Who is Saladin?
Saladin and Richard the Lionheart are two names that tend to dominate the Crusades. Both have gone down in Medieval history as great military leaders though their impact was limited to the Third Crusade. Saladin was a great Muslim leader. His real name was Salah al-Din Yusuf. He united and lead the Muslim world and in 1187, he recaptured Jerusalem for the Muslims after defeating the King of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin near the Lake of Galilee. When his soldiers entered the city of Jerusalem, they were not allowed to kill civilians, rob people or damage the city. The more successful Saladin was, the more he was seen by the Muslims as being their natural leader. The Christians of western Europe were stunned by the success of Saladin. The pope, Gregory VIII, ordered another crusade immediately to regain the Holy City for the Christians. This was the start of the Third Crusade. It was led by Richard I (Richard the Lionheart), Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany and King Philip II
Saladin or Salah al-Din, or Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi (Arabic: صلاح الدين الأيوبي, Kurdish: صلاح الدین ایوبی) (solaah-hud-deen al-ayoobi) (c. 1138 – March 4, 1193) was a twelfth century Kurdish Muslim general and warrior from Tikrit, in present day northern Iraq. He founded the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt, Syria, Yemen (except for the Northern Mountains), Iraq, Mecca, Hejaz and Diyar Bakr.
If we use the modern day assumption of jihad and link it with a name that looks typically Muslim, we cannot fully understand the two words together. Jihad is often described as Holy War against non-Muslim factions in defense of the state of Islam; however, there are numerous discrepancies that are not so clearly defined by today’s standards. Examine the name Saladin more closely. You’ll discover that it was the most revered name of Muslim heroes by his admirers in Europe. But it is difficult to understand modern, biased statements about Muslims such as: all Muslims are hostile to the destruction of others, or Muslims are achieving the Prophet Muhammad’s goal of religious expansion and conversion. It is hard to set aside religious and political perceptions of jihad because we are more than often informed incorrectly. In modern times a wide majority of people would translate jihad as a depiction of terrorist activities. Scholars would often refer to jihad as fi sabil Allah or ‘in the pat
