All language subtitles for BBC.Jerusalem.The.Making.of.a.Holy.City.2of3.Invasion.Invasion.Invasion.DVDRip.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE:
Jerusalem, the Holy City,

is regarded by many
as the actual centre of the world.

Since the Bronze Age,
it's been the object of desire

for both conquerors and prophets,

each one claiming the city and robbing
their predecessors of their past.

Jerusalem is ever-changing.

It's never been the same,

and that is both its blessing
and its curse.

This beguiling place
has changed hands many times,

often with violence and bloodshed.

And for many, this religious capital
will be the setting

for the Day of Judgement
when the world will end.

In the early 7th century, a new faith
arose out of the Arabian Peninsula.

This faith would revere Jerusalem,
already sacred to Jews and Christians.

But the new movement would adapt
and commandeer their traditions.

This was Islam.

Its followers believe that
their founder, too, came here

like Abraham and Jesus before him.

But what would the arrival
of a third faith

mean for the unfolding story
of Jerusalem?

I'm a writer and historian,

and I've been coming to Jerusalem
since childhood.

It's been a holy place,

the site of a sacred spring
for some 4,000 years.

This was where
the Jews built their temples

for the worship of their one god,

where the Canaanites, Greeks and Romans
idolised their pagan gods,

and where Christianity was founded.

In the 4th century,

Constantine the Great
created Christian Jerusalem,

building the enormous
Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre

and commandeering the sacred symbols
and relics of Judaism.

The Temple Mount
where the Jewish temple once stood

was deliberately preserved in ruins

to celebrate the victory
of Christianity over Judaism.

The Jews were a persecuted minority
and in the 7th century,

they remained banned from Jerusalem

by the Christian Byzantines
who still ruled the Middle East.

The Christians had even
claimed for themselves

many of the Jewish traditions
of the Temple Mount,

and now they moved these, wholesale,

over to the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre.

Adam's skull, Abraham's altar

and the oil-bearing horn
that had anointed King David

joined Christian relics, such as
the lance that had pierced Jesus' side,

and of course, the True Cross.

They even moved
the official centre of the world

from Temple Mount to its new home
at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

But the Byzantine Empire had grown weak,

and Christian Jerusalem
was about to be changed

by the revelations given to one man.

800 miles away in the Arabian Desert,

a young merchant named Muhammad
lived in the pagan town of Mecca.

(DOG BARKING)

(GOATS BLEATING)

But he knew of Jerusalem

and he came to respect
the Jewish and Christian scriptures.

According to tradition, in 6 1 0 AD,
the Archangel Gabriel visited Muhammad.

He came to believe he was chosen
to be God's messenger.

When the prophet received
God's revelations,

it was said
that his face became flushed,

he fell silent,
he lay limp on the floor,

engulfed by visions and humming sounds.

And then he began to recite
these divine and poetical revelations.

At first, they were just chanted aloud,
then they were divided into 1 1 4 chapters

and finally collated into a book
known as the Quran.

Muhammad preached submission,
in Arabic, ''Islam, ''

to the one God
in return for universal salvation.

And for him,Jerusalem mattered.

Respectful of the Jewish
and Christian prophets,

he venerated this place.

Unlike Jesus,
Muhammad was not a miracle worker,

but one apparently mystical experience
would link him forever with the city.

Muhammad's followers
believe that one night

he was awoken by the angel Gabriel

and mounted a steed with a human face,
named Al-Buraq.

And together,
they flew on his night journey

to a place called
''The Furthest Sanctuary.''

There he met and prayed

with the most revered prophets
of Judaism and Christianity,

including Abraham, Moses and Jesus,
and then ascended to heaven.

And it's this that would turn
the spotlight on Jerusalem

for the emerging faith.

From the earliest days of Islam,

this Furthest Sanctuary was identified
with the Temple Mount.

And today it's known as Haram-al-Sharif,
the noble sanctuary.

(CONVERSING)

Jerusalem remains a sacred destination
for Muhammad's followers.

On this day every year,

Muslims gather here to commemorate
the night journey

of the prophet Muhammad to Jerusalem,

making this city one of the most holy
places in the world for Muslims today.

Al-Isra or the Night Journey

is celebrated in mosques
across the city.

