7 Saladin 7

city of Jerusalem, holy to both Muslims and Christians

alike, surrendered to Saladin’s army after 88 years in the

hands of the Franks. Saladin planned to avenge the slaugh-

ter of Muslims in Jerusalem in 1099 by killing all Christians

in the city, but he agreed to let them purchase their free-

dom provided that the Christian defenders left the Muslim

inhabitants unmolested.

His victory deeply shocked the West and led to the call

for the Third Crusade (1189 – 92), which matched him

against Richard I (the Lionheart), whom he was able to

fight to a draw. When King Richard left the Middle East

in October 1192, the battle was over. Their stalemate

resulted in a peace that gave the Crusaders only a small

strip of land from Tyre to Yafo (Jaffa). Saladin withdrew to

his capital at Damascus, where he died the next year.

Chinggis Khan

(b. 1162, near Lake Baikal, Mongolia—d. Aug. 18, 1227)

O

ne of the most famous conquerors in history is the

Mongolian warrior-ruler Chinggis Khan. He was

also known as Genghis Khan, although his original name

was Temüjin. He consolidated tribes into a unified

Mongolia and then extended his empire across Asia to the

Adriatic Sea.

The chronology of Temüjin’s early life is uncertain. He

may have been born in 1155, in 1162 (the date favoured

today in Mongolia), or in 1167. According to legend, his

birth was auspicious because he came into the world hold-

ing a clot of blood in his hand. He is also said to have been

of divine origin, his first ancestor having been a gray wolf,

“born with a destiny from heaven on high.” Yet his early

years were anything but promising. When he was nine, his

father, Yesügei, a member of the royal Borjigin clan of the