Outside the citadel in Damascus, there is an equestrian statue of a man, his powerful horse rearing up triumphantly, while behind him his vanquished opponents sit dejected on the ground. The man is Salahadin, saviour of Jerusalem. Or is he history's murderous, narrow-eyed Saracen who defiled the True Cross, wrenched the Holy City from the Christians and destroyed their religious relics? Depends on which history book you read. Heroes come in many guises, their images sanctified, those of their enemies demonised.
It was Pope Urban II who, in 1095, urged all right-minded people to travel to Jerusalem, capture the city from the infidel, and make it the property of the Christian Church. The speech, as inflammatory as it was calculated, resulted in the capture of Jerusalem (El Kuds in Arabic) by the first Crusaders.
Purification
Eighty-eight years later, Salahadin fought for and won it back again after destroying the Christian army in battle on the rocky heights of Hittin in Palestine.
El Kuds is sacred to Islam and the ceremonial re-entry was preceded by purification ceremonies. The Christians had transformed the Dome of the Rock into a church, covering the rock itself with marble, at which pilgrims had chipped away to carry home pieces as relics. (The more pious pilgrims, when kissing the True Cross, managed to bite off splinters of to take back as souvenirs.) Salahadin ordered the marble to be removed and the Dome restored.
The Knights Templars had set up their headquarters in Al Aqsa mosque and stabled their horses there. It too was cleaned and then washed down with rose water. Eventually, everything was ready for the great day and on Friday, October 2nd, 1187, Salahadin, Sultan of Damascus, entered Jerusalem under his black banners and the city became Muslim once more.
Its recapture was a reasonably civilised event. A treaty was made whereby all Christians had to leave the city. The negotiated ransom was 220,000 dinars - a paltry sum compared with the value of the gold and damask in the coffers of the Latin Patriarch. (Part of the money came from Henry II's conscience money, paid to the Hospitallers following the murder of Thomas α Beckett.) Elderly Christians who were unable to pay were allowed to leave unharmed and the whole Christian population was evacuated over a period of 40 days.
Gifts to Byzantium
By way of celebration, Salahadin sent gifts to the Byzantine Church in Constantinople - elephants, arrows, horses - and a jar of poisoned wine for them to offer to any Crusaders who might be passing through.
The fall of Jerusalem caused consternation in England. Richard, son of our old friend Henry II and of his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, immediately levied a tax - the Salahadin tithe - and three years later sailed into Jaffa. Arab historians recorded the arrival of the tall, red-headed, 30-year-old King who was courageous, energetic and daring in battle - a fitting opponent, they felt, for Salahadin.
No mention was made of the fact that Richard the Lionheart was as likely to have a man as a woman in his bed (Philip of France was a regular overnight guest).
To the Crusaders, Salahadin was a bit of a mystery. He was an experienced and valiant campaigner, spoke three languages, could recite large tracts of Bedouin poetry, was a generous conqueror but - and here was the problem - he was a Kurd, a species rated lower even than the Arabs or the Turks. The only possible explanation was his parentage. The English felt he must have had an English mother while the French fantasised about a French grandmother. Dante found a place for him in La Divina Commedia. Salahadin was everyone's favourite infidel.
Richard the Lionheart failed to retake Jerusalem and his Third Crusade eventually fizzled out. He was captured on the way home and incarcerated for two years until his mother finally came to pay his ransom.
Family life
Salahadin withdrew to Damascus where he passed his last years enjoying family life. ( He had 17 sons, though of daughters we know little - a common enough omission by historians.)
Reading of all this in my now distant schooldays, I was always puzzled by the fact that I found the infidel with his dark eyes, gleaming scimitar and padded, arrow-proof waistcoat far more intriguing than Richard, whose chosen dress was a white pinny with a red cross on it. Now, of course, I know that the bad boys are always more fun.
Recently, returning to Damascus and going to have another look at the statue by the Souk al-Hamadiya, I checked out Salahadin's eyes. An astrologer had forecast that if he entered Jerusalem, he would lose the sight of one eye. But the crafty Kurd confounded them. Not only did he restore El Kuds to Islam, he managed to hold on to both his eyes.