(CHANTING IN ARABIC)

Mustafa Abu Sway
leads fellow Muslims in prayer.

My understanding
of the Night Journey is that

it's the night that established
the perpetual relation between

two parts of the Muslim world,
between Mecca and Jerusalem.

And it's an invitation, basically,
to the children of Abraham

to reconnect with Jerusalem.

It was a night in which
the Prophet himself, of course,

connected personally with Jerusalem,
when everyone knows that all prophets

had that sublime relationship
with this Holy City.

MONTEFIORE: Muhammad's message
wasn't just one of prayer and peace.

He was also a formidable statesman,
and he sent an expeditionary force

to probe the defences
of Byzantine Palestine.

I wonder if he was already dreaming
of reaching Jerusalem.

In any case, Islam was getting closer.

Muhammad died in 632,

but his vision continued
under his successors

who were known as the Caliphs
or ''Commanders of the Faithful. ''

And just five years
after their Prophet's death,

three Islamic armies
were converging on Jerusalem.

It's thought there was a reason
for their urgency,

that these early Muslims
may have believed

the end of the world
would take place here.

Muhsin Yusuf has studied
what drove Muhammad's followers.

The day of judgement, the end day,

was extremely important
for almost everybody.

The religious people
especially came to Jerusalem

and they wanted to occupy it

because they wanted to be here
in the Day of Judgement

because they think and they thought
in that time

that they would ascend to heaven
from here,

from Jerusalem,
so they wanted to be close.

But for the average soldiers,
it was important,

but it's not like the religious people.

They wanted to revenge
against the Byzantines

who tried to attack Muhammad.

Driven by these political
and religious motives,

the Islamic armies surrounded
and laid siege to the Holy City.

Inside, the Christians,
led by the patriarch Sophronius,

thought the Muslims had been sent
as punishment for their sins.

Fearful of a bloody storming
of the city,

they started to negotiate
and agreed to surrender,

on one condition.

That the terms of the takeover

were personally guaranteed
by the Muslim Caliph himself, Omar,

a puritanical giant who reinforced
his authority with a big stick.

The Caliph Omar arrived in Jerusalem
to accept the surrender of the city.

The patriarch Sophronius presented him
with the keys of Jerusalem

in return for the promise that
the Christians could worship freely,

the so-called ''Pact of Omar.''

Omar had won Jerusalem
for the early Muslims.

But he went further still.

For him, the now ruined Jewish shrines
on the Temple Mount

were important to Islam, too.

He and his warriors cleared away
the debris to pray there.

He was deliberately co-opting

the ancient Jewish tradition
of sanctity there

for the new and final revelation
of Islam.

And he even invited the Jews themselves,

who had been exiled by the Christians
back to the city,

so that they, too,
could pray on the Temple Mount.

But the central importance
of Jerusalem to Islam was paramount.

The new faith would build right on
the site of the Jewish temple itself.

This would become the jewel in the crown
of Islamic Jerusalem

and a monument to the splendour
of those Arab Caliphs who built it.

The Umayyads.

The Umayyad empire
was one of the largest in the world

and in 685,
Abd al-Malik became its Caliph.

Abd al-Malik was
a triumphant empire builder

and religious reformer.

He won a vicious civil war
against his enemies

and when he captured one rebel leader,
he led him around on a dog leash,

hacked off his head
and tossed it to the crowd.

But despite this brutal exterior,

he also indulged
his more aesthetic sensibilities

and his most enduring achievement
is still breathtaking.

(INDISTINCT)

And it was the legacy of Judaism
that he drew on

for the location of
this most ambitious of projects,

adding a new layer of holiness
to an already sacred site.

It's one of the most successful

and beautiful religious buildings
ever constructed.

Dominating the Temple Mount,
it's the Dome of the Rock.

It's not a mosque, but a shrine,

and mysteriously,
Abd al-Malik never said why he built it.

The design was exquisitely simple,

a dome 65 feet in diameter
supported by a drum,

all resting on octagonal walls.

The golden dome,
the gleaming white marble

and the lavish decorations
are a powerful combination.

It's unlike any other Islamic shrine
in the world.

Directly beneath the dome
is the Rock itself.

Then, as now,
this spot marks for so many

the centre of the world.

This is a very ancient stone.
No one knows its ultimate origin,

but this is certainly the holiest place
in all of Jerusalem.

