Biography Lane-Pool, Stanley: Saladin (Illustrated). v1 10 September 2013

[AlexBell]

Stanley Lane-Poole (1854-1931) was a British orientalist, numismatist, historian, and archaeologist, and came from a family of orientalists. He worked from 1874 to 1892 in the British Museum, then in Egypt researching Egyptian archaeology, and then went to Sweden, Russia, and Turkey to study Islamic numismatics. From 1897 to 1904 he was the Professor of Arabic studies at Trinity College, Dublin University.

Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was the first biography in English of Saladin, the Kurdish Moslem leader who regained Jerusalem and most of Palestine from the Crusaders, and who was renowned for his mercy and integrity.

When Roland of Aguilers helped to conquer Jerusalem in 1099 he celebrated the slaughter visited upon the city's Muslims: 'Crusaders rode in blood to the knees and bridles of their horses... Jerusalem was littered with bodies and stained with blood... A new day, new gladness... brought forth new words and songs for all.'

When Jerusalem was retaken from the Crusaders in 1187 there was virtually no bloodshed after the city surrendered, the people were treated kindly, and many were set free. Dr Lane-Poole wrote 'If the taking of Jersusalem were the only fact known about Saladin, it were enough to prove him the most chivalrous and great-hearted conqueror of his own, and perhaps of any age.' Would that the Christian European and American conquerors of Magdeburg, La Rochelle, Warsaw, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, My Lai, Fallujah, and many other cities had learned from him.

The text is based on the 1906 edition published by G P Putnam's Sons. The spelling has been modernised and scene breaks have been added. The circular images on the Part tables of content were from painted on glass windows in the abbey of St Denys in the middle of the twelth century.

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