You're Dead to Me - Saladin (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

You may have learned about Richard the Lionheart in school (or from Disney’s Robin Hood), but how much do you know about his opponent, the legendary Saladin? Why does Saladin have such an enduring reputation as a good guy? Host Greg Jenner is joined by comedian Maria Shehata and historian Prof Jonathan Phillips. Produced by Dan Morelle Scripted and researched by Emma Nagouse, assisted by Emily Greenwell.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. Hello, Greg here. Just popping in to say that this is a radio edit of the episode, which means it's a bit shorter and some of the naughty stuff has been removed, so it's a bit more appropriate for family listening. If you want to hear the full-length versions, scroll down to the original episode further back in our feed. Thanks very much. Enjoy the show.

Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the history podcast for everyone. My name is Greg Jenner. I am a public historian, author and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. You might have heard my other Radio 4 show, Homeschool History, although that's mostly for the kids. Today we are travelling to the medieval Middle East to meet one of the Islamic world's most famous warriors, Saladin. And to help introduce us, joining me today in History Corner is a professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway University of London and the author of numerous books, including a recent biography of Saladin. Yes, he literally wrote the book on today's subject. It's Professor Jonathan Phillips. Hi Jonathan, welcome to the show.

Hi, Greg. Nice to be here. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award-winning Egyptian-American comedian who's swum across the Atlantic to come live with us Brits. Yes, all of us. She's a podcaster. You may have seen her on BBC's period dramas or Channel 5's Greatest Celebrity Wind-Ups Ever and the viral comic relief video, Modern Dating Horror Stories. It's Maria Shahata. Hi, Maria. How are you? Good, good. I swam across the Atlantic. You swam all the way, didn't you? Me and my Michael Phelps body just made it here.

And how are you with history in general, Maria? I don't know a thing. Nothing at all? I didn't pay attention in history class. I was never really interested. I didn't like math or history or geography. I didn't like school. What did you like?

It wasn't just history. All right. And you have Egyptian heritage. Have you heard of Saladin before? No. Because he's a big deal in Egyptian history. No. Was he like around the pyramids time?

No. Much later than the pyramids. We're talking 800 years ago. Okay. So very much later. Although the pyramids were still there. Yeah. They didn't knock them down.

He really helped strong those things. Bits of the smaller ones, actually. He dismantled the pyramid? Some of the smaller ones to try and rebuild the walls of cairo wow there could be more pyramids until saladin turned up all right well you learn something new every day so what do you know this is a section where i have a go at guessing what you might know about saladin and i'm guessing you don't know that much. I mean, you might know about the Crusades because you've probably seen Robin Hood movies. But Saladin, maybe not so much.

He does appear in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven. He's a sort of noble adversary in that. And that speaks to his reputation. He is known throughout the Islamic world as a hero. He is known in the West as a pretty stand-up guy. Is it all sort of myth and propaganda? or is this guy legit a decent leader? So we're going to find out. Right, Maria, have you heard of the Crusades?

Okay, so this is sort of embarrassing. Is it when the Christians came and tried to take over everything? Yeah, that's pretty much it. Okay. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. You've got it. You've got it.

Jonathan, can you just talk us through I mean there are loads of crusades there are I mean I have arguments with historians about how many there are we definitely get to at least nine

it's like the Fast and the Furious movies they just keep making them but when was the first crusade and how does that impact into the world of Saladin first crusade

was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II in France the knighthood of Western Europe were inspired to go and try and recover the Holy Land First Crusade is launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II in France. The knighthood of Western Europe are inspired to go and try and recover the Holy Land for the Christian faith. And after four years, they get into Jerusalem as a terrible slaughter of the Muslim and Jewish defenders of the city. But at the end of that, it's back in Christian hands. And they establish what we call the Crusader States, which they hold in the Near East.

So the Muslims and Jews were like, they're living there happily together until the Christians came in. There are Muslim and Jewish people living in the city of Jerusalem in 1099. Yeah. And the Westerners come in because they've been on the march for two or three years. There's been an awful lot of propaganda in Western Europe saying these terrible people are polluting the holy places and it's your duty as Christians to remove them. Okay.

