Original subtitles

♪

♪

NARRATOR: The year is 1220.

It is the height of the Crusades.

Muslims and Christians have been fighting one another

in a war that has lasted for over 120 years.

Tens of thousands of Christian soldiers

are trapped and dying on a flooded field in Egypt.

The opposing Muslim army blocks their only escape.

Saint Francis of Assisi

and the sultan of Egypt, Muhammad al-Kamil,

have defied the angry times and human nature itself

to cross the bloody battle lines and meet each other.

But will it make a difference?

How does anyone stop a seemingly endless conflict?

[bell tolling]

Beset by revolts and numerous assassination attempts,

the beleaguered ruler

of the Eastern Christian empire of Byzantium

makes a reluctant appeal.

He asks the rival pope of the Catholic Church in Rome

for mercenaries.

He wants an outside army in his pay,

palace guards he can trust,

and soldiers to fight off Muslim invaders on his borders.

The pope seizes the opportunity to assert Rome's power

and perhaps reunite the two churches under it.

He doesn't send the emperor the mercenaries he wants.

Instead he sends his own army to fight the Muslims.

If it succeeds, Rome will dominate the region.

The Eastern Church will never rival it again.

The pope calls for a Crusade to recapture Jerusalem

after five centuries of Muslim rule.

Most people who answer the pope's call are not killers.

Many are peasants who've never fought before.

EMILE BRUNEAU: We know that from some developmental psychology

that children have this tendency towards empathy towards others,

that they have a tendency

to behave altruistically towards others,

that they have kind of the underpinnings

of morality and justice,

and all of these things help a society remain together.

If you have all of these psychological tendencies

that are preventing you from harming others,

how do you motivate people to fight against other humans?

One of the most common ways is through dehumanization.

POPE URBAN II: Your brethren who live in the East

are in urgent need of your help.

Carry aid promptly to those Christians

and destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends.

Those who refuse to pay him

the servant's service that they owe him

will justly deserve to suffer a sentence of damnation.

[crowd gasps]

[screaming]

MICHAEL CALABRIA: What you unleash then

is a certain religious fervor.

We are going to take our holy site

from these non-believers.

Of course, non-believers are thrown into one category,

which would include Jews.

NARRATOR: The Crusade's first victims are not Muslims;

they are the Jews of Europe.

BRUNEAU: There's nothing special about the teachings of religion

that's driving conflict.

Evidence is starting to show

that the psychological tendencies that drive conflict

are a complex combination of processes in the brain.

They're a bunch of kind of deep structures

that are underneath, that are kind of central in the brain.

Oftentimes it's referred to as the reptilian brain.

And we know that it responds really strongly

to fear conditioning, fear learning.

SULEIMAN MOURAD: The religious propaganda focused

on demonize the other as heretical, as satanic,

and when you see that you have in your midst the other as well,

you say why not start killing him.

♪

[pounding on door]

[kicking door]

[grunting]

[kicking]

[gasps]

[draws sword]

MAN: No! No!

[woman screaming]

[crash]

HELEN NICHOLSON: Contemporaries were very puzzled

as to why some of the Crusaders attacked the Jewish communities.

The excuse was that the whole race was guilty

of the death of Christ,

and therefore they were fair game.

BRUNEAU: This kind of moral disengagement

from harming others through dehumanization

seems to be a major route

through which you can get one group of humans

to actually harm, kill another group of humans.

MAN: ...against the pagans.

Those who would follow Christ to the crown,

let them also follow him to battle!

[men cheer]

BRUNEAU: You have a situation

where you have a lot of fear activated,

so the subcortical structures are kind of going off the hook.

It's very strong,

it has a powerful effect on our behaviors,

and can flip immediately.

[cheering]

CALABRIA: So as the Crusaders make their way across Europe,

they're not distinguishing between the Muslims,

who have captured the holy sites in Palestine,

and the Jews who lived amongst them in Europe.

So all, quote unquote, "non-believers,"

including schismatic Christians, are the targets.

When the Crusaders come into Jerusalem,

Christians are killed along with Jews and Muslims.

No one is distinguished from the other.

[baby crying]

NICHOLSON: As far as they were concerned,

they were all wearing strange clothes,

people of a strange culture,

so they must all be our enemies.

NARRATOR: The cries of battle fade.

Silence descends on the conquered city.

But it is not the end of violence;

it is only the beginning.

