Then, and mount a charge on jerusalem. without acre, they really had very little hope of doing it. learning of the attack, saladin marches the full might of his army to acre. but what saladin is not counting on is european crusaders on ships coming towards him in droves, with one of those soldiers being one of the most ferocious warriors of all time richard the lionheart. king richard i of england may very well be the polar opposite of saladin. he kills and leaves the dead bodies around so that other people are afraid of him. he s fearless.
with richard s merciless message sent, he turns his full attention to jerusalem. richard realized that his best bet to build an attack against jerusalem is to march 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. this is richard as a great lethal warrior, sort of scattering people in front of him. for saladin, it s yet another setback, another humiliation. you can imagine a man who s used to winning victory after victory now finding himself losing, and not only losing but losing to this small ragtag army of crusaders.
But he sees it, it s the only realistic option. richard retreats to acre to begin the long voyage home, leaving the crusaders who remain in the holy land leaderless. so saladin took advantage of that. and when richard has to go back to england, saladin realized that was the time to strike and to launch an attack. saladin goes down to jaffa and besieges it. when king richard hears jaffa is under siege, he decides he must immediately return to the holy land once more. and the garrison are on the point of surrender when richard appears in a very sort of action figure way, jumps off his boat, wades ashore.
Islam forward. the legacy of the crusades and jerusalem among the arabs in general is a horrible, horrible legacy. we have the way a european would remember it as a chapter of medieval europe, and there is also the way the arab or the muslim remembers it as a form of premodern colonial attack and occupation. jerusalem is a site that believers fought over whether those believers have been muslim or christian for years, because they believe that holding that land is important to their faith. if you are a believer, you believe absolutely your faith is the truth. so that s why in the case of jerusalem as holy city, people are absolutist. it s the only city on earth that exists on heaven and earth. it exists twice.
You have the way a european would remember it as chapter of europe and there s a way that the muslim remembers it as a form of premodern colonial attack and occupation. jerusalem is a site that believers have been fighting over for years whether they are muslim or christian. they believe holding that land is important to their faith. if you are a believer, you believe absolutely that your faith is the truth. so, that s why, in the case of jerusalem as holy city, people are absolutists, it s the only city on earth that exists on skm heaven and earth and so it exists twice, and that gives its danger, it moons that people feel they must possess it absencely and that s jerusalem s tragedy.