So during Saladin's childhood, there's the Second Crusade. Yeah. That one goes very badly. Disaster of a sequel. That's the French and the German kings who turn up with a big old army and then just chaos. They're convinced they're going to win because the First Crusade succeeded and they don't want to let the memory of their forefathers down,

but it doesn't work. They try and besiege Damascus, which is a city that Saladin is in at the time as a young man. Well, let's introduce him then. So he's born, we think, 1137 or 8. Yeah. And he's born into Crete in Iraq. Yeah. He only lives there for a small number of months. He basically grows up around Damascus as far as we can tell. Okay. And that's one of the great cities of the world. It is a real sort of intellectual powerhouse in the 12th century. Wonderful, wonderful city. He grew up in Iraq or Damascus? He was born in Iraq, in a sort of very equestrian society. He's Kurdish. The Kurds are really good horsemen. And so the Turkish rulers of Syria employ them in their armies. And so Saladin's

uncle and his dad, particularly his uncle, are really great warriors. He's like a military child. Effectively, yeah. He's an army brat. Yeah, he's an army brat. That's what I meant to say. He's growing up and the enemy are essentially other Christians. But actually, the various Muslim states don't really get on very well either. There's the Sunni and Shia dispute.

It's really complicated. And the Muslim world is very divided. As you said, the Sunni, Shia, lots of sort of small regional lordships. And once the Christians or the Franks, as we call them, are established there, they start making alliances with some Muslim rulers. And you have Christians and Muslims fighting Christians and Muslims, which really kind of cuts against the kind of clash of civilizations narrative. So it's a really sort of mixed up picture. But there's a man called Nur ad-Din, powerful Turkish warlord, and he really starts drawing together the ideas of jihad,

taking a religious fight to throw the Christians out of Jerusalem. Okay. And he's a young man of the Muslim faith. So he is an observant Muslim. He is spiritual. He's not really into the sort of party scene, you know, even though he's a young guy. Actually, Maria, can you guess how he chooses to relax? I just see him like sort of like Cleopatra-ing it with like being like held up by other men and just being fed grapes and like feathers. No?

Definitely. Definitely not. Is that what you did before? That's what I do. I just figured we were kind of the same. He does like winding down by playing polo. These men are obsessive polo players. They've been kind of semi, almost like born in the saddle.

They've been riding from such a young age. I mean, Nur-ud-Din even gets people to light candles on the sort of polo pitch so he can play it in the early evening as well. Which is pretty good if you've got the resource to do that. So he's YOLO for polo. He loves it. It's his favourite thing. But it gives you skills as a horseman. You're working together as a group, which is sort of like practice for a battle in another way. So he's not actually relaxing.

That's not relaxing. That's just prepping for more war. You need to teach him how to relax. No, no, no. You got to get... Grapes. Grapes. You've mentioned Nur ad-Din, who is starting to bring together these city-states.

And Saladin comes into his orbit and is, I guess, learning the game from him? Yeah. Nur ad-Din is taking the fight to the Franks and he's providing this intellectual energy for the counter-crusade. And Saladin's family, particularly his uncle, is one of Nur ad-Din's leading warriors. And his uncle's called Shirkuh. Shirkuh, yeah. Known as short, cataract in one eye, and immensely large. Right. There's an occasion in Egypt in 1169 where Syrian Muslims are trying to get hold of Egypt

because it's incredibly wealthy and they want that to springboard their attack against the Crusaders. And they manage to take power there. Shirkou is made the ruler of Egypt. And three months later, he eats too much and dies. There you go. That's how you relax. Oh, you eat yourself to death. Terminally. So wait, how did they just take over Egypt? You said it was really wealthy, right?

The rulers of Egypt, the Fatimid dynasty, they were a Shia dynasty as well, so you've got the Syrian Sunnis and the Fatimid Shia in Egypt. They had just become very complacent. The organisation of the country had begun to sort of disintegrate a bit. And so the Crusaders are trying to get it and the Syrian Muslims are trying to get it too, because the wealth of Egypt with the Nile, trade routes, gold coming up from West Africa is there. So it's a kind of tempting prize to go for. And the Syrian Muslims with Shurka leading the army get it. And when Shurka dies, you need to choose somebody to take over.

