• Jerusalem the Kingdom of Conscience

Jerusalem ... the Kingdom of Conscience

In this month, Ramadan, the month of fasting and spiritual experience, our hearts, driven by our tolerant religion and the memories of origins, development and echoes of history, automatically turn to the honourable Qibla in Makkah, as well as to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the first of the qiblas. In this way, we are emotionally involved in Jerusalem, or rather the other way round.

That the issue of Jerusalem has come again into focus in international creative works is beneficial to this cause which is designed not to arouse the world's conscience.

The role of Saladin, the gentle character, played by a Syria actor is in defence of the Arabs and Muslim at a time they are increasingly accused of violence and bloodshed.

On the walls of Jerusalem, as the film shows, Saladin's desire for peace was conditional on the withdrawal of alien Crusade warriors from the city.

Jerusalem, no doubt, lies in the depths of our hearts, whether or not we are conscious of this, not only at emotional level, but also at the level of our very existence sacred, daily, historical, current, moral, material. For Jerusalem to us Muslims is our major concern whether or not we are conscious of this, not only at emotional level, but also at the level of our very existence sacred, daily, historical, current, moral, material. For Jerusalem to us Muslims is our major concern and to all Arabs, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, it is the most important issue. That's what some in the world don't understand, though they attempt to do so. We have to respect such attempts even if they don't measure up to our ambitions. An example of these is the film "The Kingdom of Heavens" of the world-famous director Ridley Scott. The film, which cost $ 130m, provoked such a lot of argument in the Arab world and the West that makes it worth considering in the hope that this will be useful in discussing the burning issue of Jerusalem in this month, and it should remain so in all months and at all times, for Jerusalem is a great-if not the greatest-issue, not only from a religions perspective, but also from a worldly one.

The scenses relate

I haven't seen the film until lately, after the noise of the first months of performance died down. From the first scene I had the impression that it is a story trying to distance itself from western religious prejudice against the Arabs and Muslims. The scene set in France in 1184 shows the cruelty of local clergy during the burial of the wife of the young village blacksmith (we will discover later he is the hero) Balyan. The woman had committed suicide because she was sick. Her body was treated extremely brutally as a heretic; priests cutting her head and burning her body, with her loving husband in intense grief and agony, feeling as he understood from the priests that her soul will never attain salvation. While in this condition, his father, whom he doesn't not know, arrives heading a battalion of Crusader warriors and tries to convince him to go to Jerusalem, the city which will be ruled by conscience. Motivated by the desire to bring salvation to the soul of his late wife, he agrees to join the Crusades which gathered in Europe to maintain control of the earthly "Kingdom of Heavens". Balyan, his father and a group of Crusaders go to the port of Messina, the point of departure for Jerusalem and the Holy Land, any step on the road to which is deemed to be "an attempt to forgive sins". At the port which is crowded with those exhausted people seeking forgiveness of sins, fleeing from Europe or looking for worldly gains, you hear words of instigation to kill, as if echoing extremist words heard nowadays, which describe this historical crime as "the road to Heavens", where "killing infidels is not a sin", forgiveness of sins is completed in Jerusalem", "the will of war is the will of God", and Muslims' bloodshed saves Jerusalem from them so that it may become "the Kingdom of Conscience and Justice"!

Balyan arrives at Jerusalem which the film shows a meeting place for different peoples, religions and tongues: white and dark faces, calls in a variety of languages Arabic, European and Hebrew, church towers and mosque minarets, bell tolls mixing with muezzins' call to prayer. Balyan's father is a prominent knight, a favourite of the Crusader king who is ill with leprosy and conceals his face with a metal mask. His conversations show he is a wise man, not in favour of violence, tolerant, holding his rival the Muslims' leader Saladin in great esteem. When Balayan's father dies, he becomes the ruler of Abelan province, which protects the road to Jerusalem. The film shows Balyan's style of rule characterized by tolerance, modesty and treatment of his Muslim, Jewish and Christian subjects on an equal footing, sharing in work and in the blessings of the land which was a desert and they turned it into a green oasis.

The film then shows the bitter conflicts among Crusader rulers, particularly the sick, moderate king of Jerusalem, the Templars, the fanatics, who refuse to make peace with the Muslims and the Crusader chief of Krak fortress, who is bloodthirsty and in favour of fighting, one of whose attacks against the Muslims broke a six-year truce with them, which led Saladin to recapture Krak and punish its chief. The sick Crusader king was forced to confront the Muslims' army, and in front of the Krak walls, where Saladin's and Crusade armies gather, and after lengthy talks, the two sides agree to avoid fighting on condition that the king punish the chief of Krak, who is taken shackled to prison.