This is the place where some believe
Adam's skull was buried.

Where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac,

where the Jewish holy of holies
supposedly stood.

This is the place whence Muhammad
the prophet ascended to heaven

during his night journey.

And it's an amazing place just to stand

and believe that this is the essence,

the foundation stone
of Jerusalem sanctity.

Jerusalem now had an Islamic shrine,

but still needed a mosque
for Friday prayers.

Built by Abd al-Malik and his son,

it's known as ''Al-Aqsa, ''
the farthest mosque.

Between them,
Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock

celebrated Islam's claim to Jerusalem.

The Jewish Temple Mount
was now an Islamic shrine,

and its magnificence outshone
any of the Christian monuments.

Surely that was always
Abd al-Malik's intention.

For over 300 years,
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

had been the centre
of all religious life in Jerusalem.

But now the Muslims had reactivated
and reinvigorated the Temple Mount,

adopting and adapting
many of the traditions of the Jews

and the Christians, and of course,
adding many of their own.

From now on,
Jerusalem had two centres of sanctity.

The Christian and the Muslim.

The Umayyads ruled from Syria,
but loved Jerusalem,

and even considered making it
their imperial capital.

Right here,
just south of the Temple Mount,

the Umayyad Caliphs built
a magnificent palace complex,

often using stones
from the old Jewish temple.

There were vast, expansive courtyards
and tinkling fountains.

And amazingly, they designed it

so they could walk straight
from their third floor apartments

into their new and magnificent
Al-Aqsa mosque up there.

These carvings once decorated
the caliphs'palaces.

They're 1,400 years old,
but give a glimpse into an Islamic world

that, today, is unimaginable.

The Umayyads were more like
decadent Roman emperors

than puritanical Islamic rulers.

Islam actual banned
the depiction of human faces,

but as you can see
from these decorations,

the Umayyads enjoyed
naked dancing girls.

Some with cartoonish faces,

and some bare-breasted
and brazenly sexual.

This was not our traditional image
of early Islam.

Far from it. In fact, it would have
been fun to be an Umayyad.

Yet, even under this decadent,
easy-going and rather tolerant dynasty,

Islam was changing
and becoming more exclusive.

The Jews had been allowed
to worship on the Temple Mount

for about 80 years, but in 720,

the Caliph banned them
from entering those precincts at all.

They were allowed to continue
to live in the city,

but the Jews weren't allowed
onto the Temple Mount again

for over 1 ,000 years.

Jerusalem was ruled by
the Umayyads and their successors,

the Abbasids,
for more than three centuries.

They were mainstream Sunni Muslims.

But since the 7th century,
Islam had been split into two strands.

In 969, a new mystical dynasty
from Egypt conquered the city.

They belonged to the other strand
of Islam, the Shiites.

Their Caliphs claimed descent
from the Prophet's daughter Fatimah.

They were known as Fatimids

and they were much more tolerant
towards Christians and Jews.

Christian pilgrims
were flocking to the city

as the new millennium approached.

Around this time, there were rumours
that Jerusalem would be ruled

by a mystical last Christian Emperor
who would herald the end of days.

But the Muslims regarded their
own Fatimid Caliphs as sacred kings,

and by the year 1 000,

a child was Caliph
of the Fatimid Dynasty.

This sacred boy ruler was Al-Hakim.

He grew up to be broad-shouldered,
handsome,

and his blue eyes
were speckled with gold.

He adored poetry, he loved literature
and he was ascetic.

He was a popular
and beloved young Caliph.

But he was increasingly obsessed
with his own semi-messianic status.

He took to wandering
the streets at night

in mystical trances induced by opium.

Then he ordered massacres of
dogs and cats, and banned chess.

Gradually, Hakim was going mad.

The Fatimid Caliphs considered
themselves to be touched by the divine,

suspended between God and man.

But soon it seems Hakim believed
he was wholly divine.

And he began to exercise his powers
to devastating effect.

Hakim, who was swiftly emerging
as the Arab Caligula,

soon unleashed his first purge
against the Jews and the Christians.

He ordered Jews to wear
a grotesque cow-like halter

to remind them of the golden calf.

And they had to ring bells
to warn Muslims of their approach.

Then he offered them the choice,
death or conversion,

and thousands of Jews
started to flee the country.

