Saladin Takes Jerusalem
By 1187, Saladin — Yusuf ibn Ayyub, sultan of Egypt and Syria — had united the Muslim Near East under Ayyubid rule and was ready to challenge the Crusader states. The trigger for open war was the violation of a truce by the reckless Crusader lord Raynald of Chatillon, who attacked a Muslim caravan. Saladin declared jihad. The Crusaders, under the weak leadership of King Guy of Lusignan, debated whether to engage Saladin in open field. The aggressive faction prevailed, with fatal consequences. On 3 July 1187, the Crusader army — perhaps 20,000 men including the flower of the kingdom's knights — left their water supply at Sephoria to relieve the besieged town of Tiberias on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Saladin had prepared a trap. His cavalry harassed the column relentlessly, lighting brushfires to intensify the summer heat. By nightfall the Crusaders had not reached water and were forced to camp on the arid plateau near the Horns of Hattin. The following morning, dehydrated and demoralised, they were surrounded and annihilated. Guy of Lusignan was captured. Raynald of Chatillon was personally executed by Saladin. The True Cross, the holiest relic of the Crusader states, was taken. With the field army destroyed, the Crusader cities fell one by one. Jerusalem was surrounded in late September. After a brief resistance, Balian of Ibelin negotiated a surrender on 2 October 1187. Saladin's terms were notable for their restraint: Christians were ransomed rather than massacred. Saladin personally helped some poor Christians pay their ransom. The contrast with the events of 1099 was not lost on contemporaries. Muslim chroniclers celebrated their sultan's clemency; Latin chroniclers were stunned by the loss of the holiest city in Christendom. The fall of Jerusalem sent shockwaves through Europe. Pope Gregory VIII issued the papal bull Audita tremendi, attributing the disaster to Christian sins and calling for a new crusade. Three great monarchs — Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, Philip II of France, and Richard I of England — took the cross. The resulting Third Crusade would be the largest and best-organised crusading effort, yet it would fail to retake Jerusalem, demonstrating how completely Saladin had changed the strategic balance of the Holy Land.
- Year: 1187 CE
- Category: Military
