Abstract
Al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub was a twelfth-century Kurdish ruler of Egypt and Syria. In the West, he is probably the best-known and most respected Islamic figure, praised as a formidable warrior, astute diplomat, and magnanimous leader. In terms of Euro-American commentary, Saladin is inextricably linked to debates over the Crusades (c.1095–1395), not least his retaking of Jerusalem, which have arguably earned him disproportionate attention in relation to his other achievements. Dating back centuries, Christian-European depictions of Saladin have often implied an agenda, or desire, to incorporate him into Western tradition, both lauding the Muslim king and containing him in culturally acceptable forms. I discuss his representation in the films The Crusades (1935), King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), and Kingdom of Heaven (2005), which all draw on Walter Scott’s novel The Talisman (1825), to varying degrees and in different forms, evoking a liberal, enlightened, and humanitarian Saladin. By way of contrast, I examine the Egyptian production Al Nasser Salah Ad-Din/Saladin (1963), which has been interpreted as refracting Nasserist issues of Arab national identity, secular Arabism, and anticolonialism (cf. Shafik 2007: 43, 106; Khouri 34, 45, 51).
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Notes
- 1.
Al-Quds in Arabic.
- 2.
Peter O’Brien states that, as a side project, the Crusades also sought to displace Byzantium as the recognized leader of the Christian world (49). Ella Shohat and Robert Stam argue that the Crusades-era demonization of the infidel was part of a process ‘by which Europe constituted itself as an imaginary “continental” unity through opposition to an Islam combated ever since the eighth century’ (373). Tomaž Mastnak frames this new sense of oneness in explicitly Christian terms, achieved in part through the construction of a Muslim enemy which had not previously been distinguished from the general mass of pagan barbarians (cf. Mamdani 25).
- 3.
Despite this massacre, Bernard Lewis maintains that the taking of Jerusalem provoked relatively little outrage, or even interest, in the wider region; appeals to Damascus and Bagdad by local Muslims went unanswered (41). Similarly, Hamid Dabashi claims that, in terms of later Muslim perceptions, many historians regarded the Crusades as little more than a border skirmish; the concept of the Crusades as a significant episode in Islamic history is thus a very recent phenomenon (24).
- 4.
General Edmund H.H. Allenby was compared to Saladin by The Times newspaper when he entered Jerusalem; Allenby himself supposedly/apocryphally declared the Crusades to now be over (cf. Donges Staudt xiv–v).
- 5.
A term originally associated with Germanic peoples, then extended to include Christian Western Europeans more generally.
- 6.
John Man states that Saladin regarded the unification of Egypt and Syria as the foundation for jihad against Christian invaders (77), though his motives for empire-building were doubtless both more complex and ambiguous than this equation suggests.
- 7.
Man argues that hatred of the Franks had been diluted over time by complacency—many natives preferring the occupying forces to untrustworthy local chiefs—and by a widespread belief that no leader would emerge to unite antagonistic Muslim factions and repel the invaders (19).
- 8.
Geoffrey Regan states that second and third generation Frankish settlers, such as Raymond III of Tripoli and the brothers Baldwin of Ramla and Balian of Ibelin, prioritized peaceful coexistence over territorial ambition (42). More recent arrivals, including Reynald of Chatillon and Gerard of Ridefort, Master of the Templars, were hostile to Muslims and sought Christian expansion south into Egypt (42).
- 9.
After a long desert march, the parched Frankish soldiers, in need of both sustenance and rest, were debilitated prior to the fighting (cf. Regan 84).
- 10.
A figure central to Kingdom of Heaven , albeit in fictionalized and romanticized form. Amin Maalouf states that the historical Balian, faced with Saladin’s refusal to negotiate, pledged to destroy the city—people, animals, property, wealth—and fight to the last man (197–8, cf. Paine 138–9); Saladin, though unimpressed by these threats, appreciated Balian’s fervour (198). He had also to consider his own troops, many of whom were drawn by the promise of bounty rather than jihad and favoured an orderly transfer of Christian ransom money over wanton destruction and looting (cf. Hindley 96, 102).
