Rulers · a Light

Salah ad-Din died owning one gold piece and no property

Salah ad-Din died in Damascus on 4 March 1193, in his mid fifties, after a fever of about two weeks. He had ruled Egypt and Syria and had commanded armies for twenty years. His secretary and biographer Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad, who was present, records that when the estate was counted there were 47 silver dirhams and one piece of gold in the treasury, and that he owned no house, no garden, no village and no farm. There was not enough money on hand to pay for the funeral, and the sum had to be borrowed. His tomb, a modest chamber next to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, can still be visited.

Damascus · 4 March 1193