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Hussein. it's a big sign that islam has recovered jerusalem. >> saladin, himself, got down on his hands and knees and cleaned the temple mount with rosewater to purify it again as an islamic shrine. >> while saladin focuses on jerusalem, the crusaders have regrouped under the command of king guy. >> saladin allowed king guy to go freely on the condition that he sail across the sea, meaning he goes back to france from whence he came. guy is not so naive. he recognizes that he still has another card to play. >> he goes to this little island about two miles offshore and comes back and says, i've ...

>> and in their correspondence, they're each making that claim to one another, citing their scriptures, explaining why the city of jerusalem is so deep ly important to each side. but it's a great example of how important the city is symbolically, physically, and emotionally to christians and to muslims. >> their negotiations are some of the most fascinating negotiations that take place because they're exactly like a modern peace negotiations between the israelis and the palestinians, for example. they say essentially, you think jerusalem's yours, and we think jerusalem's ours. >> saladin decli...

Career fighting against other muslims. >> he would say, ideally i don't want to fight you. you should come on my side. we need that combined strength to take on the christians, throw them out of jerusalem, and recover it for islam. >> but many choose war. >> so one of the tensions in saladin's life is the tension between saying i'm the hero of sunni islam, and the fact that he spends quite a long time fighting his fellow sunni muslims in creating that empire. >> he said to his son later, don't get used to killing. don't get into killing. don't believe in killing because blood never sleeps. >> ...

>> once saladin has crushed the crusaders at the battle of hattin, the way to jerusalem is open. >> saladin waited a few days before he moved into the city because he wanted the symbolism of a specific day, that is the 2nd of october, 1187. it happened to be the anniversary of the prophet muhammad's night journey into jerusalem. >> but at the moment that saladin emerges victorious at the battle of the horns of hattin, 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 s...

He's incredibly energetic. he's efficient, and he's a flamboyant character. >> he has the irony of being a bad son, a bad brother, an absent king, but a brilliant military strategist. >> richard was much more a kind of person who would react on the basis of instinct rather than thinking. >> this is why he's called lionhearted. he fights brutally and ruthlessly. >> when king richard arrives in palestine, he was a very, very powerful figure. king guy essentially became a footnote. nobody bothered about who he was, what he was doing, because it didn't matter. >> both saladin and king richard beli...