In 1976, the obvious parallel to draw between the world of Saladin and the contemporary world was that between the kingdom of Jerusalem brought low by Saladin after some 90 years and the State of Israel, then some 28 (now some 60) years in existence. To Arabs, both were intruders, both seen as agents of ‘Western’ interests. For example, the first reaction of the barons of the kingdom on the death of Baldwin IV in March 1185 was to refer the matter of the succession to the monarchs of the West. The kingdom’s champion warriors, the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, were largely funded by benefactors from all over Western European Christendom.
In the Muslim world, religious reformers urging action were often highly critical of those rulers they considered either corrupt or irreligious or collaborative with the Frankish enemy. In the twenty-first century, the comparison with such modern organisations as the Muslim Brotherhood and their attitude to Westernising Islamic governments is thought-provoking. The comparison of Usama bin Laden with Sinan ‘The Old Man of Mountain’ and head of the Assassins would seem, to Western eyes, obvious: both operating from remote mountain retreats, both credited with immense influence, and both thought to command numbers of fanatical followers. As to Saladin, an honourable man of high ambition but also of religious principle and military achievement, generally respected by his enemies as he was loved by his friends, no candidate springs to mind in our own day on either side of the religious divide. But then, Saladin was remarkable.