Christians and Muslims battle back and forth over Jerusalem

for almost 90 years.

In 1187, troops commanded

by the famous Muslim leader Salah ad-Din

retake the city.

Jerusalem's no longer under Christian control.

In the glow of this victory, Salah ad-Din's young nephew

prepares to be a leader himself one day.

His name is Muhammad al-Kamil.

More than Jerusalem will be at stake when he becomes sultan.

The very future of Islam will be in his hands.

Even as a child, al-Kamil stands out.

PAUL MOSES: He loved philosophy, mathematics, learning,

and of course studying his own faith.

TAREK ELGAWHARY: Typically a traditional Islamic education

would begin with memorization of the Quran,

and the Quran, as Muslims believe it,

is the eternal uncreated word of God.

NARRATOR: A childhood filled with so many expectations

can be lonely.

Al-Kamil's mother eases the demands.

HOMAYRA ZIAD: The Quran speaks to religious communities

other than the community of Muhammad.

The Quran speaks to Jews and Christians,

who are children of Abraham who share the faith in the one God.

AL-KAMIL: No compul... com...pul...

MOTHER: Compulsion.

AL-KAMIL: No compulsion is to be on them.

ZIAD: We have significant theological

and practical differences,

but we harness those differences to compete with one another,

not in animosity,

but towards the common good of all.

MOSES: He grew up with a great love of learning,

certainly part of the royal court,

for him to be trained to be the leader of Egypt.

♪

[birds calling]

♪

NARRATOR: Al-Kamil comes to power

at a time of crisis in Egypt.

Poor harvests have brought famine.

Political dissent challenges his rule.

Religious tensions are on the rise.

AL-KAMIL: Enough. Enough!

♪

NARRATOR: But a greater danger looms across the sea.

Cries for the recapture of Jerusalem

once again sweep through Europe.

[horse neighs]

♪

In the markets and streets and taverns,

a romanticized view of war takes hold.

Many dream about the glories of battle

and are eager for the coming conflict.

One of them is a young man named Francis

from a small Italian town called Assisi.

CALABRIA: As a young man

Francis is what we might call a bon vivant,

a man around town,

uh, his social activities are hanging out with his friends,

probably going around Assisi,

you know, making a little bit of trouble.

FRANCIS: Drinks for everyone!

[cheering]

MICHAEL CUSATO: Although he was a member of the middle class,

and his father being the merchant,

Francis also had pretentions of the class above him,

the aristocracy, the nobility.

He liked to dress in fine clothing,

he liked the panoply of being a knight--

the armor, the weaponry.

He was like a knight wannabe.

♪

NARRATOR: Petty wars between Italian city-states were common.

When one erupts between Assisi and a neighboring city,

Francis eagerly joins.

[weapons clashing]

[men groaning and screaming]

CALABRIA: And suddenly he's thrust into battle,

and, of course, battle at this time is, is horrible.

This is hand-to-hand combat.

This isn't anything abstract.

[yells]

[struggling]

NARRATOR: Since Francis is from a wealthy family,

he's taken prisoner and held for ransom.

CUSATO: He languished until his father could ransom him

from captivity,

but it took a year.

[whimpering]

[bell tolling]

[chickens clucking]

♪

MOSES: Francis leaves that imprisonment after a year

as a shattered and hollowed-out young man.

CALABRIA: Was he simply going to return to his life

of carousing and just having fun?

FRANCIS: How are you?

[man laughing]

♪

What are you doing?

What are...

[coins clattering]

[men laughing]

♪

CALABRIA: What was his life to be about?

What was he being called to?

♪

[camel groaning]

NARRATOR: In Cairo, a dispute between Muslims and Christians

threatens bloodshed.

CROWD: It must go! It must go!

It must go!

MOSES: Sultan al-Kamil has very good relations with Christians.

On one occasion there was a dispute

about whether a mosque or a church

should be built on a certain site.

CROWD: It must go!

MOURAD: A mob in Egypt wanted to build a mosque

next to the most holy Christian church in Cairo.

[crowd shouting]

MAN: It must go! A mosque once stood here!

It must be rebuilt!

[crowd shouting]

AL-KAMIL: No mosque was ever here!

MOSES: He determined that there had been a church there earlier,

which was the claim the Christians were making,

and so he supported them in that.

AL-KAMIL: You are looking for excuses

to justify a wrong!

MAN: It must be rebuilt. No. No!

It must be rebuilt!

