The document summarizes a battle where Saladin, then known as Yusuf Ayubb, defended the Zengid Mosque at Al Jibba from a raiding force of crusaders from Antioch. The crusaders charged rashly and broke ranks, ignoring their commander's tactics. Without cavalry support, the infantry were surrounded and defeated by Seljuq forces. The crusader knights fought to the death while their commander was taken prisoner. Yusuf Ayubb's victory earned him the title of "The Righteous Sword" and established his reputation that would later be known in the West as Saladin.

1. The
Zengid
Mosque
2012
a tale of the
East from
‘Bayko Baron’

2. • Built by the Seljuq
Atabeg Zengi, the
mosque at Al Jibba
is one of the newest
in Islam, but
already one of the
wealthiest

3. • The mosque draws praise but also envy – even now a raiding force of
Templar, Hospitallers and lay-knights out of Antioch approaches

4. • Forewarned Nureddin, the new atabeg of Aleppo has sent his
young protégé Yusuf Ayubb to defend the mosque and its
oasis

5. • As the raiders approach they find themselves engulfed in a horde of circling horse-
archers. The Templar commander, Arnauld de Graspillon forms his infantry in a human
wall around his precious horses – they must be saved for the decisive charge.

6. • Unused to eastern tactics, and holy orders discipline, the Antiochene knights, many of
them newly arrived from the west refuse to hide behind their social inferiors. They
break ranks and charge. His hand forced De Graspillon has no choice but to send his
own knights after them. In the face of the thundering knights the horse archers
disperse and even the Tarwashi lancers beyond fall back in retreat.

7. • Deserted by the cavalry the christian infantry are shortly surrounded and
charged down by the Seljuq ghulams.

8. • Meanwhile, their charge exhausted and their only tactic spent the crusader knights
are engulfed once more by the hated horse archers

9. • The Holy Order knights
fight to the death as
their monastic vows
require – De Graspillon
himself is unhorsed in
the last assault and
captured alive –
forbidden suicide by
his religion and ransom
by his Templar sttus
he will languish in a
Seljuq prison for
another 16 years
before being traded for
a saracen princess.
• Meanwhile the
ghulams hail the
victorius Yusuf Ayubb
as ‘The Righteous
Sword’
• Or as the West will
come to know him -
• SALADIN!

10. • A last glimpse of The Institute