As for the Christians,

it was a sacred ritual
performed just once a year

at their holiest site
that provoked Hakim's dangerous fury,

the Descent of the Holy Fire.

(CHANTING)

On holy Saturday night,

crowds fought for a place
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Christ's tomb was sealed
and all lamps extinguished

until, amid emotional scenes,
the patriarch entered the tomb.

(BELLS RINGING)

Thousands of pilgrims waited

in spine-tingling anticipation
and total darkness.

First, there was a spark,
then a flicker, then brightness flared.

And the patriarch emerged
holding the holy fire.

(BELL TOLLING)

Which was then passed
from pilgrim to pilgrim

in scenes of total abandon and wild joy.

(CROWD CHEERING)

To the Christians, it was a miracle
confirming the divinity of Christ.

But to Hakim,
it was a piece of trickery,

an exhibition of fairground hucksterism,
and as soon as he heard about it,

he ordered the total demolition
of this place.

The reconstruction of the Holy Sepulchre
would take decades,

and never even approached
the glory or scale of the original.

Scarcely anything remains of
Constantine's Basilica, except here.

A three-minute walk away
from today's Holy Sepulchre

is this little-known Russian church,
the Alexander Nevsky.

Hakim had destroyed
Constantine the Great's Basilica,

the first Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

almost down to bedrock
and virtually nothing was left.

But it's one of the joys of Jerusalem

that you find in the most
unexpected places, hidden treasures.

And this pillar is one of them.

Here it stands, down in the bell room
of a 1 9th-century church.

And this pillar once stood
in the magnificent Basilica

of Constantine the Great.

And as you touch it,

you can feel the presence
of his vanished Jerusalem,

destroyed by the insane delusions

of a messianic tyrant,

Al-Hakim.

Despite Hakim's worst excesses,

still the Christians kept coming
on holy pilgrimages

that were increasingly fashionable.

But Fatimid Jerusalem
now fell to Turkic warlords

who threatened and massacred
the Christian pilgrims.

Europe issued a rallying cry
to rescue the Holy City.

In 1 095, Pope Urban II
created a new Christian concept,

holy war for Jerusalem.

In return for the remission
of sins, and salvation,

Christians would conquer Jerusalem

and cleanse the holy sites
of the vile infidel.

Tens of thousands
vowed to become holy warriors,

setting off through Europe
into Asia Minor.

Some were organised armies
led by princes and their knights.

Others were mobs led by holy men.

For around three years,

these Crusaders battled their way
towards their sacred goal.

Of 80,000 who set off,

probably only around 1 0,000
survived the perilous journey.

On Tuesday, June 7th, 1 099,
in punishing heat,

the Crusaders finally received
the reward for all their suffering.

They emerged from
the hills around Jerusalem

to see before them
the city of the King of Kings,

and before them, too,
the tomb of their Lord Jesus Christ.

By nightfall, they were encamped
around Jerusalem.

Far from home,
the Crusaders' choice was stark.

Death, or victory on the ramparts
of the Holy City.

Things seemed hopeless.

But Italian sailors arrived
just in time.

They dismantled their ships

and built siege engines
from the timbers.

There would be no going back.

Finally, at almost the last moment,

the Crusaders identified the weakest
point in Jerusalem's defences,

and somewhere around here,

they rolled up their siege engines
against the wall where it was lowest

and fought their way into the city.

Simultaneously, they broke in
through the southern walls, too,

and began their vicious slaughter
of the Muslim faithful,

whether citizens or soldiers.

(SWORDS CLASHING)

The battle raged for hours.

The Crusaders killed
everyone they could find,

in the streets and the alleyways.

(SWORDS CLASHING)

They didn't just chop off heads,
but also feet and hands,

delighting in the fountains
of cleansing infidel blood.

They seized babies from their mothers

and dashed their heads
against the walls.

Ultimately, they hacked and diced
so much human flesh

that they literally rode up
to their bridles in blood.

The fleeing Jerusalemites
took refuge on the roofs

of the Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock.

But the Crusaders smashed their way
onto this crowded sacred esplanade.

Some Muslims leapt to their deaths.

Jews sought refuge in their synagogues,
but the Crusaders set them on fire.

After 48 hours, the slaughter was over.

