Saladin

Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known in the West as Saladin (c. 1137–1193), was the Kurdish Muslim general and statesman who founded the Ayyubid dynasty and became Sultan of Egypt and Syria. He is remembered above all for reconquering Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, ending 88 years of Crusader rule over the city and reshaping the political map of the region for centuries.

The Recapture of Jerusalem

After a decisive victory over the Crusader army at the Battle of Hattin in July 1187, Saladin advanced on Jerusalem and accepted its surrender that October. In contrast to the massacre the Crusaders had inflicted on the city's inhabitants in 1099, Saladin's conquest was comparatively restrained: most of the Christian population was permitted to leave upon payment of ransom, and the city's holy sites were secured rather than destroyed.

Reopening Jerusalem to Jewish Settlement

The Crusader kingdom had previously barred Jews from living in Jerusalem. Saladin reversed this policy. Following his conquest, he actively invited Jews to resettle in the city, and Jewish families answered the invitation from other parts of Israel, such as Ashkelon, and elsewhere in the region, such as Egypt and Syria. This reopening was not an isolated gesture; it set the stage for the wave of rabbinic immigration that followed in the early 13th century — including the arrival of Nachmanides in 1267 — through which Jewish communal and religious life in Jerusalem was rebuilt.

Saladin's decision illustrates a broader point: even under the rule of a foreign Muslim conqueror, the presence of Jews in Jerusalem was understood as a return to a place they belonged, not a novel intrusion. That a Muslim sultan of Saladin's stature chose to restore Jewish access to the city underscores how continuous and recognized the Jewish connection to Jerusalem remained among Muslims, even in periods when Jewish political sovereignty was absent.