[shouting]

[clang]

[screaming]

♪

[baby crying]

♪

AL-KAMIL: No, no.

MOURAD: When the mobs were throwing stones at him,

he didn't react violently,

he didn't ask his bodyguards to go and kill them.

♪

AL-KAMIL: God created us separate nations

so that we could learn from one another

and become better in what we are.

Not harm one another.

We become less.

♪

MOSES: This became very controversial.

He was willing to take some heat for this.

The Christians really appreciated

that they were being treated fairly.

♪

CUSATO: Francis spends a number of months,

perhaps even a year,

wandering in the countryside.

One day he comes to the profound insight of his life,

which will be the foundation

for the rest of his life and his spirituality

and of his own order.

[bell clattering]

NARRATOR: Leprosy was a common and much feared disease

in the Middle Ages.

CUSATO: Francis had an abhorrence of lepers.

♪

[bells clattering]

MAN: Stay back!

CALABRIA: They would have to make some kind of noise

with a bell or a clapper when someone was approaching.

MAN: Stay back!

[bells clattering]

Stay back!

[bells clattering]

♪

CUSATO: He realizes--perhaps the first time in his life--

these are genuinely suffering human beings.

Men and women, like himself.

This then becomes the foundational insight.

Every man and woman, without exception in creation,

is a brother and a sister, one to another,

constituting a commonality that we all share with each other.

♪

♪

KATHLEEN WARREN: That basic conviction

that really took hold in Francis's heart

set him on a path that was very different

than his original dream.

♪

MOSES: Francis adopts this life of voluntary poverty and penance

and preaching a message of peace.

♪

Gradually there's other young men in his town

who can see the wisdom of this and are attracted to it,

because they also want to drop out of the cycle of violence

that is afflicting them.

FRANCIS: Where there is darkness...

MAN: What's going on?

Where's everyone going?

FRANCIS: Where there is sadness, joy.

We are more than just our daily struggle.

The Lord has made us all for a greater purpose...

to be instruments of peace.

[tosses bell]

[crowd gasps]

♪

Where there is doubt, faith.

It is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning...

that we are pardoned.

It is in dying...

[laughs]

that we are born to eternal life.

♪

WARREN: There was a tremendous response

to living in the world in this way,

and little by little

a number of people followed Francis.

♪

NARRATOR: Francis travels the country

preaching about the Lord of Love.

But the medieval Church still holds to the vision

of a ferocious, vengeful God who summons believers to war.

A new pope, Pope Innocent III, calls for another Crusade.

POPE INNOCENT III: Every day during the celebration of mass,

when the time has come before the kiss of peace,

the priests should say to their flocks,

"God, we humbly beseech thee

to snatch this land from our enemy!"

[crowd cheering]

NARRATOR: The Crusaders go to Constantinople

on promises to fund their new war over the Holy Land.

When the payments don't come, they attack Byzantium instead.

♪

BRUNEAU: Once you've stoked this in-group fervor,

it seems like that can be applied

to many different out-groups.

NARRATOR: They make a prostitute sit on the emperor's throne.

[clattering]

♪

NICHOLSON: They try to sell this whole idea to the pope

by saying, "Oh, now we hold Constantinople,

we've also restored it to the true holy Catholic faith.

POPE: Those fools!

NICHOLSON: The pope wasn't really buying this,

but he had to make the best of a bad job.

NARRATOR: Pope Innocent III explicitly banned a tax

on Christian communities.

But with Constantinople in ruins,

he decides to assert Rome's authority.

He dispatches a trusted cardinal named Pelagius to take control.

CUSATO: Cardinal Pelagius was sent as the pope's legate,

and he was sent to solidify the gains

of the Latin Christian Church, the Roman Church,

against the Greek clergy,

who wanted to return to their own city.

MOSES: He wears these scarlet robes,

which was something new at the time,

because that's the color of the martyrs that he's adopted.

MAN: What has happened here is a travesty!

MAN: Don't speak until given permission!

MAN: Such behavior.

PELAGIUS: Tell him to tell his priests

that they are subject to the one true pope...

His Holiness in Rome.

MAN: What right do you have...

PELAGIUS: Tell him...

that the only words I want to hear from him

are the names of those priests who ignore this.

That is all.

CUSATO: He was known to be

a hard-nosed, intransigent supporter of the papal policy.

In other words, it was the supremacy of the Latin Church

over any competitors,

be they the Greek Church, be they Islam.

