladin operated and discusses the ways in which he adapted this structure and established his authority. Humphreys emphasizes the system of loyalties cultivated by Saladin, and observes that such a system could not be sustained after his death. But overall, the political system that was prevalent during Saladin's reign “gave his immediate successors a framework of attitudes and behavior within which to define their own policies and goods.”

Saladin's legacy to his heirs was not merely a mass of territories brought together by force and diplomacy. It was a functioning political system—a structure of expectations, rights, and duties within which men sought power and influence. This political system had...