In view of Balyan's fighting and leadership talents, wisdom and moderation, as clearly shown in the film, the king desires before he dies to marry him to his daughter, who is the wife of Guy Renault, who is prejudiced against the Muslims, so that the moderate Balyan becomes king of Jerusalem and pursues his policy towards Saladin. After the king's death and his daughter becoming the queen she invites Balyan, whom she seems to love, to remove her husband and thus becomes a king, but he refuses because he can't "sell his soul" which is still attached to his dead wife. The king's daughter "Cebela" therefore decides to make her husband king of Jerusalem who soon afterwards sets the chief of Krak free and tells him to make up a reason for breaking the truce and waging war on the Muslims.

The changes introduced by the new fanatical, bloodthirsty Crusader king cause division among the Crusader knights, some of whom welcome them to fulfil their desire to fight Saladin and his army. Contrary to Balyan's opinion, the new king faces the Muslim army outside Jerusalem where fierce fighting takes place and culminates in the famous decisive battle of Hattin, which the Muslim army wins with the siege of Jerusalem completed, and the last confrontations on its walls come to an end with an agreement between the victorious Saladin and defeated Balyan under which Jerusalem is to be handed over without further fighting and destruction and Saladin to pardon the remaining Crusader, Frankish and other warriors and let them leave Jerusalem safely. The film ends with words which refer the past to the present in which "the Kingdom of Heavens" or "the Kingdom of Conscience" still lacks peace.

Our balanced criticism

I've read a lot of comments in the Arab media whose writers, some of whom even didn't see the film, are not happy with it on the common ground that nothing from the West may please our hearts, in line with the traditional "conspiracy theory". However, some attempted to be balanced, an example of whom is the critic Saeed Abu Muala, who gave a balanced review of the film, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. He said the film made a big mistake right from the start by showing on the screen that the main reason for the Christians', travel from Europe to Jerusalem was materialistic, i.e. in search of wealth. We don't deny this reason; however, it in the least one. Immigration was mainly religiously motivated. He also noticed that in comparison with the Crusaders', the Muslims' army was widely exaggerated, though historical books say that the opposite is true. Muslim losses are also exaggerated. This may be due to the different interpretations of history. The large Muslim army is given as the only reason behind the Crusaders' defeat, ignoring Muslims' leadership and military techniques and fighting creed, which is historically proven. He also noted that the character of the extraordinary hero Saladin is reduced in favour of Balyan, who is shown as a model of a thoughtful planner and brave commander, who encourages a small army and protects the weak, whereas Saladin is shown calm, not involved in warfare and heedless of his losses on the walls of Jerusalem, though the scenario keeps stressing that Jerusalem is open to the three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. It also refers to Al-Buraq (Wailing) Wall as a Jewish antiquity in Jerusalem. Other weaknesses reveal lack of knowledge of Islam and its culture, such as prayers, which the film shows as always performed individually rather than in groups, as well as the dominant Moroccan dress, and the appearance of Jerusalem itself which is incongruously shown, perhaps because the scenes were shot in Morocco, because the Spanish Catholic priests refused to shoot them in the Cordova cathedral, which was a grand mosque in Muslim Andalusia.

As far as the strengths are concerned, the film reflects the civilized dialogue between the two sides as represented in two major situations: First as previously mentioned, Saladin decided to recapture Krak from its prejudiced Crusader baron; second, the negotiations between Saladin and Balyan on the terms of handover of Jerusalem. The dialogue reflects positive values: the Crusader commander's concern is to save his soldiers and the population of Jerusalem from Saladin's "cruelty" to discover later on that the Muslim leader does not want to kill Christians or Crusaders, but rather to recover the city.

About the film, and in the context of moderation, Dr. Khalis Jalabi, a prominent surgeon, with a highly civilized vision, wrote an extremely important review based on firm anti- violence Islamic ground and supported by highly credible religious and scientific evidence: "I was keen to identify the changes in the West's attitude to the Islamic culture and the Arabs as shown in the film, to give me a glimpse of the historical developments in West-Arab relations, which is related by director Ridley Scott: that the Crusades were waged on the pretext of liberating Jerusalem from the infidels is an outright lie. They were the longest and most destructive wars in history which afflicted both parties Europe and Arab East, as well as Constantinople and children, as in a children's Crusade, thousands of these died, were abducted or sold into slavery before reaching the Holy Land. The fourth Crusade in 1204 was a disaster for Constantinople, which was looted, including icons and historical items and its sacred symbols sullied.

The Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud, who played the role of Saladin, was at his best this time and was successful in showing how kind-hearted Saladin was: he meets the ailing king of Jerusalem and sends his personal doctors to treat him, a civilized gesture among Europes' barbarians. As Gibb wrote in his book about Saladin, his secret lies in his good morals, and he was aware that moral collapse was behind political collapse. He attempted to rectify the latter and succeeded temporarily. He was a statesman rather than a preacher. Concluding his commentary, Dr Jalabi asked:" Is it recommended to watch such type of films? The answer is yes. Anyhow, any film which expounds our culture is worth watching". Surprisingly, when Dr Jalabi's article was published on a website it was widely rejected just for the sake of rejection and even touched a strange nationalistic dimension, as will be referred to at the end of this Talk. However, this does not deny the fact that there are good, open-mended communicators among us, like Dr Khalis Jalabi.

And in the West

The argument which the film provoked was not confined to the Arab world but spread even earlier to the West as well. Jonathan R. Smith, a Cambridge University professor and an authority on this subject, said the film presented the Islamic orthodox view of history by showing the Muslims as civilized facing barbarian Crusaders. As he put it to the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "As if it were Osama bin Laden's".

Other observers said the film was pro-Christian. To ease concern, the British director Ridley Scott and the producer arranged special performances for groups of American Christians and Muslims at the end of which the Council for Islamic American Relations and the Defence for Muslims' Rights Group said the film avoided or cast the events in one mould. The Council said in a statement. "Our overall impression is that the film gives a balanced, positive description of the Islamic civilization during the Crusade era." At a press conference in Washington Scott said: "We have achieved a good balance.

Writing in the conservative "Good News" magazine, Steve Baird said: "With the current political Social religious tension between the West and the Muslim world, a film about killing enemies in the name of God could have caused problems or could have been a worthless work of art, but the film escaped falling into either of these traps."

Hawley Mclore, the film critic for the Trinity Broadcast network, the largest Christian TV group, speaking to AFP said she didn't find anything shocking in the film: "And I think it is a lesson in history rather than a manifesto." Khalid Abulfadl, professor of Islamic Law at UCLA, said: "The film portrays the Muslims as pessimistic; the Christians tolerant".

In an interview with the German magazine "Woman" in its 18th issue this year, actress Eva Green, who played the role of the queen of Jerusalem, was asked to comment on the dissatisfaction of some Muslim activists with the film claiming it conveys a negative image of the Islamic culture. (In spite of the fast that the film was approved by a special anti-racism committee and a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of California, which is a significant progress in the film industry and the result of globalization and electronic communication. Arabs are no longer presented as butchers, ignorant and uncivilized). Eva said: "Perhaps they didn't see the film. If they had, they would have changed their minds, as it holds the Islamic culture in great esteem and gives a very positive picture of the Arabs. Moreover, the film shows that in every religion there is a group of radicals who represent themselves only." Commenting on the fact that the film has too many scenes of fighting and bloodshed, she said: "That's true. But violence in the film is not meant per se, but to show that violence does not serve a cause and that people didn't learn the lessons of history." "She ridiculed those in Hollywood who are fond of sex scenes, adding: "They didn't repeat themselves in their new film, but were smarter this time and made the film carry a political message."

Notes outside the argument

Having seen the film, I read many Arab comments on the film which turned into argument about the character of Saladin and the West's designs and plots (against us). The first thing this argument reflects is the impractical manner of addressing our current issues, as if we were not living the present times, and still belong to hateful old nationalistic, sectarian and ethnic affiliations, while the Arab boat we are all in has huge holes which require solidarity and common values so as to save our Arab and Muslim world from sinking in a sea of chaos and ignorance.

The director, who no doubt has Western attitudes, though he was serious in his attempt to be objective from his own point of view, attracted my attention to the fact that he created the character of a Western hero to face the real historical character of Saladin, probably because he didn't find in the Crusade knights a competent character to engage in dialogue with the Arab Muslim hero. In other words, our symbol of civilized heroism is actually drawn from history, whereas the others are looking for a hero in their imagination to fill a historical gap, to enter into dialogue with the current moment. It was then only natural that the director cared more about his Western hero, particularly as he is his artistic creation. The director was moderate enough as not to tarnish our hero's image, while, strangely enough, some Arabs dismiss even this limited praise of Saladin by a Westerner and deny any virtue that he had, not on the grounds that he was a human being with his errors of judgment and in life, but unfortunately, on the basis of harmful nationalistic, sectarian and ethnic prejudices. We Arabs and Muslims, with all our affiliations and inclinations, need to consult our moderate and just conscience each and welcome any fair voice coming from behind or from the West, so that Jerusalem, "the Kingdom of Heavers", as presented by Ridley Scott's film, may arouse man's conscience once again, for what is being plotted against Jerusalem is very serious and worrisome indeed and requires further consideration.

Sulaiman Al-Askary

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