Editing Saladin (section)

===Western world===
{{see also|Ordene de chevalerie}}
[[File:Cristofano dell'altissimo, saladino, ante 1568 - Serie Gioviana.jpg|thumb|''Saladinus'', by [[Cristofano dell'Altissimo]], ante 1568]]
Saladin was widely renowned in medieval Europe as a model of kingship, and in particular of the courtly virtue of regal generosity. As early as 1202/03, [[Walther von der Vogelweide]] urged the German King [[Philip of Swabia]] to be more like Saladin, who believed that a king's hands should have holes to let the gold fall through.{{efn|''Denk an den milten Salatîn / der jach, daz küniges hende dürkel solten sîn / sô wurden sî erforht und ouch geminnet.'' (Think of the generous Saladin, who said that kings' hands should have holes, that they might be both feared and loved.){{sfn|Wapnewski|1962|p=138}}}}
By the 1270s, [[Jans der Enikel]] was spreading the fictitious but approving story of Saladin's table,{{efn|Saladin had a table that was made of a gigantic sapphire. As the end of his life approached, he wanted to dedicate the table to God in the hope of eternal life, but he couldn't decide which god to honour, the Muslim God, the Christian or the Jewish, as there was no way to tell which was most powerful. So he had the table cut in three parts and gifted each of them a third of it (Jans, ''Weltchronik'', 26551–26675).{{sfn|Dunphy|2003}} }} which presented him as both pious and wise to religious diversity.{{sfn|Dunphy|2003}}
In ''[[The Divine Comedy]]'' (1308–1320), [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]] mentions him as one of the virtuous non-Christians in [[limbo]],<ref>[[s:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 1/Canto 4|Inferno, Canto IV]], line 129</ref> and he is also depicted favorably in Boccaccio's ''[[The Decameron]]'' (1438–53).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/history/characters/saladin.php|title='Saladin' (in full, 'Salah ad-din yusuf ibn ayyub,' meaning 'righteousness of the faith, Joseph, son of Job') (c. 1137–1193)|website=Decameron Web|publisher=Brown University}}</ref>

Although Saladin faded into history after the [[Middle Ages]], he appears in a sympathetic light in modern literature, first in [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing|Lessing]]'s play ''[[Nathan the Wise]]'' (1779), which transfers the central idea of "Saladin's table" to the post-medieval world. He is a central character in Sir [[Walter Scott]]'s novel ''[[The Talisman (Scott novel)|The Talisman]]'' (1825), which more than any other single text influenced the romantic view of Saladin. Scott presented Saladin as a "modern [19th-century] liberal European gentlemen, beside whom medieval Westerners would always have made a poor showing".{{sfn|Riley-Smith|2008|p=67}} 20th-century French author [[Albert Champdor]] described him as ''"Le plus pur héros de l'Islam"'' ({{langx|en|The purest Hero of Islam}}).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cahen |first1=Claude |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b7sieLyg-EEC&dq=champdor+historian&pg=PA166 |title=Introduction to the History of the Muslim East: A Bibliographical Guide |last2=Sauvaget |first2=Jean |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |year=1965 |page=166 |language=en |chapter=The Seljuks and Their Descendants – Historical Bibliography}}</ref> Despite the Crusaders' slaughter when they originally conquered Jerusalem in 1099, Saladin granted amnesty and free passage to all common Catholics and even to the defeated Christian army, as long as they were able to pay the aforementioned ransom (the [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Greek Orthodox]] Christians were treated even better because they often opposed the western Crusaders).{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}

Notwithstanding the differences in beliefs, the Muslim Saladin was respected by Christian lords, [[Richard I of England|Richard]] especially. Richard once praised Saladin as a great prince, saying that he was, without doubt, the greatest and most powerful leader in the Islamic world.{{sfn|Lyons|Jackson|1982|p=357}} Saladin, in turn, stated that there was not a more honorable Christian lord than Richard. After the treaty, Saladin and Richard sent each other many gifts as tokens of respect but never met face to face. In April 1191, a Frankish woman's three-month-old baby had been stolen from her camp and sold on the market. The Franks urged her to approach Saladin herself with her grievance. According to Ibn Shaddad, Saladin used his own money to buy the child back:

{{blockquote|He gave it to the mother and she took it; with tears streaming down her face, and hugged the baby to her chest. The people were watching her and weeping and I (Ibn Shaddad) was standing amongst them. She suckled it for some time and then Saladin ordered a horse to be fetched for her and she went back to camp.{{sfn|Baha ad-Din|2002|pp=147–148}}{{sfn|Lyons|Jackson|1982|pp=325–326}} }}

Mark Cartwright, the publishing director of ''[[World History Encyclopedia]]'', writes: "Indeed, it is somewhat ironic that the Muslim leader became one of the great exemplars of chivalry in 13th century European literature. Much has been written about the sultan during his own lifetime and since, but the fact that an appreciation for his diplomacy and leadership skills can be found in both contemporary Muslim and Christian sources would suggest that Saladin is indeed worthy of his position as one of the great medieval leaders."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Cartwright |first1=Mark |title=Saladin |date= 2018 |encyclopedia=[[World History Encyclopedia]] |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Saladin/}}</ref>