At the Holy Sepulchre,

princes and priests
sang in praise of Christ,

clapping jubilantly and
bathing the altar in tears of joy

before parading through the streets.

But the city was almost empty.

The numbers killed have been
exaggerated to as many as 70,000,

but the toll was probably
between 1 0,000 and 30,000 dead.

Such was the slaughter
that six months later,

Jerusalem would still stink
of putrefying bodies.

The Crusaders who died in battle
were laid to rest in this graveyard

next to the Golden Gate,
ready to rise on Judgement Day.

(MUEZZIN CALLING)

Benny Kedar has studied what drove them.

Evidently, the Crusaders
seeked to attain salvation

by joining the Crusade,
by fighting in it, by dying on it.

But this was not the only motivation
one can ascribe to them.

Certainly there were people

who were seeking
a new life in a new country.

There were people who were adventurous,

and sometimes their motivation was

an amalgam of these three aims.

So what was the significance
of this place outside the Golden Gate

to the Crusaders?

Of course, this is the place where,

according to Jewish,
Christian and Muslim tradition,

the end of days is going to take place,

and everybody wants to have
a good seat for that occasion,

and that's why you have all these
cemeteries all around to this day.

(MUEZZIN CALLING)

MONTEFIORE: The Crusaders had
slaughtered the people of Jerusalem

but they didn't destroy
their holy places.

As so often in the city's history,

they seized their enemies' sacred sites
and made them their own.

The Crusaders,
like the Muslims before them,

believed that many of
the major buildings in Jerusalem

had actually been constructed
by David and Solomon.

So they turned the Dome of the Rock

into the Temple of the Lord,
Templum Domini,

and they turned the Al-Aqsa mosque
into the temple or palace of Solomon.

Both became churches.

(TOLLING)

New bells were installed,

their sound symbolising the Christian
and not the Islamic call to prayer.

Jews and Muslims were banned
on pain of death from entering the city

and very few of them
were even left alive.

Syrian and Armenian Christians

were invited to settle in Jerusalem
to increase its population.

This now Christian city was once again
the capital of a kingdom,

the kingdom of Jerusalem

whose lands included much of
today's Israel,Jordan and Lebanon.

Crusader Jerusalem
was about to enter its golden age

under a remarkable woman
who deserves to be better known,

Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem.

(CLICKING)

In 1 1 29,

the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
witnessed its first royal wedding.

Melisende, the daughter
of King Baldwin II,

married Fulk, Count of Anjou.

And they then processed
through cheering streets

and then spent
their first night together

in the royal apartments
of the Al-Aqsa mosque.

The pomp and popularity
of the royal wedding

was a sign of what was to come
for Jerusalem.

Under Queen Melisende,
the city would flourish.

She embellished Jerusalem,
creating much of what we see today.

(BELLS TOLLING)

She built the classic
Crusader Church of St Anne's

and the markets of Jerusalem.

They're still the markets today.

Melisende's Jerusalem
had a population of around 30,000,

plus streams of pilgrims.

But it was a dangerous city.

The medieval version of the wild west.

Murderers, adventurers and whores
came here to make their fortune.

Its political intrigues
were notoriously sleazy.

Even the respected Queen herself
was implicated.

Melisende was famously beautiful
and as formidable as any man,

but even she had her share of scandal.

Rather bored with her
middle-aged husband, King Fulk,

she started to spend a lot of time

with the young and handsome
Count Hugh of Jaffa.

King Fulk accused them
of having an affair, and one day,

while Count Hugh was sitting
in a Jerusalem cafe playing dice,

he was approached and stabbed
by a mysterious knight.

King Fulk's critics claimed

that he'd ordered the assassination
of his wife's lover.

When the knight was tried, tortured
and then publicly dismembered,

only his tongue was left intact
to prove the king's innocence.

Melisende and King Fulk made it up.

Even if the Queen had lost her love,
she kept her power.

And soon she would celebrate
her greatest achievement.

Melisende and her son
rebuilt and reconsecrated

the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

It remains to this day the masterpiece

and dazzling holy stage set
of Crusader Jerusalem.

But even as the Crusader kingdom
enjoyed its heyday,

Islam resolved to win back
the Holy City.

And the man who would launch
this new holy war was Saladin.

