Ironically, Saladin was not vilified in medieval European propaganda and literature, but instead heroized as the ideal chivalric warrior, a worthy and humane foe who respected the feudal tradition. In the consummate Medieval epic The Inferno, for example, Dante places Saladin in the highest realm of the dead he can, in Limbo at the top of hell, where souls have no light but suffer no punishment either. In this instance, the Crusades seem to have opened Europe's eyes to the nobility of certain non-Christian foreigners at least. This is, no doubt, because after exposure to the highly civilized world of Islam it was impossible for them to maintain the bigoted notion that all Moslems were treacherous infidels. That is, Saladin challenged their narrow world view.

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