Likewise, they swore allegiance to him in Aleppo. Saladin then advanced from Egypt and took Damascus from him, so al-Ṣāliḥ withdrew to Aleppo. He was a young man—devout, upright, intelligent, strikingly handsome, and cherished alike by the populace and the amirs.

A fitnah soon flared up and, within Aleppo, strife broke out between the Sunnis and the Rāfiḍites. Sultan Saladin marched on the city and besieged it for a long spell, then pulled back; he returned and besieged it again, whereupon the defenders sued for peace and ceded to him Maʿarra and other districts. When he came against Aleppo a third time, its inhabitants exerted every effort on al-Ṣāliḥ’s behalf. When the sultan grew weary of the campaign, he concluded a truce and withdrew. They then brought out to him Nūr al-Dīn’s daughter, and he granted her the district of ʿAzāz (1). The day-to-day administration of Aleppo remained with al-Ṣāliḥ’s mother, with Shādhbakht the chamberlain, and with Ibn al-Qaysarānī.

Al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ was laid low by severe colic for fifteen days, and he died in Rajab of the year 577 AH; he was deeply mourned.

It is related that his physician offered him wine as a remedy, but he refused, saying, “Our Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said, ‘Allah has not placed the cure of my community in anything He has forbidden them (2).’ I would hate to die while it is still inside me.”