Tell your people," Salah al-Din told him, "that we shall not treat them as your forebears treated us when they first took this city. As a child I was told of what Godfrey and Tancredo did to our people.
Saladin was a generous leader and he propagated religious tolerance. While the Christians were ruling Jerusalem, they humiliated Muslims and brutally killed them. They accused them of being the enemies of God and made every attempt to remove them from Jerusalem. Saladin fought with the crusaders to save his community from being tortured. After taking the holy land from the crusaders, he says that he would not treat the Christians like they treated the Muslims when they were ruling Jerusalem. Instead, he asks his people to respect the religious beliefs of other communities.
“Fate and history conspired to make me what I am today.”
Sultan asks his friend to recommend a scribe, who would honestly rite about his life. Maymun recommends Isaac Ibn Yakub, who was a Jewish narrator and Sultan decides to take him along with him. The narrator starts his biography chronologically, beginning with Sultan’s childhood. While narrating about his childhood, Sultan says that he was not elder son. As he was younger so, he did not have any responsibilities. Saladin tells Ibn Yakub that it was fate and history that made him a successful warrior and a leader because he does not consider himself able to get these things.
“It is written in your stars and Allah himself will be your guide,” She says.
Sultan’s grandmother used to narrate these words to him. He was very fond of his grandmother and she used to say that one day you would become a great warrior. His grandmother told him that once she saw a dream that a snake was approaching his mother’s belly while she was pregnant. Suddenly, her belly opened, and the child came out with a sword in his hand. The child cut the snake into pieces. This dream was the basis of her prediction that Saladin would become a warrior after growing up.
