Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols (10 page)

It is important to note that two of the four strongholds,
and
, were built on sites that did not have remains of earlier fortresses, whereas
and Mount Tabor were partially fortified, although both of them are essentially Ayyubid fortifications.
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The sites of those fotresses, their size and plan, were decided according to the immediate threats and problems that troubled the region, the needs of the local population, or, in the case of
, the safety of pilgrim and merchant caravans whose safety was the concern of the sultan.
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Another issue that will be emphasized is the ownership and building initiation of fortress construction during the Ayyubid period. As opposed to the Franks, some of whose early fortresses were built and owned by wealthy agricultural landlords who formed part of the Kingdom’s nobility,
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none of the above Ayyubid fortresses were built by families of high standing. Most of the construction was initiated by the Sultan or by one of the high ranking Ayyubid princes or amirs.

The ole of fortresses in the Ayyubid period

Several scholars have noted that the development of fortresses is a close and ongoing dialogue between siege warfare and the various methods of defense,
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both of which were constantly advancing during the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth centuries.

Ayyubid military architecture is no exception to this rule. It developed and responded according to advances in the field of siege warfare made by their immediate enemies. At the same time, it seems that the whole Ayyubid approach and attitude to frontier and rural fortifications was different in many ways from that imported by the Crusaders from Europe, further developed by the Franks and later adapted by the Mamluks.

The dependence of the Crusader kingdom on its castle garrisons, during this period and especially in the thirteenth century is well described by Marshall:

The Latin states ere able to defend their territories against external threat and civil disorder by means of the army and the strong point. The dependence of the kingdom’s troops on the fortified sites is striking … Most of the available soldiers, rather, were dispersed among a series of individual garrisons … The relationship of a garrison to its strongpoint thus provided the basis of the kingdom’s military strategy and a framework for much of the military history of the period.
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Fortifications were regarded by the Franks as essential to the existence and safety of their kingdom, and fulfilled both military and civil functions. Rural and frontier fortresses did not play the same role or receive the same attention or priority among the Ayyubid Sultans and political and military nobility. Their pat in Ayyubid military array seems to have been less significant to the defense of the Sultanate in comparison
with the role assigned to fortifications by the Franks and later by the Mamluks. This may have stemmed partly from the lack of strong central government throughout most of the Ayyubid period, or the want of adequate funds to build, man, supply and run a large number of fortresses.
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The rather loose military organization of the Ayyubid forces, and their ability to summon field armies did not create a dependence on castle garrisons. On the whole they did not suffer from the shortage of manpower which became an acute and perpetual problem in the Crusader kingdom. Ayyubid armies recruited Türkmen, Kurds and small contingents of Bedouins.
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The fact that the core of the Ayyubid armies was composed of military slaves purchased and trained by the Sultan meant that the army (theoretically) could be enlarged according to the Sultan’s needs and depending on the balance of his treasury.

The structure of the army and its composition may have had a strong influence on their relatively limited use of fortifications and the design of fortresses in the region under discussion. Ayyubid armies were light and mobile: based on mounted archers accompanied by trained infantry. The military supremacy of the Ayyubids during the reign of
enabled them to bring military confrontations to the threshold of their opponents’ castles or to the open field, rather than enclosing themselves in fortresses or using their fortresses as logistic centers or for retreating in the face of a stronger enemy. Although the idea of fortifications was not strange to them, they did not rely upon fortresses for the safety and defense of the Sultanate and did not see them as a necessity.

Furthermore, rural and frontier fortresses in the Ayyubid sultanate do not appear to have served as official centers of administration as they often did in the Crusader kingdom. This function seems to have been reserved for the central cities. To a large extent they also diverged from the Mamluk sultanate perception of the role of fortresses. In rural districts such as Safad, Karak or the coastal plains in the case of Qāqūn, Mamluk fortresses became centers for the local population.
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Both the governor responsible for civil and bureaucratic affairs and the citadel governor who saw to the military concerns of the fortress and the region were nominated by the Mamluk Sultan in Cairo and were often chosen from among his personal Mamluks. During the Ayyubid period, in small towns both positions were occasionally held by one
nā’ib
(governor); in 583/1187 Mujāhid al-Dīn Qāymaz al-Zaynī, one of
most trusted amirs, was appointed to be the governor of both the town and the citadel of Tiberias.
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The Mamluk Sultans, however, maintained a strict and clearcut differentiation between civil and military tasks, in order to reduce the possibility of amirs turning a fortress into the center of a military uprising. One of the important and positive aspects of this Mamluk decree was that it enabled each
nā’ib
to pay full attention to his particular tasks, whether military or civil.

Changes in the dialogue between siege warfare and defense

A combination of different factors dictated the geographical distribution, the number of fortresses the Ayyubids built, and the nature of Ayyubid military architecture: the balance of power between the Franks and the Ayyubids, the different methods of warfare, the structure of the two armies and their preferences as to the type of military
confrontation. Although these factors contributed to the development of Ayyubid fortresses, it was the gradual shift in siege warfare capabilities among the Ayyubids and the Crusaders that had the greatest influence on Ayyubid military architecture. Much importance has been attributed to the use of the counterweight trebuchet in defense of fortresses and its influence on Muslim military architecture in the late Ayyubid and early Mamluk periods. Some scholars tend to ascribe the developments and changes in Ayyubid and Mamluk fortresses almost solely to the increase in use of this siege machine.

To avert the danger posed by the counterweight trebuchet
devised new fortifications that utilized gravity-powered artillery for defense. Optimal use of the new artillery required that the machines be mounted on the platforms of towers in order to prevent the enemy artillery from coming within effective range. … As a result, towers became larger in order to accommodate counterweight trebuchets … Walls were thickened in order to offer more resistance to bombardment. The counterweight trebuchet had rendered the passive system of defense obsolete.
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