SOURCE: “The Achievement of Saladin” in Studies in the Civilization of Islam, edited by Stanford J. Shaw and William R. Polk, Princeton University Press, 1962, pp. 91–107.

In the following essay, Gibb assesses the motivation behind Saladin's achievements and addresses the theory that his successes were the result of his personal ambition and his exploitation of religious sentiments. Gibb maintains that Saladin's successes were the result of his “unselfishness, his humility and generosity, [and his moral vindication of Islam.”]

In the effort to penetrate behind the external history of a person whose reputation rests upon some military achievement, the modern tendency is to analyse the complex of circumstances within which he acted, with the sometimes explicit suggestion that the individual is rather the creature than the creator of his circumstances, or, more justly, that his achievement is to be explained by a harmonious adjustment of his genius to the conditions...