Saladin was a remarkably
gifted statesman,

beloved by his princes and generals
whom he alone could bind together.

And by the standards
of the 1 2th century,

he was a very attractive leader.

He was wise, moderate, humane.

But above all, he loved Jerusalem.

''I've had my fill of earthly pleasures,''
he said.

From then on, he devoted himself
to the holy war to liberate Jerusalem.

Jerusalem's strategic nightmare

was that Syria and Egypt
would unite against her.

Now Saladin seized both,

encircling Jerusalem
and threatening to strangle the kingdom.

And he was fortunate in his enemies.

The dynasty of Christian warrior kings
had run dry.

In 1 1 87,
Saladin defeated Jerusalem's army

and captured its inept king.

And so, on Sunday, September 20th,
Saladin surrounded Jerusalem,

determined to storm the city
and massacre the Christians.

(BELL TOLLING)

Inside, women prayed for mercy
at the Sepulchre.

Without a king,

the Jerusalemites appointed
a respected baron, Balian, to lead them.

As Saladin's troops attacked the city,
the walls were defended by mere boys.

So Balian made an uncompromising offer.

He told Saladin, ''First we will kill
all our own women and children,

''then we will demolish your Dome of
the Rock and your Al-Aqsa mosque

''and only then will you get the city.''

To save Islam's holy places,

Saladin agreed to negotiate
a peaceful surrender.

But the Christians would still pay
a heavy price.

All the Jerusalemites
would be ransomed or enslaved.

But for Saladin, this was the fulfilment
of his entire life's work.

Saladin got Jerusalem.

Saladin sat on his throne and watched

as two vast columns of Christians
left the city.

The Christians turned and wept

as they gazed upon Jerusalem
for the last time.

With the Christians gone,

Saladin turned his attention
to the Dome of the Rock,

which he called
''the jewel of the signet ring of Islam. ''

When Saladin retook possession
of the Haram-al-Sharif,

the Temple Mount for Islam,

it was a triumphant
personal moment for him

and for his dynasty and for the faith.

He immediately set about cleansing

the Temple Mount
of any vestiges of Christianity.

(MUEZZIN CALLING)

He pulled down the Cross
from the top of the Dome,

which had been used as a church,

and ripped out the Crusader apartments
from within Al-Aqsa mosque.

When that was done, he bought
vast quantities of rose water up

onto the Haram
and Saladin himself, the sultan,

his princes and all his generals
got down on their knees right here

and scrubbed the Haram stones
with rose water

to cleanse it forever of
the pollution of the Christian infidel.

Like the Crusaders before him,
Saladin did not raze the city,

but adapted and embroidered
its sacred places

using the buildings of his enemies.

These Christian decorations probably
once stood in a Crusader church.

Now they adorn the Muslim
Dome of the Ascension.

Saladin's mission was to recreate
an Islamic Jerusalem.

He left the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre intact,

but he banned all church bells.

(MUEZZIN CALLING)

The Islamic call to prayer
would hold the monopoly of sound,

and the sultan could enjoy
the city that he adored.

After the expulsion of the Christians,

Saladin settled Muslims here
from all over the Islamic world

and brought back the Jews.

Saladin had won the city through
the weakness of his opponents.

But the news of Jerusalem's fall
had shocked Christian Europe,

from kings to peasants.

Saladin's luck was about to run out.

The greatest warrior in all Christendom
was on his way to rescue Jerusalem.

It was Richard the Lionheart.

Richard was six-foot-tall, red-haired
and ruthlessly competent.

He was a showman and warrior who wielded
a sword that he claimed was Excalibur.

He was capable of surprising
political and religious flexibility.

Richard and Saladin were evenly matched.

To take Jerusalem,
Richard marched down the coast

and defeated Saladin
at the Battle of Arsuf.

Now the Christian Crusader

was poised to threaten
Saladin's hold on Jerusalem.

Saladin waited nervously
inside the city.

His generals advised him
that if he didn't leave,

he might be trapped inside
a devastating siege.

Saladin wavered, but he knew
that if he left the city,

his generals would surrender it
to Richard.

The thought of abandoning his prize
was too much.

Still a few days' march away,

Richard realised that
even if he captured Jerusalem,

he would not be able to hold her
whilst Saladin's vast empire was intact.

Richard's only option was to negotiate.