- 11.
Furthermore, Jerusalem was revered by Muslims as the city of David and Solomon, both prophets of Islam (cf. Hindley 87).
- 12.
In strategic terms, Jerusalem was a fairly remote and insignificant town (cf. Berkey 199). Regan contends that Saladin had to prioritize the holy city, else his troops begin to doubt his religious sincerity and commitment to jihad (94).
- 13.
It was likely doomed from the start. Saladin knew that taking Jerusalem would prompt a military response, in line with the Christian duty of reconquest (cf. Richard 217). Yet he permitted thousands of Franks to depart Muslim-reclaimed strongholds, including Acre, Ascalon, and Jerusalem itself, enabling a mass entrenchment and refortification at Tyre (cf. Maalouf 204; Man 186). With insufficient naval support, his army was restricted to attacking the fiercely defended fortress across a narrow connecting ridge (cf. Maalouf 204). John Man states that Saladin drew much criticism from his own people for this series of strategic blunders (186).
- 14.
Geoffrey Hindley notes that the prisoners included Turkish troops, who Richard felt were too numerous to be guarded and too gifted as soldiers to be returned to Saladin (135). The massacre at Acre is referenced in the film Robin and Marian (1976), where the ageing, regretful Robin Hood (Sean Connery), a former Crusader, states that it was done with a bishop’s blessing.
- 15.
As Maalouf contends, Saladin saw long-term propaganda value in showing mercy and leniency to the Christians of Jerusalem, and in claiming to be motivated by divine duty rather than vengeance or avarice (200). This clemency also enhanced Saladin’s reputation for chivalry among his enemies and facilitated a more ready collapse of the Frankish/Crusader community (cf. Hindley 102).
- 16.
Akbar S. Ahmed maintains that Saladin would have been perceived as an outsider in mainstream Muslim societies of the Middle East, a world dominated by Arabs and the Arab language; the Kurds were ‘a tribal people with their own culture and language’ (xviii). It is claimed that Saladin’s troops were largely Turks and Kurds, while his civil servants were mostly drawn from the indigenous Coptic-speaking Christian community (cf. Black 111), suggesting a wariness of overreliance on Arab-Muslim peoples.
- 17.
Saladin is said to have cultivated the image of a mujahid and religious scholar (cf. Berkey 210). John Tolan argues that he used an appeal for Muslim unity and jihad to impose his will on rivals in Syria and what is now Iraq, a prolonged struggle justified as a necessary precursor to retaking lands seized by the Franks (2013: 49). Li Guo states that Saladin’s deployment of political tools, such as crackdowns on vice in Egypt and Syria, served to enhance his Islamic credentials in order to gain military, religious, and popular support during wartime (3).
- 18.
Abbasid Caliph Al-Nasir regarded Saladin as a potential pan-Islamic rival with designs on his territory; he also suspected him of encouraging Turkman and Kurdish tribes in Iraq to question their allegiance to the Caliph, which could divide the Muslim world and set the faithful against each other (cf. Regan 115).
- 19.
Muslim attitudes to Saladin can be divided along broadly sectarian lines: his fellow Sunni regard him as pious, courageous, a sincere and selfless idealist, a unifier and liberator; Shi’a see Saladin as a selfish chancer and traitor who destroyed the Shi’a Fatimid Empire, one of the most important in Islamic history (see Sturtevant 142–3). Man states that Saladin was not the great Islamic unifier of (Western?) reputation, always favouring his own Sunni faction over the Shi’as dominant in Egypt (253; cf. Abdo 46).
- 20.
There was also the notion that Saladin’s ability to beat Crusader forces proved he was an instrument of the Christian god, testing the faith and resolve of wavering believers (cf. Man xi). Similarly, Saladin’s retaking of Jerusalem was interpreted by some Christian scholars as divine punishment for sinful ingrates (cf. Tolan 2009: 269).
