For one of my honors classes sophomores, we had to watch “Kingdom of Heaven”. I remembered this movie involved Islam and themes relating to this class so I decided to rewatch it, now knowing more information about Islam than I did before. This movie is during the time period of the Crusades. The crusades lasted a long time and encompass a myriad of things but the main goal was to recover Jerusalem from Islamic rule. Kingdom of Heaven was about a group of Christians trying to defend the city from Saladin, who is trying to reclaim the city for Islam and is portrayed as the “bad guy”. They wish to brutalize and make war on the Muslims. It was interesting seeing this portrayal after learning more about Islam and Muslim culture.
The most interesting part of this movie is at the end when it says “nearly a thousand years later, peace in the Holy Land still remains elusive.” In the context of our class, I can see how that could be possibly true. Even today such as in the Hajj, the journey can be very dangerous. Fights over religion break out in the holy land still as well.