First, Richard wrote to Saladin,

''The Muslims and the Christians
are both done for,

''the lands are ruined
at the hands of both of us.

''All we have to discuss is Jerusalem,
the True Cross and the territories.

''But Jerusalem is
the centre of our worship,

''which we will never renounce.''

Saladin replied to this. He said,

''Jerusalem is as much ours as yours,
but it is greater for us.

''Because it is the place that our
prophet visited on his night journey.''

Either way, there was a big problem
in the way of a deal.

Both men wanted to possess
Jerusalem totally.

Unable to reach a settlement,

the fighting between Richard
and Saladin continued

until their armies were at a standstill.

-Hi, Yvonne, nice to see you.
-Thank you.

Yvonne Friedman believes that
these two men had much in common.

How important was Jerusalem to
each of them, Richard and Saladin?

For both of them, it was the goal
and the aim of the war.

That Saladin fought more wars

against Muslims than against Christians.

He couldn't envision the possibility
of giving up Jerusalem.

That, uh...

And it was
the crown of his achievements.

For Richard,
it was the goal he never achieved.

Who do you think was the greater man,
Saladin or Richard?

They were both great men,

but Saladin was a better statesman,
a better politician.

While they were both great warriors,

Richard, on the battlefield,
actually won,

and he was a great leader of soldiers.

He was not a great statesman

and I don't think
he was a great English king.

MONTEFIORE: And so,
on September 2nd, 1 1 92,

the sultan and king
agreed the Treaty of Jaffa,

the first partition of Palestine.

The Christian kingdom
received a new lease of life

with Acre as its capital.

Saladin kept his treasured Jerusalem,

only granting the Christians access
to the Holy Sepulchre.

Richard, it seemed,
had got the raw end of the deal.

Richard the Lionheart had failed.

Saladin the Islamic sultan
ruled Jerusalem.

And even though these two men
shared the same passions,

the same love for Jerusalem,

the same chivalry
and the same ruthlessness,

they never met.

Saladin invited Richard
to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem,

but Richard was adamant.

If he couldn't possess
Jerusalem totally,

he preferred never to set eyes on it.

Six months after signing the treaty,
Saladin died.

But his nephew, who loved the city,
came to live here,

embellishing it with new buildings
and new walls.

But within a generation,
the Crusaders were back.

This time they invaded Egypt,
the jewel of the family's empire.

Threatened by its loss,
Saladin's nephews took a drastic step.

They believed that
if the Crusaders took the city,

they would kill everyone inside it
and dominate all of Syria.

So they demolished Jerusalem's walls
to destroy her military value

and offered her up to save Egypt,
the lesser of two evils.

This desperate act backfired.

The Crusaders were defeated in Egypt
and fled for home.

They never even got near Palestine,
yet alone the Holy City.

Saladin's family had destroyed the walls
of their beloved Jerusalem for nothing.

Today, these stones
are all that is left of the walls,

a poignant reminder of the glories
and the decline of the House of Saladin.

The Jerusalemites wept and fled.

The city was now left defenceless.

It seemed like the end for Jerusalem.

On the Haram,
women, children and old men

rent their clothes and tore their hair
and scattered in all directions

as if it was the Day of Judgement.

And yet, Jerusalem was about
to change hands again,

in an unlikely and forgotten deal

that strangely prefigures
the peace negotiations of our own times.

Saladin's dynasty had become
weakened by family feuds

when a new and unorthodox Crusader

arrived on a very different
kind of crusade.

He would be the most eccentric ruler
that Jerusalem has ever had.

This maverick was Frederick II.

King of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor,

Frederick was the most
powerful monarch in Europe,

heir to lands from the Baltic
to the Mediterranean.

And more importantly,
he knew his enemies.

Frederick was unique
because he was at home with Islam.

It was said that he'd grown up in
the backstreets of semi-Islamic Sicily

running wild
with a bunch of Arab urchins.

He spoke Arabic and even had a harem.

His enemies regarded him
as the anti-Christ,

the beast of the Apocalypse.

His friends, though, and admirers
called him ''Stupor Mundi, ''

the wonder of the world.

Unlike other Crusaders before him,

Frederick realised that he was too weak
to fight for Jerusalem.

But so, too, was his Muslim opponent,
Saladin's nephew, Sultan Kamil.