And so there are a number of candidates and it's Saladin that they choose. OK, so they're like, come on, he's got to go to that guy because he's related. They do think, no, he's competent. Astoundingly competent, as it turns out. We don't know much about his career to that point. And suddenly you've got to effectively rule Egypt. I mean, the challenge that you face, you've got the Crusaders after you. You've got a lot of Egyptians

who are clearly going to be unhappy you've taken over their country. You've got a whole set of Western Europe potentially after you. And he manages to survive, prosper, challenge his leader later and then challenge the Franks. I mean, to me, that's one of the most

amazing things about him. It's a pretty good CV. I'm feeling pretty inadequate right now. I've not done any of those things. The best thing I can achieve is that I'm quite good at Twitter. So Shirkua dies the eight too much swarmer, which is a great way to die. But Saladin is a young guy. Yeah, early 30s. I mean, that's not that young back then. No, I guess not. No, he's old. So in a sense, I think they must have worked out that he was good. He's clearly good at dealing

with people. He's really good at dealing with people. He's really good at keeping his family together. You look at so many contemporaries across Europe, people like Henry II of England, and the kids are fighting all the time. Richard, Henry, John, they're absolute menace. Saladin's family, through decades of fighting and struggle, they stick with him. And that's really one of his extraordinary strengths.

Like my family, I don't know. I don't know if we'd survive. No? They don't even like my comedy career. So if you were put in charge of Cairo, are they not turning up to help out? I mean, I don't know if they'd be supportive of that or not, but I know their support would help me, like, take over Egypt. That's the thing about parental support, you know? Okay, well, what Saladin does, he's very good at rewarding his family because Egypt is incredibly wealthy. And so one of his chief ways of operating is to be generous.

He is obsessively generous. That's the difference between us and me and him is I just take from my parents and I forget to give back. So if you were ruler of Cairo, you would not be handing out the cash? No, I would probably still be asking my parents for money. He's putting these loyal family members in positions of power. So in this kind of hostile environment, he can trust his family to do well. And he's called a vizier.

That's his job title. It is early on, yeah. Do you know what a vizier is, Maria? It sounds like something women use to support their... No, I don't know what it is the brazier right he is not a boob he is uh he's sort of i mean what's the what's the equivalent i mean it's not king is it he's sort of running the show chief minister so who's running the show top dog is there a is there a top there's the caliph okay the fatimid caliph of cara who's a young man and after a couple of years he dies

right of natural causes sure unless you're an opponent of saladin in which case you say he did away with him but that's very very helpful because it removes the figurehead saladin is then absolutely the ruler of egypt now sort of pushing back against the crusaders the europeans they have been a real menace. And he's now going, come on, let's sort this. Let's get rid of these interlopers. But one of the ways he's paying for that is he inherits a massive library of a million books. And he sells a lot of them.

So he's sort of selling off his assets to pay for war. That's exactly how I make money. It's like selling my books on eBay. And are you funding a war, Maria? Is that your... Kind of. I mean, like my war with my comedy career, maybe? I don't know.

He really is looking to fund his struggle against the Christians because he wants to get Jerusalem back for Islam. But he's also got to consolidate his position in Egypt as well. But because with the caliph dead, the treasury is at his disposal, you read about these mountains of jewels and enormous sapphires and the silk factories. I mean, the wealth is just astonishing. And with this compulsion to reward people, he's just giving it away.

I mean, his officials apparently sort of, if there was money around, would hide it because if he knew it was there, he'd give it away. He's a competitive gift giver. That's how you get people to like you. Yeah, he sounds like a really sort of if there was money around would hide it because if he knew it was there he'd give it away really he's a competitive that's how you get people to like you yeah he sounds like a really sort of kind granddad but the trouble with doing that you then get the sort of like where's my present grandma you expect a gift so you do create an expectation but in saladin's case he he's quite clear if i give you something you are going to give me something back which is your loyalty and he's using his family as a kind you something, you are going to give me something back, which is your loyalty. And he's using his family as a kind of weapon, which is great. But does that now put him at odds with Nur ad-Din?

Because suddenly, he's a bit of a threat, isn't he? He is. Nur ad-Din was his patron. And Nur ad-Din said, come on, we've got to now fight the Crusaders. And Saladin, well, I'm not sure I want to do that. I might lose control of Egypt. And he's really worried that Nur ad-Din will take power from him. And now the student is challenging the master. He is. He is.

It's Star Wars territory. This is exactly how I am when I'm watching The Wire or something. Whoever I'm watching with, I'm like, wait, who's that again? What's going on? Okay. Nur ad-Din sends a messenger to Saladin's court saying, all right, do what I want. And one of Saladin's cousins stands up and says, rubbish, we're going to fight Nerodin. We're going to look after ourselves. And then Saladin's father

steps forward and said, no, you're not. You're going to do exactly what Nerodin tells you. And then everybody leaves the room. It's just Saladin and his dad. And of course, Saladin's father then says, that was a load of rubbish. We're really going to stitch him up. Okay. So Saladin's a bit sneaky. The dad is. Well, the dad too. Yeah, but I mean, that's smart because everyone else will just like, they love to gossip, don't they? Like just chat and stuff and that would have gotten back to Nur ad-Din. Exactly. But this is the family network sticking together.

