ABSTRACT
The Muslims had thieves who would enter the enemy’s tents, steal from them, even taking individuals, and then make their way back. It came about that one night they took an unweaned infant three months old. They brought it to the sultan’s tent and offered it to him. Everything they took they used to offer him and he would reward and recompense them. When the mother missed the child she spent the whole duration of the night pleading for help with loud lamentations. Her case came to the notice of their [the Franks’] princes, who said to her, ‘He [Saladin] has a merciful heart. We give you permission to go to him. Go and ask him for the child and he will restore it to you.’ So she went to ask the Muslim advance guard for assistance, telling them of her troubles through a dragoman who translated for her. They did not detain her but sent her to the sultan. She came to him when he was riding on Tell al-Kharruba with me and with a great crowd attending upon him. She wept copious tears and besmirched her face with soil. After he had asked about her case and it had been explained, he had compassion for her, and with tears in his eyes, he ordered the infant to be brought to him. People went and found that it had been sold in the market. The sultan ordered the purchase price to be paid to the purchaser and the child taken from him. He himself stayed where he had halted until the infant was produced and then handed it over to the woman who took it, wept mightily, and hugged it to her bosom, while people watched her and wept also. I was standing there among the gathering. She suckled the child for a while and then, on the
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