The solution? These two educated men
immediately opened secret talks.

(INAUDIBLE)

As the sultan and the emperor
negotiated,

they discussed Aristotelian philosophy,
Arab geometry, Islamic theology,

and they also sent each other
gorgeous dancing girls.

Frederick, of course,
did everything his own way.

He lived like an oriental potentate,

and in between
bouts of serious negotiations,

he went on long hunting trips
and spent time seducing new mistresses.

He even wrote chivalrous poetry
to his new Syrian mistress.

When the negotiations wavered,

Frederick prepared his troops
for battle.

This did the trick.
His army wasn't needed.

Instead, a groundbreaking
power-sharing deal was struck.

In 1 229,
Frederick achieved the undreamable.

In return for 1 0 years' peace,

he received all of Jerusalem,
including this, the Citadel.

The House of Saladin
kept the Temple Mount

and the Muslims enjoyed full freedom
of worship and access.

Only the Jews were left out
of this deal,

and very few of them
remained in Jerusalem.

This shared sovereignty
remains, even today,

the most daring peace deal
in all of Jerusalem's history.

Through this shrewd alliance with Islam,

Frederick had won
the city for Christianity.

But the fact that the Dome of
the Rock remained under Muslim control

led to some accusing him
of betraying the Crusader cause.

Reuven Amitai thinks
that this freewheeling polymath

wasn't just playing at politics.

I think that Frederick had a pretty
good idea what this was all about.

Frederick was well-known,
was a very, very successful,

a very, very powerful,
a very, very hands-on ruler.

And I think he knew that
this was a relatively cheap way,

in terms of manpower and resources
and just general aggravation,

to achieve the main goal.
He wanted to look good.

I mean, he was not... He certainly
was not a na'ive babe in the woods.

So what was the reaction of both sides
to the secret deal?

I think that deep down in both
societies there was difficulty accepting

that one could make
real peace with the other side.

The idea that two rulers would
strike a deal of such magnitude,

and so publicly,
perhaps was difficult to swallow.

MONTEFIORE: When the deal was complete,

Frederick received the keys to the city
from the Muslim commanders.

And characteristically, Frederick put
his own stamp on the occasion.

(SINGING)

Here in the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre,

Frederick held a crown-wearing ceremony

attended not by priests,
but by his German troops.

It wasn't so much a coronation,

more a symbolic display

of his universal power
as Christian emperor.

But his triumph was spoiled.

The Pope, to punish him
for his haughty independence,

had excommunicated him.

And now he was forced
to leave his own city.

He had won Jerusalem
but he could never enjoy it.

1 30 years after
the first Crusaders' bloody conquest,

the city was Christian again.

But without its walls,
Jerusalem was insecure.

And after the death of the co-signer of
the treaty, Kamil, peace didn't last.

The city was tossed back and forth

between Islamic princelings
and Crusader barons.

On July 1 1 th, 1 244,

1 0,000 Kharismian Tartars
rode towards Jerusalem.

Recklessly invited in
by Saladin's feuding descendants,

these mercenaries were now
out of control.

The horsemen clattered into the city,

fighting and hacking their way
through the streets.

They destroyed churches and houses.

Christian Jerusalem was under attack.

The Tartars burst into
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

Christendom's holiest shrine.

They set it on fire.

When they found the priests
celebrating mass at the altar,

they beheaded them
and disembowelled them.

Then they smashed their way
into the tombs

of the Crusader kings of Jerusalem
right under this chapel.

They pulled out the bodies
and threw them onto a bonfire

and finally, they smashed the stone

at the door of the tomb
of Jesus Christ himself.

When they had thoroughly destroyed
and pillaged Jerusalem,

the Tartars galloped away.

Over 2,000 Christians were massacred.

Jerusalem was at rock bottom.

It resembled a devastated village,
without walls, ruined and half-empty.

It seemed as if Jerusalem
couldn't sink any lower.

For the moment,Jerusalem was desolate,

controlled by different
Islamic warlords.

Hordes of invaders
galloped through her streets at will.

There were few Muslims,
let alone Christians left,

and just a handful of Jews.

And yet she still remained sacred
for the three faiths.

Could one of them provide a champion
to rebuild her?

Could Jerusalem once again
become the Holy City,

the centre of the world?