Saladin days
From Mr Bernard Goodwin Sir: James Delingpole (Arts, 18 August) repeats one of the common fallacies of current political correctness about the Crusades, when he says that Salah-ed-Din refused 'to follow the example of the unsavoury Crusaders and ordered that the inhabitants [of Jerusalem] should be spared'. This is not quite how it happened.
When the fall of the city became imminent, Balian of Ibelin asked Salah-ed-Din for terms. His answer was 'I shall slaughter all the men and take the women into slavery.'
Balian's reply was that in that case they would so destroy the city and everything therein that it would not be worth taking, with no plunder or slaves to be had, and then come out and fight to the death.
Salah-ed-Din then agreed to allow the population to ransom itself at ten dinars for a man, five for a woman and one for a child. Bernard Goodwin
Greensborouth, Victoria, Australia
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