- 21.
There were of course exceptions. Sophia Rose Arjana cites the fourteenth-century Luttrell Psalter , page ten of which is believed to depict Richard I in (fictional) combat with Saladin (30). The latter is depicted as ‘a purple-skinned, big-lipped, hook-nosed monster’ (30), evoking antisemitic caricatures of the era.
- 22.
As with Saladin, Avicenna and Averroes were among the non-Christians most respected by Europeans during the Middle Ages (cf. Musa 46). Antony Black claims that Dante was profoundly influenced in his political views by Islamic philosophy, in particular Averroes’ theory of complementarity (124–5).
- 23.
Edward Said notes that, as a Muslim, Saladin would have known Jesus as a revered prophet of Islam (2019: 69). Yet Dante’s knowledge of Islamic traditions may have been limited outside Euro-Christian reportage and propaganda.
- 24.
Lessing opposed a literalist interpretation of the Bible and consequently clashed with church-state orthodoxy; forbidden to publish his ideas, he used the theatre as a vehicle to promote his views (cf. Man 262–3).
- 25.
‘The sabre of Saladin left its sheath as lightning leaves the cloud. It was waved in the air, and the head of the Grand Master rolled to the extremity of the tent, while the trunk remained for a second standing, with the goblet still clenched in its grasp, then fell, the liquor mingling with the blood that spurted from the veins’ (Scott 409).
- 26.
Saladin also argued that a translator trusted by both sides would be needed (cf. Maalouf 213).
- 27.
Saladin, disguised as a physician, previously encountered Richard to tend the latter’s injuries after an assassination attempt by Christian traitors.
- 28.
‘Allah has already given Jerusalem to the true believers, and it were a tempting the God of the Prophet to peril, upon my own personal strength and skill, that which I hold securely by the superiority of my forces’ (Scott 413).
- 29.
Andrew Lincoln counters that Scott was reacting against the ongoing replacement of enlightened respect for oriental culture with assertions of Christian superiority (106). Lincoln himself appears to become enmeshed in Western patrician stereotyping, identifying in Saladin such ‘feminine’ traits as a veil, jewellery, and sense of empathy (116). In The Talisman , Scott has Saladin wear ‘a sort of veil’, perhaps as protection from sand, or ‘out of Oriental pride’ (379). There is no insinuation that his veil and jewellery render him in any way unmanly or effeminate.
- 30.
Saladin aside, Scott admitted his ignorance of Islam and Muslim-majority countries, none of which he ever visited, and a dependence on sources such as The 1001 Nights (cf. Khattak 56; Said 2019: 101, 157). In The Talisman he misunderstands the Muslim perception of Christ, revered as a predecessor of Muhammad, and misidentifies both the direction of Muslim prayer (Mecca) and the location of the Prophet’s tomb (Medina) (cf. Khattak 109. 56, 124, 46).
- 31.
John Man notes how the Kaiser even flattered Abdul Hamid by implying the latter was Saladin resurrected (264). In 1900, Wilhelm II followed up on his homage to Saladin, presenting a brass laurel mourning wreath in remembrance of the visit, which was displayed at the foot of the sarcophagus (cf. Theunissen 246). Fifteen years later, he donated a monogrammed lamp as a symbol of German-Ottoman wartime brotherhood-in-arms (cf. Theunissen 251).
- 32.
August 19, 1922, p. 22.
- 33.
July 1, 1911, p. 7.
- 34.
See also Moving Picture World, July 15, 1911, pp. 14–6. Reviewer W. Stephen Bush noted ‘a touch of historic truth and realism’ in the film (15), without citing instances of either.
- 35.
A protracted process stretched out over the bulk of the film’s running time. Even after Saladin notes the man’s resemblance to his dead brother, there is no realization or recognition.
- 36.
Their clasp of hands ends act three of the film.
