The Salah El-Din Castle is located on

Pharaoh's Island Pharaoh's Island ( ar, جزيرة فرعون ''Jazīrat Fir‘aun''), whose current popular name is Coral Island, is a small island in the northern Gulf of Aqaba some east off the shore of Egypt's eastern Sinai Peninsula. Some scholars identif ...

in northwestern tip of the

Gulf of Aqaba The Gulf of Aqaba ( ar, خَلِيجُ ٱلْعَقَبَةِ, Khalīj al-ʿAqabah) or Gulf of Eilat ( he, מפרץ אילת, Mifrátz Eilát) is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

.Said Aly ''Sinai, the meaning and importance'' The castle is composed from two parts (Northern and Southern).

History

It has been claimed that this was built by Baldwin I, who was the

King of Jerusalem The King of Jerusalem was the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Crusader state founded in Jerusalem by the Latin Catholic leaders of the First Crusade, when the city was conquered in 1099. Godfrey of Bouillon, the first ruler of t ...

, in 1116 AD because the island was situated on a place of strategical importance: in the crossroads of trade and

pilgrim A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the adherent of ...

routes from Egypt (Sinai) and

Syro-Palestine The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...

to the

Arab Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...

with holy

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...

. The Crusaders allegedly pursued two objectives: for one thing, to defend southeastern corner of the

Kingdom of Jerusalem The Kingdom of Jerusalem ( la, Regnum Hierosolymitanum; fro, Roiaume de Jherusalem), officially known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Frankish Kingdom of Palestine,Example (title of works): was a Crusader state that was establish ...

against its Muslim neighbours, for another, to exact a ransom from the passing Muslim pilgrims. Location of the castle was easily defendable on high ground, in the narrowest part on the Gulf of Aqaba. According to Prof Adrian Boas there is, however, no evidence of Frankish occupation of the island. Fulcher of Chartres mentions that when King Baldwin travelled down to the city of Elim (Ailah), the locals fled to the island by boat, but he does not describe the Franks pursuing them or taking the island.Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem 1095-1127, trans. F.R. Ryan. New York, 1969, II.56, pp. 215-16. The castles played a major rule in the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...

Mamluk Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...

and Ottoman eras. A battle allegedly took place on the island in about 1170 where the fortress was captured by Salah El-Din, who largely expanded the fortress. It unclear who he captured it from, however, and there are no records of a Frankish garrison being present. After that period the Mamelukes and Ottomans had some further additions to the fortress. The fortress has many small rooms, which include sleeping quarters for troops, bathhouses, and kitchens with huge ovens. There are towers for pigeons, which were used for relaying messages and also circular towers for archers.

References

{{Egypt-struct-stub Castles in Egypt