country county of jaffa and ascalon
___MASK7___ , is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea . One of the oldest cities in the ___MASK20___ , ___MASK7___ was named as "" Urusalima "" on ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets , probably meaning " City of Shalem " after a Canaanite deity , during the early Canaanite period ( approximately 2400 BCE ). During the Israelite period , significant construction activity in ___MASK7___ began in the 9th century BCE ( Iron Age II ), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of ___MASK59___ . It is considered a holy city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism , Christianity and Islam . An - Nasir Salah ad - Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (/ ALA - LC : " al ad - Dn Ysuf ibn Ayyb "; / ALC - LC : " Selahedînê Eyûbî "), known as Saladin ( 1137  4 March 1193 ), was the first sultan of ___MASK17___ and ___MASK13___ and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty . A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin , Saladin led the Muslim military campaign against the Crusader states in the Levant . At the height of his power , his sultanate included ___MASK17___ , ___MASK13___ , Upper Mesopotamia , the Hejaz , Yemen and other parts of North Africa . Yavne , historically also known as Jabneh or Jamnia , is a city in the Central District of ___MASK73___ . In it had a population of . The Southern Levant is a geographical region encompassing the southern half of the Levant . It corresponds approximately to modern - day ___MASK73___ , ___MASK19___ , and Jordan ; some definitions also include southern Lebanon , southern Syria and / or the Sinai Peninsula . As a strictly geographical description , it is sometimes used by archaeologists and historians to avoid the religious and political connotations of other names for the area . The Third Crusade ( 1189  1192 ), also known as The Kings ' Crusade , was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin ( al ad - Dn Ysuf ibn Ayyb ). The campaign was largely successful , capturing the important cities of Acre and Jaffa , and reversing most of Saladin ' s conquests , but it failed to capture ___MASK7___ , the emotional and spiritual motivation of the Crusade . The First Crusade ( 1095  1099 ) was the first of a number of crusades that attempted to capture the Holy Land , called by Pope Urban II in 1095 . It started as a widespread pilgrimage in western Christendom and ended as a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Land taken in the Muslim conquests of the Levant ( 632  661 ), ultimately resulting in the capture of ___MASK7___ in 1099 . The Latin ___MASK72___ was a crusader state established in the Southern Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade . The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years , from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession , Acre , was destroyed by the Mamluks , but its history is divided into two distinct periods . The sometimes so - called First ___MASK72___ lasted from 1099 to 1187 , when it was almost entirely overrun by Saladin . After the subsequent Third Crusade , the kingdom was re - established in Acre in 1192 , and lasted until that city ' s destruction in 1291 . This second kingdom is sometimes called the Second ___MASK72___ or the Kingdom of Acre , after its new capital . The double County of Jaffa and Ascalon was one of the four major seigneuries comprising the major crusader state , the ___MASK72___ , according to 13th - century commentator John of Ibelin . Ibelin was a castle in the Crusader ___MASK72___ in the 12th century ( at modern Yavne ), which gave its name to an important family of nobles .