- 37.
cf. Film Daily, October 25, 1923, p. 5. The film, now presumed lost, appears to have been marketed as an ersatz sequel to Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood (1922), in which Beery played the English king.
- 38.
November 3, 1923, p. 47.
- 39.
cf. Variety, Volume 66, Number 13, May 19, 1922, p. 23; Volume 76, Number 5, September 17, 1924, p. 29.
- 40.
See, for instance, Flin, Variety, Volume 119, Number 11, August 28, 1935, p. 12.
- 41.
Actor Henry Wilcoxon, who plays King Richard I, is quoted in a 1935 Variety interview as promoting a more universal, and less contentious, anti-war reading of the film: ‘Showing the futility of wars, showing that in the end nothing is accomplished by wars, it becomes a great document against War’ (Ager 56). Anglo-Jamaican by birth, a Hollywood resident and friend of DeMille, Wilcoxon perhaps wished to avoid a more specific political or ideological stance, especially one that could draw controversy. Richard Francaviglia, by contrast, reads the film in the context of the Great Depression, albeit in generalized terms of promoting a message of unity in the face of overwhelming odds (72).
- 42.
The Neutrality Acts were passed by Congress in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939.
- 43.
Haydock also identifies Arabs, Saladin excluded, as the villains of the film (2008: 149), despite the presence of treacherous, murderous European Christians.
- 44.
The historical Richard I was related to Sibylla of Anjou, the late one-time queen of Jerusalem (cf. Man 202).
- 45.
All other oaths and vows are now null and void.
- 46.
Having shared goblets of water, they engage in a test of blades, where Richard’s brute strength contrasts with Saladin’s sharpness, skill, and precision.
- 47.
cf. Film Daily, July 10, 1935, p. 6.
- 48.
Presumably the film’s advertising was approved by Paramount Pictures and likely DeMille himself.
- 49.
In obvious contrast to the brutish Saracen who leers at a captive Christian woman, whose frightened tears are highlighted in close-up.
- 50.
This scene may be intended to evoke the Valentinoesque exotic lover popular in the 1920s, underlined by Saladin’s ‘sheik’ headgear. Keith’s portrayal of Saladin contrasts with his earlier performance in the World War I comedy drama Two Arabian Knights (1927), as a duplicitous Ottoman officer who shows no affection towards his fiancée and cheats in a duel.
- 51.
Saladin has already rejected the traitor Montferrat’s offer to kill Richard; instead, he has the Frenchman executed (offscreen). The growing love between Berengaria and Richard is not the film’s most persuasive aspect.
- 52.
Berengaria endorses the notion that the religions of each man are directed towards the same god.
- 53.
Saladin does offer Richard the throne of Jerusalem, on the condition that he convert to Islam.
- 54.
Alluded to by Berengaria in brief, perfunctory fashion.
- 55.
August 10, 1935, p. 47. The cross previously toppled is now restored, presumably with Saladin’s consent.
- 56.
Supposedly the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem.
- 57.
It is hinted that Richard, while finding Saladin’s culture hard to comprehend, comes to recognize, even respect this non-Christian, religiously inflected social order.
- 58.
Birchard cites a negative cost of $1,376,260.87 and a gross film rental, up to March 31, 1951, of $1,491,471.83 (283). While Birchard does not clarify if he is referring to domestic, North American, or global revenues, it is reasonable to surmise that the film did not turn a profit.
- 59.
cf. Boxoffice, Volume 52, Number 26, May 1, 1948, p. 17. DeMille added a new prologue, with a voiceover by the director, linking The Crusades to contemporary Palestine (cf. Film Daily, May 25, 1948, p. 7).
- 60.
Also, the film’s initial title (cf. Boxoffice, Volume 64, Number 24, April 10, 1954, p. 46). It appears to have been retained in some countries, such as West Germany.
- 61.
Stock identifies an anti-war sentiment (109), presumably in relation to ongoing American-Soviet antagonism and the recent Korean War, which ceased just under a year before the film’s American release.
- 62.