It's a very strong family. I'm impressed with this family. Nur ad-Din realises that, hang on a minute. So does that now mean Saladin, is he now an enemy? Yeah, there is a situation early in 1174, Nur ad-Din gets an army together and is going to invade Egypt. So there is going to be a civil war. Nur ad-Din gets sick and dies just as he's about to invade Egypt and fight Saladin. So yeah, that story could have been very, very different indeed. Saladin is often very lucky.

Successful leaders need to be lucky. And Nur ad-Din dropping dead. Because his uncle had dropped dead of eating too much shawarma. And then Nur ad-Din drops dead literally with an army behind him. That's so funny. Like they're about to duel

and then just as they're walking away, just one just drops dead. And it's just like, oh, yeah. And then everybody's like, Saladin, Saladin. He's just taking all the credit. Some people are. Nur ad-Din's family, fun, Saladin, Saladin. He's just taking all the credit. Some people are. Niruddin's family, funnily enough, aren't. And Saladin then spends about the next 12 or 13 years

trying to take over all their lands. First of all, Damascus, then Aleppo, Mosul, up in the north. And so for a lot of the next 12, 13 years, Saladin is fighting Muslims. And you've said he's lucky, but he's attacked twice by assassins. Yeah. Both times, survives. They get incredibly close to him.

One time they kind of nick his neck, I think. This is how you would write a Hollywood movie and just the hero's being attacked by gunshots. For some reason, the person attacking him cannot hit the guy. So Saladin now marries. He marries a glamorous young woman called Ismat al-Sin Khatun and she is...

She was the widow of Nur al-Din. What he's doing is by marrying... Ismat, go girl. That is sexy. Sorry, it is really very Love Island. It is very Love Island. One guy gets booted out, just move on to the next guy. What Saladin is trying to do there is merge and assert his position within Damascus by marrying the widow of the previous ruler who happens to be the daughter

of the ruler that Nur ad-Din got rid of. Do you think that she gets some insecure in the relationship and she's like, do you love me for me or is this a power play? He did love her. He writes to her every day.

But there's a really tragic twist because she dies and all the officials are like, oh my God, we can't tell him. Oh really? Because he's so ill, He did love her. He writes to her every day. But there's a really tragic twist because she dies. And all the officials are like, oh, my God, we can't tell him. Oh, really? Because he's so ill, it might tip him over the edge. So they kind of hide her death from him for a while until he's recovered a little bit. But she's married her husband's enemy. Yeah.

I mean, that's weird. There was nothing particularly odd in that. I think you would find other examples of that. Because I think she's the daughter of the previous ruler of Damascus. And I think it's Saladin tying himself into the city. So he does love her. He writes to her every day. Does he take other lovers as well?

Yeah, he does. All right. And we think he had about 17 or 18 boys. Wow. So he's not quite sure how many kids he has. It's very Boris Johnson, right? Just a real big question mark there. We haven't really talked about him as a general,

as a battlefield commander, because he's really good at it, isn't he? I'm not sure he is. Oh, is he not? Early on, Battle of Montgisard, 1177, where he's absolutely thrashed by the Crusaders. His great victory is 1187, so that's happening yeah okay which is when he very very cleverly gets a large coalition of the muslim nearies together pushes the crusaders into a situation where they really stupidly try and march about 20 miles across an almost waterless plateau and then he's

got all the horsemen he he's got enough water. He can pour water out in front of the crusaders in the boiling heat just to show that he's got it. So they're wearing chainmail armour, they're sweating in the heat, they've got no water. Wait, he did that? Yeah, he sets fire to the dry grass there, obviously with the wind blowing in the correct direction,

to choke the Franks. He breaks them. And that is his big victory that then opens up Jerusalem to be recovered for Islam. They lost it in 1099. And this is 1187. Yeah, he's done this great service to his faith. But he's been criticised on the way through, not least for usurping Nur al-Din's family possessions. Of course, his propagandists, his team, say, well, we were the right people after all. God has blessed our enterprise.

