Word: saladin
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Yousef Abu Ghannam's family holds the key (and the souvenir concession) for the Mosque of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives; it was a Christian shrine until Saladin took Jerusalem back from the Crusaders. Abu Ghannam reports sadly that business is down. "We used to get 700 to 800 people a day," he says. "Now we're lucky to get 150. People are afraid." The few visitors who brave Jerusalem today encounter a metropolis again edgy and turbulent. In the sanctuary of the city's churches, mosques and synagogues, pilgrims can find momentary tranquillity. But the streets bear...
...blame Arafat for missing his best opportunity to found a peaceful Palestinian state. But Palestinians and their Arab brethren would--and do--say history will praise him for having the dignity and strength not to sell them out. When he returned from Camp David, crowds hailed him as "the Saladin of this generation!" Everything that has happened since reflects these opposite visions of reality...
...ceases to see himself as a politician. Instead he envisions himself emblazoned across the pages of history with the only two Islamic leaders to stride victorious into Jerusalem, securing the holy city for the Muslim faithful. Caliph Omar bin Khattab won the city for Islam in the seventh century. Saladin liberated it from Christian Crusaders 550 years later. The Palestinian leader can compromise on refugees, on territory, even on the parameters of statehood. But Arafat sees Jerusalem as his chance to transcend politics and enter the pantheon of great Islamic heroes, a coup that could wipe away the disdain...
...shocked Europe, the Pope immediately called a Third Crusade. And although Richard the Lion-Hearted bested Saladin in battle after battle, he could not wrest the Holy City from him, and he returned to Europe. The city, always Islam's third holiest site, became even more central to the faithful. Saladin's family ruled less than 60 years longer, but his style of administration and his humane application of justice to both war and governance influenced Arab rulers for centuries. His tolerance was exemplary. He allowed Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem after its fall. The great Jewish sage Maimonides...
Both Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad have at times invoked Saladin against Israel, the new "crusader." However, they seem unlikely to attain either the military triumph that safeguarded one world or the nobility that endeared him to another...