The Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty ("line of rulers") rose to power in the 10th century, as the power of the Abbasid Caliphate fell. The first Ayyubid ruler was Saladin. He was greatly famous for taking back Jerusalem for the Muslims in the Siege of Jerusalem in 1187. His empire took over much of Syria and the Near East. In 1193, Saladin died and was buried in Damascus, where some of his soldiers then chose to live. The "Kurdish quarter" ("an area in the city") where these soldiers lived was a place where Kurdish language and culture was in existence into the 20th century. In the 11th century, Krak de Chevaliers, a castle ("military building made strong against attack") in the Alawite Mountains, was named "fortress of the Kurds" or "Castle of the Kurds".