PELAGIUS: No one speaks unless Pelagius first gives permission.

Understand?

[whimpers]

Go.

♪

NARRATOR: After the sacking of Constantinople,

Pope Innocent III vows that the next Crusade

will be under strict papal control.

He sends an order to the priests throughout Europe

to recruit a new army.

One of the most successful preachers

was a German priest named Oliver of Paderborn.

NICHOLSON: He was a cleric;

he was involved in preaching the Crusade;

a very intelligent man, very pious man.

He was also technically minded,

because he designed some of the war machines

used during the Crusade.

MOSES: A strategic decision was made by the Christian leadership

to attack Egypt.

NICHOLSON: If we could control that trade route,

we will be rich people.

NARRATOR: If the Crusaders conquer Egypt,

they can easily take Jerusalem.

And if powerful Egypt falls,

the Muslim Middle East will likely fall with it.

Only one thing stands in their way--

a fortress city called Damietta at the mouth of the Nile.

MOURAD: The Crusaders could not sail through the Nile

unless they took the town,

so if you are to control Damietta,

you almost control Egypt.

♪

CUSATO: One of the most important sources we have

on the Crusade

comes from the pen of Oliver of Paderborn,

who comes on site and leaves us a remarkable chronicle

of the events around the siege of Damietta.

♪

OLIVER OF PADERBORN: "The capture of hostile land

was achieved without any loss of blood.

Upon coming to shore, a few Egyptians approached,

but a Friesian struck one dead with an iron spear,

and the rest fled in terror."

♪

[bell clanging]

♪

[horse neighs]

NARRATOR: News of the invasion reaches Cairo.

Al-Kamil hurries a force to Damietta.

Vastly outnumbered, al-Kamil's soldiers

can only dig in and defend the perimeter.

AL-KAMIL: What's the report?

GENERAL: Sire, more of their reinforcements came today.

We need more siege weapons.

Damietta's walls are strong, but they've never been tested

against such fearsome weapons before.

They launched another assault...

CALABRIA: He's in a rather precarious position.

We know that he even faced the danger

of a coup from within.

You can clearly see

in his attempts to come to terms with the Crusaders

a ruler who is very concerned with the damage

that the crusading campaign is having on Egypt,

and the reality is he needs to come to some kind of deal,

otherwise he's going to face destruction.

♪

NARRATOR: The war racks Egypt for two years.

During this time, Francis is preaching the gospel

and growing his movement across Europe.

Now he wants to bring his message of peace to the Crusade.

He travels to Damietta with another friar, named Illuminato.

WARREN: Francis tells us that he clearly heard God asking him

to be a peacemaker in this world,

a peacemaker in the manner of Jesus Christ.

Francis realized that the message he was given

to promote peace in the world

necessitated him going to the Muslims.

MOSES: He wants to reach out to these people

who were supposed to be

the great enemies of Christendom.

I just have to say Francis thought big.

♪

NARRATOR: Pelagius is sent by the pope

to lead the new Crusade.

CUSATO: His presence in the camp at Damietta

was a rather provocative presence.

He was an instigator in order to ensure that the pope's policy

of the defeat of Islam happened.

[men shouting]

NARRATOR: Soon after arriving, Francis faces his first test.

Pelagius calls for a new assault on Damietta.

MOSES: Francis decides that he's going to speak out

against this battle.

He feels he's called to do this.

And he goes out and,

according to one of the Franciscan chronicles,

begins to denounce the battle

and to urge that the soldiers not fight.

♪

MAN: "The saint leapt to his feet

and rushed to the Christians,

crying out warnings to save them,

forbidding war and threatening disaster.

But they took the truth as a joke.

They hardened their hearts and refused to turn back."

[arrows whizzing]

[scream]

♪

[shouting]

MAN: Kill them all!

Kill them all!

♪

[shouting]

[weapons clashing]

[shouting, groaning, and screaming]

♪

MAN: To the wall!

♪

[explosion]

AL-KAMIL: Back to the line!

♪

[growling]

♪

[growling]

♪

[scream]

♪

[growling]

♪

[growling]

♪

[whistling]

[explosion]

♪

[grunting and screaming]

♪

♪

[growling]

♪

[gurgling]

[grunting and screaming]

MAN: Retreat!

Retreat!

♪

MOSES: It was a terrible day for the Christian army.

Thousands of people were killed.