Financially speaking, Warner Bros. proved ill-suited to producing historical and biblical epics, despite the genre’s popularity in the 1950s. The studio also lost money on The Silver Chalice (1954), Land of the Pharaohs (1955), and Helen of Troy (1956) (cf. Medved and Medved 225, 214, 212).
- 63.
Volume 195, Number 5, July 7, 1954, p. 6.
- 64.
See also: William R. Weaver, Motion Picture Daily, July 7, 1954, p. 5; Anon, Harrison’s Reports, July 10, 1954, p. 110; Anon, Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin, August 9, 1954, p. 14; Anon, Photoplay and Movie Mirror, October, 1954, p. 21; J.G., Monthly Film Bulletin, Volume 21, Number 240, January, 1954, p. 157; Shipman 243–4.
- 65.
Sanders also appears in Ivanhoe.
- 66.
Richard’s racism manifests in his anti-Scottish stance as much as in his attitude to Middle Eastern Muslims.
- 67.
Richard’s respect for Saladin does not extend to some of his fellow Crusaders. Saladin later has Richard at his mercy, treating the injured king with a heated blade, yet there is never any suggestion that he means him harm. By contrast, The Black Knight (1954), released shortly after King Richard and the Crusaders, features the Saracen Sir Palamides (Peter Cushing), a figure derived from Arthurian chronicles, who is here depicted as a traitor to his English allies. Palamides is unmasked and slain by humble swordsmith John (Alan Ladd), who takes his place at the now all-Christian, all-white Round Table.
- 68.
A rough translation of ‘salaam’.
- 69.
Which is presumably filled with medicine, though this is not clarified. The recovering Richard claims to have spent three days in a Moorish paradise, an admission he makes to a senior Christian churchman: ‘My good Archbishop, you’d be astonished’. This seeming newfound appreciation of Islam, or at least the pleasures of its afterlife, is not addressed further.
- 70.
As Richard recovers, Saladin plays the lyre, which also serves to serenade Edith.
- 71.
Kenneth’s hard-won triumph over his opponent is dependent on a trick learnt from Saladin: a dagger hidden up the sleeve.
- 72.
The film was released in Italy, c.1965, as Saladino . In 1979, it was belatedly distributed in Great Britain via Tedderwick Films Ltd., a short-lived, small-scale operation.
- 73.
As noted in Chap. 3, Egypt had close ties to the Soviet Union at this time.
- 74.
Volume 231, Number 9, July 24, 1963, pp. 6, 8. Monthly Film Bulletin critic Tim Pulleine later argued that Saladin’s unwavering heroism, alongside the murky machinations of the Crusading factions, largely dissipates any dramatic impetus (Volume 46, Number 540, January 1, 1979, p. 167).
- 75.
In terms of navigation, water sources, vantage points, and the generation of dust clouds to mislead the enemy.
- 76.
Reynald is depicted as unappealing in both appearance and attitude. Claiming that politics trumps religion, he attacks a caravan of Muslim pilgrims to obtain wealth for his campaign.
- 77.
A ruse which also gives Reynald a taste of the hellfire to come after he is killed by Saladin.
- 78.
Which wins him the gratitude of Richard’s consort Berengaria, who thanks Saladin ‘as a Christian wife’ rather than as a queen, personalizing and domesticating her indebtedness in a religious context.
- 79.
Gottschalk and Greenberg note that Nasser was subject to Russian influence, being reliant on Soviet aid (112).
- 80.
The UAR lasted only three years (1958–61) and Pan-Arabism foundered after Egypt’s defeat by Israel in the 1967 war (cf. Man 266).
- 81.
There are also repeated references to the Egyptian army and the Arab people. As noted, the historical Saladin is held to have relied largely on Turkish and Kurdish troops.
- 82.
John Aberth takes a counterview, claiming Nasser often cited Saladin in his speeches, though without providing examples (104).
- 83.
On another level, the producers employed European film facilities, with Saladin processed at Denham Laboratories in England. The film also has an Italian composer and conductor, and a French special effects designer.
