The death of Sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin)

al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub — liberator of Jerusalem and hero of Hattin — died in Damascus, leaving of wealth only a single dinar and forty dirhams. The people wept for him a weeping the like of which had not been seen for any king before him.

Salah al-Din spent his life in jihad against the Crusaders and in uniting Egypt and Syria under a single banner, crowned by the victory of Hattin and the recovery of Jerusalem in 583 AH after ninety-one years of occupation.

After the Peace of Ramla that ended the Third Crusade, he returned to Damascus exhausted and fell ill with a severe fever that spared him only days. The shaykh Abu Jaʿfar was reciting the Qur'an beside him, and when he reached "He is Allah, besides whom there is no god," the historians say his face lit up and he surrendered his soul.

He died at dawn on Wednesday 27 Safar 589 AH (March 1193) at fifty-seven, leaving in his treasury only a dinar and forty dirhams, for he spent all he owned on jihad and charity. He was buried beside the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and his tomb is visited to this day.