The Third Crusade. Saladin and the Muslims against Richard the Lionheart and the Christians. Perhaps the most famous Crusade simply due to the massive personalities that were involved. Beginning at the Battle of Hattin, Saladin worked to reclaim the Levant for Islam. He took Jerusalem back after it had been in Christian hands for almost one hundred years since it had been taken as a result of the First Crusade. Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa would "take the cross" and work to travel to the Holy Land to take it back.