Talking about the parallels, at the time of Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi, there was a lot of political division.

The Muslim ummah was divided, the Khalifah in Baghdad, was almost like a figurehead.

Each area had its own independent state.
Not only that, Egypt was ruled by the Fatimid state.

And the Crusaders, had come and occupied Palestine. And you wonder, how could this have happened?

It’s because the Muslims were divided. How could the crusader states stay, amongst all the Arab states, when Europe was so far away?

It’s because these states started to trade with the Crusaders.

Just like Jordan does today, just like Turkey does today, just like Egypt does today.

If these Arab states stop trading [with the Zionist entity], it would not be allowed to function. The reason it is allowed to function is because of the treacherous Arab rulers.

The same thing was going on then… So people talk about political division, we have that today, they had it then.

People are talking about [the fact that] the ‘aqeedah is not right – well the ‘aqeedah in the whole of Egypt was wrong.

So if you’re talking about ‘aqeedah problems, yes, they had one – a big one!

So we had political division, ‘aqeedah problems, Muslims who were not adhering to Islam as they should. People were making bid’ah, and people were not adhering to the practises of the prophet (s.a.w).

All the problems they had then, we have today.

So what did Salahuddin do?
Go and fix everybody’s ‘aqeedah?
Go and fix everybody’s adherence to Islam?
Make sure everybody is praying Fajr in the masjid?
Did he just make Du’a? What did he do?

The Fatimids rebelled against Salahuddin and his uncle, so they fought against them, and it was just conflict.

But they managed to settle the [region], and then, what happened after that, is, Salahuddin fought a lot of battles in that area – he went to Gaza, he freed Gaza, he went to Aqabah, he freed Aqabah, and the people, they saw this.

People had so much love for Salahuddin – and remember – most of the people [were] extreme Shi’a – look at what Salahuddin did:

Salahuddin fixed the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem was political disunity.

Salahuddin focused on uniting the Muslims, and when he started to liberate Gaza, liberate Aqabah (Aqabah had a place in the heart of the Muslims, because for the Egyptians, that was the route to go and perform Hajj.)

So they had a lot of love for Salahuddin, then Salahuddin opened up Madaaris and then he invited the people – to proper Islam.

One poet wrote, that ‘no two rams locked heads’.
Meaning that when Salahuddin invited these people to become proper Muslims, nobody objected.

En masse, people started to become orthodox Muslims – so by fixing the political problem, Salahuddin fixed their ‘aqeedah, by fixing the political problem, Salahuddin fixed their Islam.

And where we do we find an echo of this? The day after the Prophet s.a.w passed away, and the sahaba met in the thaqifa of Banu Sa’idah and one of the Ansaar said:

“Let there be two Khaleefah’s – one for the Muhaajir, one for the Ansaar”.

And [Abu Bakr] Sideeq r.a stood up and said “Mustafa (s.a.w) never allowed this, if you do not have one leader, and you allow having more than one leader, people will disagree, people will fight one another, people will abandon the sunnah and people will make bid’ah…”

What did Sideeq (r.a) say the cause was? If you do not have single leadership…this will happen.

What did Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi do? He fixed the problem Abu Bakr Sideeq spoke about – political disunity – he fixed the political disunity; he fixed the bid’ah, he fixed the sunnah, he fixed the ‘Aqeedah, he fixed the Islam – and people loved him.