Jerusalem: The Biography

Maimonides refused to treat the Crusader king, probably a shrewd move since he had only recently arrived in Fatimid Egypt, where the alliance with Jerusalem was short-lived. Maimonides was a refugee from Muslim persecution in Spain, where the golden age of Jewish–Muslim civilization was very much over. It was now split between aggressive Christian kingdoms in the north, and the Muslim south, which had been conquered by fanatical Berber tribesmen, the Almohads. They had offered Jews the choice of conversion or death. Young Maimonides pretended to convert but in 1165, he escaped and set off on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On 14 October, during Tishri, the month of the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement, a favourite season for pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Maimonides stood on the Mount of Olives with his brother and father. There he first set eyes on the mountain of the Jewish Temple, and ritually rent his garments – he later specified exactly how much tearing (and later restitching) should be practised by the Jewish pilgrim and when it should be done.

Entering the city through the eastern Jehoshaphat Gate, he found a Christian Jerusalem from which Jews were still officially banned – though there were actually four Jewish dyers living near the Tower of David, under royal protection.^* ruins, its sanctity endures’. Then ‘I entered the great and holy temple and prayed.’ It sounds as if he was allowed to pray at the Rock in the Temple^* of the Lord (just as Muslims such as Usamah bin Munqidh had been), though he later forbade any visit to the Temple Mount, a rule still obeyed by some Orthodox Jews.

Afterwards, he settled in Egypt where, known to the Arabs as Musa ibn Maymun, he won fame as a polymathic scholar, producing works on subjects varying from medicine to Jewish law, among them the masterpiece The Guide for the Perplexed, which wove together philosophy, religion and science; he also served as royal doctor. But Egypt was in chaos as Amaury and Nur al-Din fought for supremacy over the beleaguered Fatimid caliphate. Amaury was tireless – but unlucky.

In 1169, the master of Syria, Nur al-Din completed the encirclement of Jerusalem when his amir Shirkuh won the Battle of Egypt. Shirkuh was aided by his young nephew: Saladin. When the obese Shirkuh died in 1171, Saladin took over Egypt for himself, appointing Maimonides as Rais al-Yahud, Chief of the Jews – and his personal physician. Back in Jerusalem, the plight of the royal heir placed medicine centre-stage.¹⁰

THE LEPER-KING

1174–87

WILLIAM OF TYRE: THE ROYAL TUTOR

King Amaury appointed William of Tyre as tutor to his son, Baldwin. William adored the prince:

The boy, then about nine, was committed to my care to be instructed in liberal studies. I devoted myself to my royal pupil. He was comely of appearance and continued to make progress in pursuit of letters and gave ever-increasing promise of developing a loveable disposition. He was an excellent horseman. His intellect was keen. He had a retentive memory.

‘Like his father,’ added William, ‘he eagerly listened to history and was well-disposed to follow good advice’ – William’s advice no doubt. The boy was playful and that was how his tutor discovered his plight.

He was playing with his companions when they began, as playful boys often do, to pinch each other’s arms and hands with their nails. But Baldwin endured it altogether too patiently as if he felt nothing. After this had occurred several times, it was reported to me. When I called him, I discovered that his right arm and hand were particularly numb. I began to be uneasy. The lad’s father [the king] was informed, physicians consulted. In the process of time, we recognized the early symptoms. It is impossible to refrain from tears.¹¹

THE DISEASE OF BALDWIN IV

William’s delightful pupil was a leper^* – and the heir to an embattled kingdom. On 15 May 1174, the strongman of Syria and Egypt, master-mind of the new jihad, Nur al-Din, died. Even William admired him as a ‘just prince and a religious man’.

King Amaury sped north to exploit Nur al-Din’s death, but on 11 July, he caught dysentery. He was just thirty-eight but, as Arab and Frankish doctors argued about remedies, he died in Jerusalem. The ‘loveable’ new king Baldwin IV excelled at his studies with William, but he had to endure a variety of treatments – blood-lettings, oil-rubs in ‘saracenic ointment’ and enemas. His health was supervised by an Arab doctor, Abu Sulayman Dawud, whose brother taught Baldwin to ride with one hand as the disease advanced.