He religiously opposed Saladin (8)
I believe the answer is:
crusader
'he religiously opposed saladin' is the definition.
The answer is a person as well as being a singular noun. This is suggested by the definition.
'he' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'he' could be 'der' and 'der' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for crusader that I've seen before include "Warrior in a holy war" , "Medieval expeditionary" , "What Simon de Montfort became" , "An old soldier" , "religious warrior" .)