- 84.
Now associated in much Western media discourse with supposed Muslim terrorists.
- 85.
Visualized as the arrow-pierced bodies of Arab children.
- 86.
While Egypt is a Muslim-majority country, it has a significant Christian population.
- 87.
Khouri states that a 1963 Egyptian audience could hardly have missed the link between the film’s story and the Arab-Israeli conflict (48; cf. Ganim 2007: 51), though he does not fully substantiate this assertion. Early scenes depict Arabs facing exile and starvation as they are driven from their homes and their land.
- 88.
Saladin cites Issa as his best general and closest friend; true comradeship, on whatever level, has no religious boundary.
- 89.
Even the English king strays briefly from his religious convictions, with Saladin noting how Richard now fights for his own vanity and glory.
- 90.
In auteurist terms, the intentions of Youssef Chahine, the film’s co-writer, producer, and director.
- 91.
Nominally a secular state, Turkey has long been a Muslim-majority country.
- 92.
As in Scott’s The Talisman , Richard checks Saladin’s pulse for a reassuring calm heartbeat devoid of treacherous intent.
- 93.
A building in the centre of The Great Mosque of Mecca.
- 94.
See Chap. 6.
- 95.
See also Variety, Volume 285, Number 7, December 22, 1976, p. 30.
- 96.
The film was designed as a vehicle for producer-star Kevin Costner, then at the height of his success.
- 97.
A depiction of the Crusades at odds with most previous films on the subject, especially those influenced by The Talisman . In this aspect it evokes the early scenes of DeMille’s The Crusades .
- 98.
Azeem is under death sentence for an ill-advised (hetero)sexual dalliance, which if nothing else establishes his ‘regular’ masculine credentials.
- 99.
Also seen in the Franco-Egyptian film Al-massir /Destiny (1997), as a water-based device invented by Muslim philosopher Averroes.
- 100.
The film had a troubled production, with reshoots and, it seems, deletions of expository material.
- 101.
Arjana and Fox state that the main character is likely inspired by a real-life figure, Ibn Battuta (3), a fourteenth-century Moroccan Muslim scholar and explorer.
- 102.
E.L. Risden goes further, asserting that the film plays upon notions of Arab cultural superiority (188). Shaheen identifies a more general theme of tolerance and respect between religions and races (482).
- 103.
Including reduced cow urine.
- 104.
Box Office Mojo cites a worldwide gross of $460.6 million, on a budget of $103 million (www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0172495/?ref_=bo_se_r_1). As a rule, films must gross three times their budget to cover all costs, including promotion and distribution.
- 105.
Scott’s success with Hannibal (2001) would also have been a benefit, though neither Black Hawk Down (2001) nor Matchstick Men (2003) were major hits.
- 106.
Box Office Mojo cites a worldwide gross of $497.4 million, on a budget of $175 million (www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0332452/?ref_=bo_se_r_1)
- 107.
Alexander grossed $167.3 million on a $155 million budget (www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0346491/?ref_=bo_se_r_1). King Arthur grossed $203.5 million on a $120 million budget (www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0349683/?ref_=bo_se_r_2).
- 108.
Box Office Mojo cites the worldwide gross as just over $218 million, on a budget of $130 million (www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0320661/?ref_=bo_se_r_1). This means the film incurred a loss unlikely to be covered by non-theatrical revenue streams.
- 109.
Addressed directly in the film’s closing text. Haydock states that Kingdom of Heaven ‘casts present conflicts as a compulsive repetition of the medieval past’, albeit less blatantly than some other examples of its genre (2008: 19).
- 110.
Egypt: $352,000; Lebanon: $282,000; Turkey: $3.04 million; United Arab Emirates: $1.65 million (www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0320661/?ref_=bo_se_r_1). Syria is not included.
- 111.
Haydock notes how themes of agnosticism and pacifism, identified by some critics as twenty-first century concerns, can be found in The Crusades , released seven decades earlier (2008: 148).