Very important people were captured.

It was a total disaster.

[flames crackling]

[bird squawking]

♪

♪

♪

AL-KAMIL: This is what we will do.

NARRATOR: Following his victory,

al-Kamil proposes a treaty to end the war.

AL-KAMIL: Terms for a treaty.

LIEUTENANT: Treaty?

NARRATOR: Not all his generals agree.

AL-KAMIL: It offers the pope control

over the Christian holy places.

LIEUTENANT: And why give them anything?

Let's punish them.

AL-KAMIL: And how many more of our men will die if we do?

What about the people of Damietta?

They're starving to death.

No.

We cannot wait.

Let's give the pope what he wants

and send his army home.

NARRATOR: Al-Kamil hurries a messenger to the Crusader camp

with his peace offer.

♪

PELAGIUS: Did that messenger look like the devil?

Because this so-called treaty is surely the devil's work.

NARRATOR: John of Brienne,

the acknowledged leader of the Crusade,

is the commander of the army in name only.

The real authority is with Pelagius.

PELAGIUS: But we will be weak no longer.

JOHN OF BRIENNE: The sultan gives us control

over our holy places.

Isn't that what we want?

PELAGIUS: It isn't what we want.

It isn't what we want at all!

We can finish this once and for all, here, now!

FRANCIS: Yes, we can finish it.

But put away the swords

and bring the Gospel of Christ to them.

Only then will there be peace.

PELAGIUS: Who is this friar who speaks without permission?

FRANCIS: I am Brother Francis.

NARRATOR: Francis finally reveals his plan.

He hopes to end the Crusade

by preaching the Gospel and converting the Muslim army.

PELAGIUS: So, young friar, you want to preach to them.

Don't you think that they'll kill you on sight?

And what difference would it make anyway

to preach to a handful of their soldiers?

FRANCIS: I intend to preach to the sultan.

PELAGIUS: [laughing] Now you're being ridiculous!

If the sultan is not the devil himself,

he is surely the devil's servant.

He'll cut your tongue out after just one word

and likely nail it to your forehead.

No...I'm sorry.

♪

You think his real intention is to martyr himself?

NARRATOR: Francis may indeed expect to be killed

in this effort, but then that would help Pelagius's cause.

PELAGIUS: I sent for you to tell you that I've changed my mind.

You may go.

FRANCIS: Thank you.

Your Holiness, thank you.

I will not waver.

You have my word.

PELAGIUS: I'm sure that you won't.

FRANCIS: Thank you.

♪

♪

NARRATOR: Francis and Illuminato

cross the corpse-strewn battlefield.

FRANCIS: Wait, please! Please, wait!

We are ambassadors. We come in peace.

We come in peace. Please!

NARRATOR: Startled guards almost kill them.

Francis shouts that he's an ambassador of Christ.

Maybe this man is bringing news about the sultan's treaty.

FRANCIS: Please...

♪

♪

[horse neighs]

♪

LIEUTENANT: Who is this?

FRANCIS: I am an emissary.

GENERAL: With news from the king of Rome?

FRANCIS: From the King of the Universe.

GENERAL: Is there to be peace, then?

FRANCIS: The greatest peace of all, I pray.

GENERAL: Stop the riddles! Is it yes or no?

AL-KAMIL: It's neither.

He isn't sent by their leader.

Isn't that right?

FRANCIS: No, I come for Christ. I come to preach.

I come for peace.

LIEUTENANT: It's an insult.

If this is their answer, we should kill him.

[murmur]

♪

AL-KAMIL: Come. Sit with me.

Bring them some food.

♪

WARREN: I think that Francis must have been surprised

at what he experienced among the Muslim people,

because the popular notion was that Muslims were heathens.

They were considered the enemy, of course,

and more strongly, they were considered beasts.

CUSATO: After this encounter in the tent of the sultan,

Francis and Illuminato were pretty much given free rein

to walk and to be and to live in the camp for a few weeks.

ZIAD: These two were indeed seeking peace

in the midst of war,

so they were open to being transformed

by the person who was allegedly their enemy.

NARRATOR: One account says that Francis offered

to walk through fire to prove the truth of the Gospel.

The sultan declined the demonstration

but said that Francis could address his court.

[reciting prayer]

CUSATO: Francis would have heard the call to prayer

five times a day.

I believe, in watching Muslims pray, men and women,

five times daily,

that it really struck Francis unexpectedly.

