that he died in the immediate wake of his triumphs, but that had Richard lingered in Syria till Easter of 1193, as he had once threatened to do8 all of his work might well have been undone. As the same modern Arab scholar quoted above notes bluntly, "Saladin had the same immediate successor as all the great Muslim leaders of his time: civil war."9 It is true that had Richard remained in Syria, rival claimants for Saladin's dominions might not have had the luxury to fight one another. Nevertheless, we may fairly ask if any of them, or all in uneasy combination, could have stood up to Richard and the crusaders as Saladin had.
The irony is only increased by the circumstances of Richard's departure. He left Syria when he did because of growing anxiety about the condition of the Angevin territories, which he believed could no longer be left unattended.10 But as it turned out, his capture by Leopold of Austria would delay his return by a year, a year during which he was far more vulnerably politically and personally than he had bee
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