Chapter 8 – A man of honour
‘We must save the holy places!’ went on Saladin.
But the imams said to him, ‘The Franks will be our prisoners.
To be free, they must pay a ransom: ten gold pieces for a man,
five gold pieces for a woman, and one gold piece for a child.
They’ll have forty days to find the money. It’s the only way that
we can pay for the war!’
Saladin spoke to Balian. ‘Our soldiers will watch the streets
to stop criminals hurting people and stealing things,’ he said.
‘Churches will be safe, and people can come on pilgrimage here
when they want.’
Balian answered, ‘You’re very generous, but I’m worried about
the poor. I’ll pay for as many poor people as I can to go free.’
When Saladin’s brother Al-Adil heard this, he said, ‘I want to
help too! I’ll pay the ransom for a thousand poor people!’
Saladin said, ‘I have another good idea! Old people and
men with young children can go free too. Also, many women
have lost their husbands in the fighting, and many children
are without mothers or fathers. To all of these I want to give
money.’
Saladin’s treasurers were worried. ‘If all these people can
leave freely, how will we pay our soldiers? We must ask the rich
people to give more!’ they said.
When the Patriarch left with all the gold from the churches,
many Muslims were angry, but Saladin said, ‘We won Jerusalem
to give the city back to God and to Islam, not to be rich!’
But Saladin’s work wasn’t over. Tyre was still in the hands of
the Franks, who came from all over Palestine when their home
towns fell. Now they were ready to fight from Tyre to get their
land back. Some of Saladin’s generals said, ‘We’re afraid that
the Franks will get help from their friends in Europe.’ But Saladin answered, ‘If they come from across the sea,
they’ll be far from home and they won’t win.’
In 1188 Saladin, now fifty, said that King Guy could go free
if he promised never to fight the Muslims again. But Guy broke
his promise in 1189 and attacked Acre, beginning a long
and terrible siege. By then there were many more European
knights in Palestine. After the fall of Jerusalem, the Franks told
European kings that they needed help to win back the Holy
Land. Many answered the call for a new crusade.
In 1191, the King of France arrived in the Holy Land, and two
months later Richard, King of England, came too. The Muslims
knew that King Richard was brave and strong.
Acre was a dirty town, and King Richard was ill the minute
he arrived, but he went on telling his men what to do from his
bed. He was a good commander and the town, already in great
trouble after two years of endless war, couldn’t fight any more.
People were dying of hunger because the Franks had the town
under siege, and they stopped all food getting into it by land or
by sea. Richard told his men to make better siege engines and the new attacks from these never stopped. The falling stones
killed twelve men at a time, and the Muslim generals knew that
this was the end.
They sent a letter to Saladin saying that they couldn’t fight
any longer. Saladin thought that one last fight could win the
day. He asked all of his men to attack, but the emirs said, ‘We
can’t win now. There are too many Franks.’
In July 1191, the town surrendered. Saladin asked King
Richard to treat his Muslim prisoners well, but the English king
wanted to win back other towns in Palestine that the Muslims
held. Most of all he wanted Jerusalem, so all Richard’s prisoners
– Muslim soldiers of Acre, their wives and their children – died
under the swords of the Frankish knights that day.
The Franks now marched towards Jerusalem, but it was
summer and it was hot. They tried to stay near their ships which
were sailing down the coast. But Saladin’s men never stopped
attacking them. Richard’s men were brave and they went on,
but the army could march only five miles a day. At Arsuf the
Franks won a small battle, but the war wasn’t over.
The next year saw a lot of fighting, but no real victory for
either army. Saladin knew that time was on his side. Richard
needed to go home. In the end, they agreed to stop fighting.
The Franks kept the land between Tyre and Jaffa, but Saladin
kept Jerusalem and the other towns in Palestine that he held.
European pilgrims could visit the holy city without danger, and
many European knights travelled there to pray, but Richard
never went. He left for England without ever seeing Jerusalem.
These last years were difficult for Saladin. After Acre, his emirs
were not as happy to fight as before, and it was hard to keep
his army together. He was fifty-five years old now, and often ill and tired. ‘I wish I could go to Makkah,’ he said, but he was
now very weak and could not make that long journey. ‘At least
I can still meet travellers to Makkah when they come home,’ he
said to himself. He rode out of Damascus early in 1193 to meet
a group of pilgrims coming back from Makkah, but the cold
weather that day made him ill. Forty-eight hours later he was
dead. When they went to bury him, they found that there was
no money to pay for his funeral. He was always so kind and
generous to others, and in the end he left nothing for himself.
Many people mourned
his death at the time, and people
everywhere still know of Saladin to this day. We remember him
not only as a great general, but also as a good man who was
merciful, wise and generous.