How else can you explain it? So he is justified. Nobody else has managed this in 88 years, and now we have. And he captures the king of Jerusalem. Yep. How do you go about capturing a king? Do you dig a hole and hope that he sort of falls into it? Do you just grab him in the sleeve? This is at the end

of the Battle of Hattin and the Frankish army just surrenders. The foot soldiers just sit down. That's a sign we've had enough. They are French. They're like, let's just get back to the wine and cheese. What are we doing? Absolutely. I mean, if you're in the desert and there's a guy chucking water on the floor going, I don't even need this water, you must be

like, I'm done. Saladin has got this reputation for mercy, and it's when he then captures Jerusalem a couple of months later that that reputation is gained. Because 1099, the first crusaders get to Jerusalem as a bloodbath. 1187, there is some pressure on Saladin to make revenge for that, but he decides not to. It's not the sensible thing to do.

The Christian defenders would kill all the Muslim prisoners they've got. They'd fight to the death. They'd destroy the Dome of the Rock, which Saladin's after. So he agrees to a ransom. And whatever the thought process, just the act of not slaughtering the Christians in 1187, I think is something that does so much for his reputation. I mean, mercy is power. I could kill you, but I won't. Yeah, it is. And also, I think, while in one way, he's just sort of put a stake through the heart of Western Europe, taking Christendom's great city.

The Pope's supposed to have died of a heart attack when he hears of it. Wow. At the same time, by this act of sort of chivalry, he has done something that Western Europe can't quite get over. That was remarkable. The Pope died of a heart attack? Yeah, when he heard that Saladin, the Muslims, had got Jerusalem back. That's amazing. That's another person that just dropped dead around him.

Yeah, yeah. What is going on? There's a confusion in Europe because they're like, hang on, he's meant to be the bad guy, but he's sort of behaving like a good Christian. First of all, he is the son of Satan, as they describe him. Well, there's a wonderful picture of the seven-headed beast of the apocalypse. That's a better title than Vizier, son of Satan. Well, that is how they describe him.

And they draw this seven-headed beast of the apocalypse. And head number six is Saladin. Who would be in your top seven heads? This is my Mount Rushmore of Satan heads. Some ex-boyfriends. This is actually, I don't know, seven isn't enough. In the course of the Third Crusade, Western Europeans are out there for two or three years

and they engage with Saladin and particularly his brother, who's a man called Safferdin, and they realise that these men have got a lot more in common with them than they thought. So you've mentioned the Third Crusade there. So this is 1189. Have you ever heard of Richard Lionheart? No.

He's in the Disney movie as a lion cartoon. The Robin Hood film where Robin is a fox. Did they cast him based on his last name? Pretty much. Richard is the King of England. Saladin is a big deal also because he has something called the Saladin Tithe. There's a sort of tax that the English king raises in order to go and fight him.

Having a tax named after you is never good. It's like having a crowd funder against your enemy. We're raising money to fight this guy. But they're so appalled at the loss of Jerusalem to the Muslims that they've got to do something and you're all going to have to cough up folks. So they do try

and raise huge amounts of money from everybody. And Richardard goes out there it goes quite well for a bit yeah there's been a huge siege at a place called acre for almost two years richard turns up that ends successfully for the crusaders richard defeats saladin in a couple of battles so again one's clearly a better general than the other okay He's got the Crusaders coming over in wave after wave. And so it's an incredibly stressful, difficult situation because Saladin's not winning anymore. He's not got the money to give out. But in the end, he knows Richard will have to go home.

So if he can just hang on in the end, Richard will go away. Why did Richard have to go home? Because his younger brother, John, basically steals the throne. If you watch the Disney movie, it's very accurate. Is there actually a Disney movie? Yeah, it's an animation from the 60s, I think. And Robin Hood is a fox. And John is a sort of cowardly lion, isn't he?

I mean, it's great. But there is this interesting story. Richard gets really ill. He's got something called arnaldia which is a weird medieval disease we don't know what it is we think it's scurvy yeah i sort of skin goes all flaky his fingernails fall out and his hair falls out and his skin goes all rubbery and weird and he goes kind of gray colored and saladin instead of going brilliant another guy dropping dead which is usually how it works, sends him a doctor.

Sends him a doctor and sends him Richard wants plums and pears. And so it's all part of diplomacy. Well, when you take those gifts over, you can actually see what's happening in the army camp and you can talk to factions and sort of split them up a bit. But it's also part of courtesy, respect for other men of your kind of level. Well, nobody wants to defeat a person whose skin is falling off. It's just like, get yourself together, and when you feel better, let's fight again.

