The Shield of Al-Aqsa

Tikrit, 1137. A family flees in the night, and a son is born on the road.

No one celebrated the birth of Yusuf ibn Ayyub. His family had lost their home, their rank and their future in a single night, and the boy came into the world as they rode into exile.

He grew up in the shadow of greater men. There was his patient father, Ayyub, and his fierce uncle, Shirkuh. Above them all stood Nur ad-Din Zangi, the just ruler who meant to unite a divided Muslim world and free Jerusalem from the Crusaders. From the walls of Damascus, the boy watched the greatest Frankish army of his age break itself in four days. In its markets and courts, he learned that justice must reach the strong as well as the weak.

Then a desperate exile arrived from Egypt, and the young man was ordered onto a road he never wished to take.

History would remember him as Salahuddin.

The first volume of a historical manga epic about faith, justice and the long road to al-Aqsa, drawn from the chronicles of Ibn Shaddad, Ibn al-Athir and Abu Shama.

Includes a map, timeline, who's who, historical notes separating the sources from what is dramatised, and a glossary. In keeping with Islamic tradition, no Prophet or Companion is depicted.

Part of the Heroes of Islam Manga Series from Munajaat Press.