Source one, which is a drawing of Salah al Din al Ayubi by Ismail al-Jazari, gives the

impression that Saladin was a generous, committed and religious sultan. It shows, that
he has been idealized by entire middle-east and other parts of the world. It suggests that
he was a great sultan of the medieval period occupying a humongous territory, which
were Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Palestine, which made him the most famous of Muslim
rulers. However, it’s not sure whether Ismail al-Jazari had every met Saladin as a result
this may give us a wrong impression of Saladin’s personality.
Source two, which discloses how Saladin was an able and tactical leader with few flaws.
Was written by a non-Muslim called Elizabeth Hallam almost eight hundred years after
the Third Crusade. Some people might think this makes the source less reliable. For
example, when sources of information are passed down history they may well have been
changed which makes the fact false. Elizabeth Hallam, when she was collecting her
sources of information she may have not checked the reliability of the sources and
maybe one of the sources was incorrect. However, on the other hand I think this makes
the source more reliable. For example, Saladin failing to capture Tyre can be fully trusted
as an author called Geoffrey Hindley said “After the disastrous Battle of Hattin, much of
the Holy Land had been lost to Saladin, including Jerusalem. The remnants of the
crusader army flocked to Tyre, which was one of the major cities still in Christian hands
but after two months of continuous struggle, Saladin dismissed his army and retreated to
Acre.” Also, Saladin being seen as a man of honour can be trusted as in Hannes Möhring’s
book, Saladin und der dritte kreuzzug, in one of the pages it states “He was admired by
his friends and was very popular.” So, from the above given evidences we can conclude
that source two is a reliable source.
I think these sources give very different impressions of Saladin because they were
written by a Christian and Muslim. Source three, which praises and glorifies Saladin as a
supreme ruler, was written by Imad ad-Din al-Isfahahani, Saladin’s sectary. Saladin being
admired can be explained by the fact that Imad ad-Din al-Isfahahani was a close aide of
Saladin thus might have given a sympathetic and praise full judgement in favour of
Saladin, endorsing his victories to be one of the greatest in the world. There is a good
possibility that Imad ad-Din al-Isfahahani glorified Saladin under compulsion because if he
was to go against him, the consequences would have been losing his job, no money to
feed his family and the fear of being killed. So this source may be trusted as many
sources portray Saladin as an able and successful Sultan who won many battles. For,
source four, a biased report written by a Christian Monk about a Muslim ruler, the Monk
being prejudice can be described as, that time people realised the importance of religion
and were willing to accept a new religion, only if they thought the other religion was
more tolerant and powerful. Any other Monk like him tried to influence the thinking of
people by being partial to a Muslim ruler, Saladin’s strategies by stating “All Templers
who were captured during the battle of Hattin, were ordered to be beheaded!”
However this source may not be trusted because supported by many other sources like
Dante Inferno, John France, a leading historian in field of Crusades, John Talon and
William who have also portrayed Saladin in a very good light so we can conclude that the
Monk’s letter is a non-reliable source.
On balance, I think that source two is the most reliable source for finding out about
Saladin. I think this is because Elizabeth Hallam has balanced out her good and bad
sources equally, each source being reliable enough to trust on, in example being, taking
into account a collection of eye-witness accounts by the key figures of the period.
Elizabeth being a famous historian played a part as she would have gone through her
researched sources carefully which made them reliable.
The reason Saladin was a superior leader was because of his successful military
conquests. Evidence was obtained, in 1187, Saladin was able to throw his full strength
into the war with the struggling crusaders. On July 4, 1187, aided by his own military good
sense and by a phenomenal lack of it on the part of his enemy, Saladin trapped and
destroyed in one blow an exhausted and thirst-crazed army of crusaders at Hattin, near
Tiberius in northern Palestine. So great were the losses in the ranks of the crusaders in
this one battle that the Muslims were quickly able to overrun nearly the entire Kingdom
of Jerusalem. This source is hundred percent reliable as the Battle of Hattin has been
quoted in many chronologies. This shows, he was a consummate military tactician who
won strategically important battle, Battle of Hattin and many more important wars such
as the Battle of Al-Babein in 1167, Saladin was a commander and a high ranking officer at
that period, Battle of Arsuf and Battle of Belvoir Castle in 1182. Apart from winning
battles he was an able and seasoned statesman. According to one of his admiring
contemporaries, Saladin used the wealth of Egypt for the conquest of Syria that of Syria
for the conquest of northern Mesopotamia, and that of northern Mesopotamia for the
conquest of the crusader states along the Levant coast. Saladin also unified the Muslim
world and was hailed the ‘Hero of Islam.’ This made Saladin a great military leader as the
legacy of Saladin within the Arab World and his heroism and leadership is
commemorated till date. Though Saladin was a supreme leader he had a flaw in his reign.
Saladin’s only mistake, which made him a bad leader, was using Moral pressure.
Saladin had manipulated god’s message for his own purposes. Evidence was retrieved,
Saladin had mentally forced the crusaders to leave the safe walls of Jerusalem and
dragged them twenty miles away, and unknowingly they set up camp in the middle,
surrounded by Saladin’s army. They were no fresh water supplies and whatever fresh
water they were getting was poisoned by Saladin, throughout the night the Muslims
further demoralized the crusaders by praying, singing, beating drums, showing symbols,
and chanting “Allah hu Akbar, Allah hu Akbar!!”, Saladin informing his fellow men “ God
has sent you to kill all the Christians”. They also set fire to the dry grass, making the
crusaders' throats even drier. The Crusaders were now thirsty, demoralized and
exhausted. In the Morning, Saladin sent his archers to kill the remaining. When Saladin
found the ‘Holy Cross’ with one of the killed soldiers, he didn’t throw away the cross but
he did abuse the power of it. The sources given are reliable as the same incident has been
recorded by many other sources such as, a documentary about Saladin. This shows, in
order to gain military success he manipulated the people by taking God’s name and he
issued a call for “Holy War”. He was an ambitious King who was ready to use any method
to gain political power. This makes Saladin a bad leader as you can’t use God’s name for
your own personal ambitions
Saladin was one of the most important leaders of the Crusading period. He was able to
create a vast empire that stretched from the North Africa coast, through Egypt, into
Arabia and on to Syria and parts of Mesopotamia, and then use the forces of that empire
to inflict a crushing defeat on the Crusader states, one from which they never recovered.
Saladin was such a supreme leader that even Richard once praised Saladin as a great
prince, saying that “He was without doubt the greatest and most powerful leader in the
Islamic world,” and what made Saladin a legend was he granted amnesty and free
passage to Jerusalem to all common Catholics and even to the defeated Christian army
without being persecuted and that’s why I think Saladin deserved the title of ‘Hero of
Islam’