I have to say, Saladin's health is not good at all. Scruciating pain, jaundice. One year, he has boils from his waist down all over his legs. His immune system is basically shot to pieces. So the two of them are kind of like By the end of the third crusade They're both very ill, very tired, very broke And they kind of just about come to a standstill

So this heroic image of these two great warriors Actually, they're just knackered old men Just going, oh my god, make it end They are pretty well And Saladin sort of said, well, you know Actually, you're much younger than me You're not doing so well, are you? So they do struggle Raises a sword to fight.

His arm falls off. Just what is happening to you two? Because you started with the idea of the sort of son of Satan. And yet, after two, three years of closer contact, there is this curious kind of relationship emerges. Sort of a grudging respect. Yeah. Is that like that in the comedy scene in L.A.? Is there a sort of a respect your enemy?

Oh, no, not at all. No, nobody respects anybody. Absolutely not. Every man for themselves. So you wouldn't send a basket of plums to your enemy? Oh, no, no. God, I wouldn't. I can't afford that.

Are you serious? Maria, can you guess how much money is left in the treasury when Saladin dies? Is it just like one solo coin? It's not far off. He's got all this money that he hands out. He goes for sort of personal austerity. And I think that is his faith. It's appropriate for his image as the holy warrior.

But he does not want to be seen to be covered in jewels and fine robes and things like that. He's just a giver. Yeah, he is. It's very Arab, by the way. It's a very Arab thing to take, here, take, have, have, have, give, give, give. Oh, you like my shirt? You can have it. But Richard gives him a gift, apparently, in the course of the Third Crusade.

We don't know what it is. And Saladin, I've got to give him something better. There's a one-up machine. Yeah, yeah. We don't know what it is. And Saladin, I've got to give him something better. So it's a one-up machine. Yeah, yeah.

According to the story, there were 37 coins in the treasury, which is not good. I mean, this is a guy who rules an empire. I mean, how big is the empire? Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, the Holy Land. It's vast. So he's broker, then he gives off. But when he dies, I mean, everything just sort of collapsed because he's been holding it together. The money's gone.

All the old sort of fights kick off again. It really does show what a clearly influential, cohesive figure he is. Within months of his death, I mean, he's got all those sons. They start fighting amongst one another. The remarkable thing about Saladin really is that it's his sort of singular personality and abilities that have forged an empire that really shouldn't have been forged. And as soon as he's gone, all the wheels fall off. Yeah.

The Nuance Window! We've reached the point in the podcast called The Nuance Window, where we allow our expert to geek out for two minutes without interruption on anything they want to talk about. And Jonathan, you're going to talk about Saladin, the real man, and you're going to talk about his mental health. So I've got two minutes on the clock. Three, two, one. Off we go. Mental health is something that feels modern, doesn't it? And it's not very often we can understand what's going on today, 800 years ago. understand what's going on to the 800 years ago and i guess if you think of the sort of the scale of the challenge that saladin faced waves of crusaders coming over trying to hold his family together nur al-din's family disliking him the assassins trying to kill him running all these

things you actually got to sort of step back and go hang on think of the strain that that man was under and there are moments when some of the chroniclers talk about this, once you sort of start tuning into it. And there's a couple of occasions where, as well as the sort of physical stresses and strains that he's under, you know, his immune system is pretty well done. There's a few occasions where they stop fighting because of the tension, the pressure he was under. It's as if they just go, you you know he can't do this anymore and I find that fascinating we know we talk about the battles and we talk about motives and all the achievements and the victories and the defeats just to sort of humanize him with the pressure of do you realize

the strain I am under trying to achieve this and at the end of it the third crusade is western Europe's sort of, kings, rulers. They've thrown themselves at him and he's preserved Jerusalem in the hands of Muslims. And that, I think, Saladin dies a few months after that. I would think he would say, that was my aim. That's what I said I was going to do. And that's what I've achieved. Excellent.

Well, thank you so much. And that is all we have time for on today's show. A big thank you again to our guests in History Corner, the brilliant Professor Jonathan Phillips from the Memorial Holloway University of London, and in Comedy Corner, the fantastic Maria Shahata. And to our lovely listeners, join me next time when we'll have another nice chat with two completely different guests about something completely different that happened in the past.

But for now, I'm off to go and try and get tickets for Saladin the ballet. Bye! Lauren Laverne here with news of a very successful Desert Island Discs rescue. They've been missing for decades. David Hockney. I went to the art school and they asked me if I had a private income. And I said I didn't know what that was.

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