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Originally Posted by Aqtai
I've just seen Kingdom of Heaven as well. I enjoyed it. I agree there were errors, but I give Ridley Scott points for trying to be more accurate than his predecessors.
My understanding of Salahuddin's Armies is that the core would have been a mixture of Kurds, Turkish mamluks, Turcoman tribesmen, professional Turkish soldiers and Bedouin tribesmen. Something that didn't really come across in the film, where the 'Saracens' were represented as a fairly homogenous mass. However I feel that trying to explain the ethnic complexity of a Medieval Muslim Army to a modern multiplex audience would have been an instant 'turn-off'.
With regards to the use of Arabic by Salaheddin and his commanders, I believe that Salaheddin was a multilingual man: he would have spoken in Kurdish to his Kurdish troops, Turkish to his Turkish Emirs and Arabic to his Arab Imams and civil servants (who would have all been Syrian and Egyptian). But since the film was made in Arab country i think that is why he had to show Salaheddin speaking Arabic. To have him him speaking in Turkish or Kurdish, while more accurate, would have probably lead to effigies of Ridley Scott being burned on the streets of Cairo and Baghdad!
As for the armour and weapons, while some of it is anachronistic (the mail and plate armour worn by Alexander Siddiq looks 15th century rather than 12th) I give him credit for at least including genuine Islamic armour. In addition there is very little Islamic armour surviving from the 12th century anyway, so RS is entitled some artistic license. I also give him credit for having some of the Muslims wearing lamellar armour.
Overall I liked this film, it tried to stick to the main historical facts, although it did take liberties with the details, but that is unavoidable in a film.
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I do not think that Saladin could speak Kurdish (although he was a kurd). His father died when he was in an early age, and he was sent from childhood to a Sunni Islamic religious school in Damascus. He lived all his life in Damascus, and died there. When I visited his tomb, I got goosebumps all along my spine, with a tingling feeling (unexplainable). He probably knew arabic and a little turkish (as turkish troops were gaining more attention rapidly in the region).