Re-reading Canto IV of Dante's Inferno, he encounters a few former denizens of the Orient such as the philosophers Averroes and Avecinna, who by the virtue of their achievements in the field of human reason were granted a place in the citadel that stands in the first circle of Hell aka the Limbo. Being heathen and the unsaved, Heaven was, of course, out of question for these classical "others". Somewhat mitigating such "orientalistic" readings that may come up in his mind, John Cicardi, the translator, clarifies Dante's intentions by writing this in his endnotes:

"In other words, these shades represent the condition of the spirit that lacks faith; the failure of such a spirit is the failure to imagine better."

It is "the Saladin", however, whom Dante mentions in passing, almost as an afterthought towards the end of the Canto ("and, by himself apart, the Saladin."), who always makes him pause for a long moment as a shiver of recognized loneliness traverses the length of his body. And, by himself apart, the Saladin.