- 112.
Riley-Smith also regards the film as a distortion of history that panders to radical Islam (cf. Haydock 2008: 136). Haydock locates this response in Riley-Smith’s broader rejection of continuity or analogy between past and present Western incursions into the Middle East, which frees America ‘from any burden of the past in pursuing its ever-widening interventions’ (2008: 141). Conversely, Khaled Abou El Fadl, professor of Islamic law at UCLA, identifies Muslim stereotypes likely to provoke hate crimes (cf. Haydock 2008: 136, 142). Hamid Dabashi argues that early critics of Kingdom of Heaven, such as Riley-Smith, had neither seen it nor shown evidence of access to a script (24). Haydock concurs that Riley-Smith was responding only to pre-release publicity (2008: 138). While El Fadl had not viewed the film, he supposedly obtained a copy of the original screenplay (cf. Haydock 2008: 142). All that said, even advocates for Kingdom of Heaven had issues with its depiction of this Crusade era. For example, Time Out critic Trevor Johnston suggested the film is ‘just a touch too impeccably liberal to convince in its proper historical context’ (712).
- 113.
A medieval Catholic military order initially based in Jerusalem.
- 114.
Unless otherwise stated, all timings given refer to the theatrical version of the film, rather than the director’s cut. In the latter, Saladin is mentioned much earlier, around eight minutes into the film, as a new force in the struggle for Jerusalem. There are two further references to Saladin, as a peacekeeper who respects all faiths, before Tiberius speaks of him.
- 115.
Saladin’s massacre of Templars and Hospitallers, unseen in the film, is also a subject of controversy, not least for problematizing his compassionate image. Regan argues that Saladin’s actions make sense in the context of the time, a twelfth-century holy war, where released Christian prisoners would return to fight another day, scornful of infidel clemency (91).
- 116.
A historically questionable figure. While some scholars acknowledge her existence (Paine 141, 215; Hindley 97; Regan 67), no source consulted places her among Reynald’s victims.
- 117.
In the director’s cut of the film, Saladin also decapitates Reynald. This action and the image of Reynald’s severed head evoke real-life terrorist killings of hostages, such as American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002, which were captured on video. This parallel may be one reason the footage was dropped from the theatrical version.
- 118.
Drawing a twenty-first century parallel, Haydock argues that Balian’s group of right-minded Crusaders transform into a peacekeeping force that seeks to protect the helpless (2008: 146). Which prompts the question: what kind of peace do they hope to achieve in this context?
- 119.
Saladin’s clemency is contrasted with the attitude of a Muslim cleric, who cries out for blood vengeance, believing the Christians should be treated as they had behaved after taking Jerusalem.
- 120.
Saladin’s smile as he departs suggests the deliberate posing of a conundrum.
- 121.
Albeit royal finery.
- 122.
On the director’s cut DVD/Blu-ray commentary, Ridley Scott states that actor Ghassan Massoud advised him on the correct protocol for Saladin and the wider Muslim culture, including a respect for items with holy significance. Haydock questions Saladin’s regard for Christianity, citing a travesty of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, where a defeated Christian king is seated back-to-front on a donkey (2008: 160–1). While the intention to humiliate is blatant, neither the perceived blasphemous mockery nor its instigator is clearly delineated.
- 123.
Whatever Saladin’s personal feelings about Christianity, he appreciated its revenue potential. In 1190, soon after the retaking of Jerusalem, he introduced a new tax to be levied on every Christian pilgrim to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This charge remained in force for over 700 years until the mid-nineteenth century, a policy that transformed a centre of Christian pilgrimage into a source of income for an Islamic state (cf. Peri 161).
- 124.
A clear contrast with the lowering sky seen during Saladin’s introduction.
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O’Brien, D. (2021). Saladin: The West’s Favourite Muslim?. In: Muslim Heroes on Screen. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74142-6_5
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-74141-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-74142-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)