Saladin's Castle: A Mountain Guarding the Sea

Saladin's Castle speaks first, from its mountain ringed by forests with its face turned to the sea, remembering the ships that brought Crusader armies, Saladin's green banner and the blood that ran down its terraces. Saladin answers and calls it his sister in steadfastness, the fortress that guarded his back while he gathered his armies, and asks it to bear witness that he raised his sword only to defend a land and its people. Richard the Lionheart then appears in gleaming armor to admit that he believed iron could bring such fortresses down and found them built with faith, and the historian Ibn al-Athir recalls writing in Al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh that Saladin united the nation and that castles like those of Aleppo and Homs were keys to victory and defeat. The modern Syrian poet Suleiman al-Issa calls the castle a palm tree carved from stone and likens it to Syria, which rises from beneath the ruins whenever war ignites. In its closing speech the castle watches kings, soldiers and invaders depart while it remains, a mountain guarding the sea and a memory that never sleeps.