The extraordinary character and career of Saladin are the keys to understanding the Battle of Hattin, the fall of Jerusalem and the failure of the Third Crusade. He united warring Muslim lands, reconquered the bulk of Crusader states and faced the Richard the Lion Heart, king of England, in one of the most famous confrontations in medieval warfare. Geoffrey Hindley's sympathetic and highly readable study of the life and times of this remarkable, many-sided...

"Founded on Christmas Day 1119 in Jerusalem, the Knights Templar was a religious order of fighting knights dedicated to defending the Holy Land and Christian pilgrims in the decades after the First Crusade. Legendary for their bravery and dedication, the Templars became one of the wealthiest and most powerful bodies of the medieval world-- and the chief defenders against the growing Muslim military campaign to reimpose foreign rule on a Christian...

The remarkable story of the relationship between the Muslim leader Saladin and the Christian Crusader Richard the Lionheart. Battling in the name of different religions, and filled with blinding cultural ignorance, both shared a faith in one god.

This volume recreates the collision of the Christian holy wars and the Muslim jihad at the end of the twelfth century. A dual biography of the legendary Richard the Lionheart and the Sultan Saladin, iconic hero of the Islamic world, the author recounts the life of each man and reveals the passions of the times that brought them face-to-face in the final battle of the Third Crusade. Richard the Lionheart, commonly depicted as the romantic personification...

Relates how King Richard I of England and his troops nearly wrested Jerusalem from Muslim leader Saladin and the Saracens during the Third Crusade in 1191 A.D.