I don't think he was expecting to see this, to know this,

but I think it profoundly moved him.

[reciting prayer]

MAN: "In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate,

glory be to God, the Lord of the Worlds,

the merciful and compassionate king of the day of judgment.

It is you alone we worship.

It is you alone we ask for help."

♪

FRANCIS: Give us this day our daily bread

and forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

BRUNEAU: You can directly challenge

this perception of dehumanization

by showing someone an example of a member of the other group

who's particularly human, right,

who displays these very characteristics

that you define humanity by.

It makes sense from a, from a neuroscience perspective

why this would be so transformative.

If you eliminate that distinction between us and them,

processes that would normally be there to drive conflict

are now all taken off line wholesale.

♪

CUSATO: Francis, I believe, came to the insight,

by watching Muslim men and women pray,

that prayer is of the essence for the creature,

that if you are a creature, what you do is pray.

FRANCIS: Faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

NARRATOR: Al-Kamil fulfills his promise.

Francis addresses the sultan's court.

FRANCIS: To be understood...

CALABRIA: There is before him a man who makes no demands,

who makes no threats,

who does not insult his religion,

and probably is simply preaching.

MOURAD: Al-Kamil might ask a theologian

or a scholar in his court

to be a respondent.

That was part of classical Islamic court life

and court manners.

♪

WARREN: The respect they had for each other

spoke volumes to Francis,

that this indeed was not an enemy,

this was not a beast,

but this truly was a brother.

♪

FRANCIS: I believe, we believe.

The sultan welcomed us to his camp.

PELAGIUS: I am so pleased that my prayers were answered

and that God protected you from these wretched infidels.

It is indeed a miracle.

But I have even greater news to report.

Reinforcements will be arriving in the morning.

And our spies tell us that sickness and starvation

have set in behind the city walls.

It won't be long now.

CALABRIA: If you give up the rhetoric of hate,

then why continue a war?

And the point was that the Church at the time

had a vested interest in keeping the war going.

They wanted Jerusalem, they wanted Egypt.

That much was apparent.

NARRATOR: Pelagius rejects al-Kamil's peace offer.

The war will go on until Egypt is theirs.

♪

GENERAL: Sire, they launched another assault on Damietta.

♪

Sire!

AL-KAMIL: Assemble the men.

I'll lead them.

MOSES: The Crusaders keep besieging Damietta,

attacking, being repulsed, it's a stalemate.

But little by little, the siege of Damietta

is taking its toll on the people inside.

[men yelling]

[weapons clashing]

[fire crackling]

[bird squawking]

OLIVER: How long since they've been at the ramparts?

SOLDIER: Three days.

♪

OLIVER: Alert Cardinal Pelagius.

MOSES: There were 80,000 people at the start of this war,

and almost all of them die from disease and starvation,

and so, in the end,

a party of Christian troops, Crusader troops, goes,

and they just kind of go up and enter the city.

[door creaking]

[flies buzzing]

[coughing]

♪

NARRATOR: With the capture of Damietta,

the Crusader army marches on Cairo.

♪

Al-Kamil must retreat.

The panicked population flees the countryside.

AL-KAMIL: Ugh!

NARRATOR: All is lost.

♪

[dog barking]

NARRATOR: Ill and dispirited, Francis has returned to Assisi.

MOSES: It's really a low point in his life.

First of all, he's ill.

Secondly, he's learned that his order

has gone in directions that he disagrees with.

CUSATO: All of the sudden in his writings,

there is this universal vision

of men and women all called into the praise of God.

I think that it is profoundly rooted

in what he observed first in Damietta

among Muslim men and women,

and then this insight gets translated

into his own writing to all Christian men and women.

He writes a letter, which we call

"The Letter to All the Faithful,"

in which he urges every man and woman in the world to pray.

WARREN: In another letter, he writes,

"Perhaps a herald could go through the town

announcing time for prayer."

MOSES: He says that you must make Christians stop every day

and pray together wherever they are.

The biggest indication that Francis was changed

by his encounter with Sultan al-Kamil

is that he rewrote the rule of his order,

its code of conduct, its constitution, really,

to say to his friars

that you can go and live in peace among Muslims.

♪

CALABRIA: You could not have a saintly figure

who is willing to see the goodness in non-Christians.

PELAGIUS: Guard!

NARRATOR: Pelagius is within a few days' march of Cairo.

