Despite the inevitable fictionalization inherent in filmmaking, Kingdom of Heaven (2005) broadly portrays the complex interactions between the Crusader kingdoms and the Muslim polities, particularly the Ayyubids under Salahuddin al-Ayyubi (d. 1193), in Jerusalem. The film portrays Salahuddin (also known as the Just Sultan, Saladin, or the Soldan) as a chivalrous commander who, after defeating the armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, allows them safe passage back to Europe — a stark contrast to the Crusaders’ actions during their conquest of Jerusalem. Centuries later, Saladin’s legacy endured, even appearing in European literature. For instance, Dante (d. 1321) places Saladin alongside virtuous non-Christians such as Socrates, Plato, and Caesar in his Divine Comedy — a recognition transcending the non-Christian heritage Saladin claimed. While idealized, this portrayal echoes the historical view of Saladin as a just ruler. Polemical as it may sound, Saladin’s attitude and historically noted just statesmanship, I argue, is a projection of his deep-rooted familial background: a noble Kurdish origin from Dvin (Duin, or Dabil — now a historical site in Armenia), a crossroads of cultures, religions, and languages in the Caucasus.
(Source: the Ayyubids in late 12th century, Ro4444, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Long before Saladin, Dvin played a central role in the history of the Caucasus region. Founded by King Khosrav Kotak of Armenia in the fourth century, Dvin initially served as an administrative center for the Armenian polities. Later it became an administrative center under the Sassanids of Persia, the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantium), and finally the Islamic Caliphate, roughly from the late seventh century until the mid-tenth century. Although the city’s governors and administrators changed over time, Dvin remained the seat of the Armenian Catholicos — the head of the Armenian Church — until the late tenth century. Therefore, looking at Dvin microscopically sheds light not only on how the bureaucracy and administration of the Islamicate polities functioned, which followed the footsteps of previous polities that ruled this region, but also on the pluralism of the world from which Saladin’s family originated, as Dvin became a hub for cross-cultural and religious exchange.
(Source: Dvin at the crossroads of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Albania, HistoryofIran, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
This localized pluralism and administrative continuity in Dvin mirrored the broader dynamics in the Islamicate world — dynamics that would begin to fracture by the late tenth century. The late tenth century was a period of fragmentation for the Abbasid Caliphate. Once strong and prosperous, centered in Baghdad, a rival to the Byzantium, the Caliphate spanned its political authority from the Iberian Peninsula to India, from the west and to the east, respectively. By the mid-tenth century, the Caliphate had succumbed to internal conflicts and witnessed the rise of powerful military commanders acting independently of the caliphal center in Baghdad.
Naturally, Dvin was also affected by this fragmentation. For a brief period in the second half of the tenth century, the city came under the control of a family called the Sājids, who were placed in Dvin as representatives of the Caliphate’s administration there. Subsequently, however, various groups attempted to seize control of Dvin. These included the Kurdish Shaddādids (a polity roughly controlling parts of eastern Transcaucasia), Daylamite polities (originating from the region south of the Caspian Sea), and the Kurdish Rawwādids (a polity controlling parts of Azerbaijan, particularly Tabriz and its surroundings). Meanwhile, the Armenian Bagratuni kingdom, centered in Kars and Ani (in present-day Turkey) to the west of Dvin, also attempted to take control of the city, but without success.
(Source: Caucasia in late 10th century)
Dvin underwent further political change in the decades leading up to the 11th century. By the mid-11th century, the Seljuk Turks expanded their political authority from eastern Iran to the west, reaching the Caucasus, where Dvin was located. Their expansion continued, as they defeated the Byzantines and advanced into Asia Minor (roughly modern-day Turkey). Around this time, Saladin’s father, Najm al-Din Ayyub — reportedly born in Dvin — fled the region after the Seljuk takeover, eventually reaching Tikrit, Iraq. Later, he and his brother, Asad al-Din Shirkuh, served as military commanders under the Zangids — a Turkoman dynasty, initially serving the Seljuk Turks, but later acting independently of them.
(Source: The Seljuks in late 11th c.)
While Dvin maintained political importance from the fourth century through the Seljuk period, it also reflected the religious, demographic, and cultural diversity of the wider Caucasus. Contemporary geographers attested that the Caucasus region was linguistically so diverse, noting — perhaps with some exaggeration — that as many as 70 different languages were spoken there. Similarly, while preserving its Armenian-Christian identity, Dvin was also home to Jews, Muslims, and likely other religious groups that went unnoticed in the primary sources.
Demographically, the city mainly housed Armenians and Kurds, resulting in cultural admixture often through intermarriage. The Kurdish Shaddādids, who ruled roughly between the mid-tenth and late 11th centuries, intermarried with the Armenian Bagratuni nobility, occasionally giving their children Armenian names like Ashot alongside Arabic, Kurdish, or Persian ones. The poet Qaṭrān of Tabriz (d. 1088) recorded this blend in a poem about Shaddādid ruler Faḍlūn II, himself the offspring of such a marriage, calling him “the beacon of Shaddādid family and candle of the Bagratuni family” — the former family being known as Muslim, the latter as Christian.
Perhaps because of these increasingly intimate interactions between Armenians and Kurds, the Davit of Ganja, a notable 12th-century Albanian catholicos warned against intermarriage and close contact with Kurds in his penitential. This suggests that such intimate interactions were common, leading trained scholars like Davit to draw sharper lines between these groups, likely driven by both ethno-linguistic and religious grounds.
In closing, the world Saladin inherited was diverse and pluricentric, allowing space for coexistence across communities. In many cases, this diversity was both communal, as in Dvin, and personal, as seen in intergroup marriages between Armenians and Kurds. The intention here is neither to romanticize Saladin nor to suggest definitive claims about the origins of his legacy. Rather, the point is that his world, despite its political fragmentation, was a rich tapestry of civilizations, woven by various pasts and presents, much like the different colors in a slowly and patiently woven carpet.
About the author
Nurullah Hergul is a Ph.D. candidate in the history Department. He holds a B.A. in religious studies from Istanbul University in Turkey, and a master’s from Near Eastern languages and civilizations at Indiana University - Bloomington. His research broadly focuses on the social and political history of Kurdish dynasties in the Caucasus, Armenian Highlands, and Mesopotamia between the 9th and mid-13th centuries. In particular, he is interested in how the primary scholarship from and about the Middle Ages construct the group identity of those living in these regions.
