By the late 1180s he had pieced together a realm in which much of Syria and all of Egypt were joined under his personal rule. The Abbasid caliph recognized him as a sultan. His family took plum positions in government. And as he grew in stature, Saladin began to present himself as the savior of Islam itself: a jihadi warrior who was fighting not for personal gain but for the benefit of Muslims everywhere. In large part this was to distract from the fact that Saladin actually spent many years of his life fighting and killing fellow Muslims.