His only thought now is to defeat al-Kamil

and take Egypt.

♪

[draws blade]

[stab]

♪

[squish]

[horse whinnying]

[water rushing]

[horse whinnying, commotion]

NICHOLSON: The Crusaders thought that they got it made,

they were marching towards Cairo.

What could stop them now?

[horse whinnying]

[commotion]

♪

[horses whinnying]

♪

The answer is the Nile.

AL-KAMIL: Ugh!

[breathing heavily]

♪

The Nile is rising.

And they've made camp here on the floodplain.

MOSES: The Crusader army does penetrate deeper into Egypt

but doesn't know the terrain, doesn't understand

these networks of canals that they have

and this river, this ancient river,

which can be raised and lowered.

♪

NICHOLSON: Al-Kamil ordered the sluice gates open

and he flooded the country.

MOSES: They go to sleep one night

and are ready for battle,

and the next day they're flooded,

they're in mud up to their waists.

OLIVER: Your Holiness...

we are defeated.

♪

[men laughing]

LIEUTENANT: This is it.

They've left us no choice, and you know it.

MOURAD: All the generals told him

let's go for the kill.

♪

♪

CUSATO: The encounter of Francis with the sultan Malik al-Kamil

is probably best portrayed as an encounter of faith.

It was a faith exchange.

It wasn't so much an intellectual debate,

but it was an exchange of two men of faith

testifying to how God has led them

to this point in their lives.

And each seemed, according to the testimonies,

okay to listen to the other's perspective

and allow God to be God in the lives of both of them.

♪

[men coughing]

NICHOLSON: Surrounded by the floodwaters,

they must have been going down like flies with plague

and all the problems that you have when you're,

got a large army camped out on flooded ground.

MOSES: They can't fight. They're surrounded.

The Muslim army could kill them all at will.

MOURAD: He realized that the Crusaders

are now in a very dire situation,

they have starvations in their camp.

They are surrounded by mud. They can't escape.

So he orders 50,000 loaves of bread

sent to them every day

and 1,100 bushels of barley for their animals.

♪

[commotion]

MAN: Bread! Everyone!

♪

MAN: Bless you.

MAN: Oh, thank God.

♪

OLIVER OF PADERBORN: The sultan was moved by such compassion

that for many days he freely fed us as we were dying of hunger.

Who can doubt that such kindness, mildness, and mercy

proceeded from God?

♪

CUSATO: Francis wants, once again, to write.

He writes what we call "The Praises of God."

He names the attributes of God that he's giving praise for.

And he says things like, "You are mercy.

You are forgiveness. You are compassion."

CALABRIA: What's remarkable about that

is that it's the very way that Muslims invoke

the 99 Beautiful Names of God.

ZIAD: The 99 Names of God are attributes of God.

For example, the merciful, the compassionate,

are the qualities embodied by God,

are the ways in which God interacts with creation,

and Muslims recite and meditate upon these divine names

as a means of self-transformation.

[man coughing]

NARRATOR: The Crusaders surrender control of Damietta

and return to Europe.

♪

Pelagius's dream of conquering Egypt was over.

A few years later he lost another war

against a Christian king

who refused to send troops to the Crusade.

Shortly after that final defeat, Pelagius died.

Oliver of Paderborn returned to Germany,

never again taking up the trade of war.

John of Brienne gave his wealth to the Franciscan Order.

He was buried wearing the simple robes of a friar.

Al-Kamil's act of humanity marked the beginning of the end

of the terrible period of conflict known as the Crusades.

NICHOLSON: People are less anxious

to sign up for crusading.

They were no longer convinced

that Islam was the implacable enemy of Christendom.

Another reason being the emphasis

on the God that Christ preached,

the loving God, the God who forgives,

becomes much more important.

FRANCIS: You are love.

You are charity.

You are our hope.

♪

NARRATOR: Francis died seven years after Damietta.

Two years later, the Church declared him a saint.

♪

AL-KAMIL: Loving.

Guide to the right path.

The all-forgiving.

The merciful.

The compassionate.

NARRATOR: Al-Kamil ruled for 20 more years.

His reign was marked by fairness towards the Christians of Egypt.

He buried his mother in the mausoleum

of a famous Muslim scholar he studied as a boy.

Bloodshed and war didn't end

with the Sultan and Saint Francis.

Angry dehumanizing words spark violence today as before.

Transcending differences.

The road to peace runs through the common humanity

that we all share.