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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.

People said, this is from where jesus was crucified. >> the true cross was supposed to have miracle powers that would give soldiers and anyone who carried that into battle the power to win over their enemies. >> 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 dry grass, and the wind was blowing westward, so all the smoke and the heat went...

Forever. so by stalling and by not paying the ransom, saladin was in a sense not just buying time for himself, but also hoping that some of richard's armies would simply turn and go home. >> richard realizes that saladin is prolonging the fulfillment of the terms of the surrender of acre. and the longer this goes on, the more suspicious he gets. >> he flew into a fit of rage, something that he was known to do. he took the hostages, and he marches them out to a promontory outside of the city of acre and in front of saladin's eyes, he has them executed in cold blood. it's a terribly ruthless, br...

>> 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...

Much as they could carry with them as possible, and they left the poor in the city as prisoners to saladin. and that made saladin very, very angry. so saladin just let them go, essentially gave up on collecting any ransom from them. >> but saladin's main priority after finally conquering jerusalem is to reclaim the haram al sharif with the al aqsa mosque at its center. >> now he had to transform the entire haram back into an islamic space and repair everything that was damaged in one way or another by the crusaders or due to crusader use. >> the rock upon which the prophet ascended to heaven h...