Once There was Cosmopolitanism: Enchanted Pasts As Global History in the Contemporary Novel‪.‬

Scene One Smoke whirls rise mingling with the exhausted breath of armies at battle's close. The valorous Balian of Ibelin has just ceded Jerusalem (October 1187) to the mighty emperor, the righteous Sultan Yusuf Salah al-Din Ayyub (commonly known as Saladin), at a famous close of the third crusade that wrought an uneasy peace (the Treaty of Ramala) between bitter enemies. As the stately Salah al-Din strides into the abandoned city; as the marble crescent is hoisted above the walls to signal the return of the Muslims to their Holy Land; as the historically-reputed tolerant and cosmopolitan victor purposively picks up a fallen gold cross, his feet (shot in closeup) marking territory, but with respect for all; as the orchestral score rises to underline a new day; and as his minions follow scattering rose petals, bright reds against the grayish blue pall of battle, Ridley Scott's controversial Kingdom of Heaven draws to its close. The bell tolls; Salah al-Din (played by the intensely regal Ghassan Massaud) kneels to pray. By this time, we are exhausted by Balian's exertions but relieved peace has come to the Holy Land for we live in times when news from those parts only comes in the form of bombs, missiles, artilleries, embargoes, walls, permits, unsettlement, and stones. Lost in the historical spectacular, we are willing to be transported to that fragile moment--lasting momentarily, but now enshrined in beautifully crafted audiovision.