The great Muslim warrior Salah al-Din, sultan of Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Palestine, is best remembered in the West as the man who won Jerusalem back from the Crusaders in 1187 AD. (He behaved mercifully on that occasion, unlike the Christian besiegers in the previous century.) This readable account shows that Saladin was both a skilful politician and an outstanding soldier, as indeed he had to be to handle his Muslim neighbours as well as the Crusader armies. Though generous and even chivalrous after his own fashion, Saladin was also an unwavering proponent of the holy war or jihad against all infidels, and his wars against the Western armies were sternly religious as well as political. It was largely thanks to him that the Crusades, after a strong start, drifted into stalemate. Saladin's strict morality left him without the money to pay for his own grave.