Page 4 - Devastates Saladin News Today

>> so the person who tried to negotiate for peace was the brother of saladin. the name of saladins brother is al adil. >> al adil is also known as saphadin to the crusaders. by all accounts, he is equally skilled as saladin, but hes his younger brother, so he had fewer opportunities to show that. >> saphadin is a man of courtesy, of culture. he enjoys talking with richard about music, about singing, about hunting. its part of a positive relationship thats formed between the two of them. and in t...

He was a general, a brutal general. thats what saladin was. >> saladin uses both diplomacy and violence to forge his empire. and as he prepares to finally attack jerusalem, the crusader kingdom is in turmoil. >> the politics of the kingdom of jerusalem are horrendously complicated. we have different factions. we have vendettas. we have warring families. its a little bit like "the godfather," an episode of "game of thrones," and even an easter mass all rolled into one. >> and a new ruler has just...

Richard had to rush back to england to rescue his kingdom. but finally, in 1197, in the middle of a battle, he was hit by an arrow in his chest and was ultimately killed. richard was a great king who lived by the sword and died by the sword. >> at the end of the third crusade, saladin is able to return to damascus where he is given a heros welcome. but he has spent years and years fighting, physically and mentally, he is shattered. and just six or seven months after richard has gone home, saladi...

>> as the crusaders set out, saladin is very well prepared. he has a huge army. he has a lot of water. he has a lot of military supplies. and he also takes the precaution of spoiling the wells that are on the route. >> this was july, so very hot in northern palestine, very dry. saladin ordered his men to burn the dry grass, and the wind was blowing westward, so all the smoke and the heat went the direction of the crusader army. >> thus causing them to choke, to swelter, to suffer even more. to a...

Further south and try to take all the coastal cities because in this way, he can block jerusalem from any kind of serious enforcement from the west. >> as richard the lionheart and his army moves down the coast, saladin loses battle after battle after battle. >> a great lethal warrior, sort of scattering people in front of him. for saladin. >> its another setback, another humiliation. >> you can imagine a man whos used to winning victory after victory now finding himself losing, and not only los...

Indulgences are something that forgives your sins on earth. and so for many, this became an important piece of why they went on crusades. it was like, lets go take back the holy land, the land that jesus walked on. and secondarily, i can get all of my sins forgiven. >> richard descends on acre with 8,000 soldiers. he seizes control of king guys army and launches the third crusade. >> richard the lionheart is an impatient man. he is not just going to hold the city under siege and wait for the peo...

And so, his family descends in to internal warfare. when saladin dies, muslim unity dies with him. >> i dont think the struggle between saladin and richard was ever a personal struggle. it was always a struggle for what jerusalem represents and what also the role as would-be liberators of jerusalem entailed. >> his want to liberate jerusalem came from the idea of controlling the holy sight, or control of the rock, would move islam forward. >> the legacy of the crusades and jerusalem among the ar...

>> one of the challenges that richard and his army faced was the fact that jerusalem had these big defensive walls, and the only way to get through it was to attack it with their siege engines. it worked at acre, but if they destroy the walls of jerusalem, whos going to defend it? richard recognizes that it may not be in the best interest to simply bust through the gates and tear down the city walls. >> so richard surprises saladin by wielding a new weapon, diplomacy. >> richard sent the message...

Anniversary of the prophet muhammads night journey into jerusalem. >> but at the moment that saladin emerges victorious at the battle at the horns of ha teen, anyone living in the city of jerusalem must have feared for their lives because throughout the period of the crusades, there had been a number of sieges, battles, and even mass slaughters. so there was definitely fear of retribution and that any transfer of the city from one power to the other would be accompanied by mass bloodshed. >> the...

Desperate efforts to break into acre to relieve the siege. hes leading from the front, but he is unable to break through into acre. >> the result of the battle of acre is that rich the lionheart does something that no one else has been able to do. he hands saladin his first loss at the hands of crusaders. saladin is forced to retreat, and now the crusaders, after almost being wiped out of the holy land, are now reconstituted, re-energized, reinvigorated, and now theyre ready to recapture jerusal...