Eagle

Salah ad-Din, or Saladin as he is known to the Franks, was a Kurd, the son of a despised people, and yet he became Sultan of Egypt and Syria. He united the peoples of Allah, recaptured Jerusalem and drove the Crusaders to the very edge of the sea. He battled, and in the end tamed King Richard of England, who was called the Lionhearted and well deserved his savage name. Saladin was a great man, the greatest man that I ever knew, but when I first met him, he was only a skinny child …

The Chronicle of Yahya al-Dimashq