I thought the movie was fairly accurate on the character of Saladin. He warred on Jerusalem for reasons very similar to those in the film: to stop the slaughtering of Muslim pilgrims. In fact, he did not even seek revenge since he sent messengers 5 times (all slaughtered by the Crusaders of course) to ask for peace (even after his sister is raped and murdered). The part they got it wrong is that Saladin simply marched into the city with little causalities and willingly offered free passage or stay for all Christians and Jews and not forced into it by some boy who probably never existed. In fact, it was years later that Saladin was forced to negotiate a truce with King Richard (a Crusader who was actually respected by the Muslims) so that Christian pilgrims from the West were allowed to visit Jerusalem