The Sultan Saladin Fan Club Tracing the path of the Crusades as it traveled through European history.

samsixtyone

Councller (250+ posts)
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Sultan Saladin is a man of myriad guises in the memory and the imagination of the West. The sheer diversity on display is astonishing: time traveler, master of disguise, a just ruler, and a pillar of nobility, or an unscrupulous chancer, a rapist, and tormenter of the Christian faith are just a few of the vices or virtues attributed to the sultan. The starting point for what ultimately became a positive characterization was an unlikely one. The capture of Christendom’s most holy sanctuary by “the son of Satan” inflicted immeasurable spiritual harm on the West, yet over time, a blend of fact and fiction came to dilute and then to transform Saladin’s image.


In every instance, it is the particular context and audience that steer such perceptions, but because the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem was such a profound blow to the people of western Europe—to some, a sign of the impending apocalypse—any change in attitude toward the author of this calamity warrants our attention. For the transformation to be, at times, so complete and certainly so durable, running down even to the present day, is curious. Given this longevity, the framework is vast, drawing in the centuries-long history of crusading and encompassing the evolving relationship between Christians and Muslims. From beneath these great themes Saladin has emerged to hold an overwhelmingly positive image in the West. It is, I would venture, impossible to think of another figure from history who dealt such a deep wound to a people and a faith, and yet became so admired. The Saladin whom we encounter is, in many senses, a literary construct, yet one with tangible historical foundations, upon which have accumulated layer upon layer of authorial agenda and aspiration.





The Saladin of literature had a prolific romantic career in Europe. He frequently became a master of disguise, and texts in Middle Dutch, Old French, and Occitan, as well as works produced in Italy and Spain, bear testimony to his character’s wide literary appeal. Such skills enabled him to come to the West to learn more about, variously, the Christian faith and the strength of western Europe (a sort of pre-Crusade recce), and to meet Western ladies.


Occasionally he was rebuffed, but there was a long list of other conquests, including the chronological challenge of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Setting aside the fact that Saladin was aged only eleven when she was in the Near East, the Minstrel of Rheims, author of a collection of entertaining anecdotes and stories from the Crusades, tells us that Eleanor, fed up with the rather dull Louis VII, learned of the prowess, wisdom, and generosity of Saladin. She offered to renounce her faith and to be his lady. The sultan sent a ship to collect her, but a servant warned Louis and the escape bid was foiled. When asked by the king to explain herself, she answered that Louis was not worth “a rotten apple. And I have heard so much good said about Saladin that I love him more than you.” The couple returned home and the king repudiated her. Multiple variations on this tale emerged in the popular imagination, all glossing the image of Eleanor as a flighty adventuress and of Saladin as a glamorous and charming infidel.

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Respect

Chief Minister (5k+ posts)
I am fan may Allah bless his soul. Have u read the book, just wondering what has been written about him.
If you have read the book plz let us know any details.