Saladin Recaptures Jerusalem

In 1187, Saladin, the Kurdish-born sultan of Egypt and Syria, destroyed a Crusader army at the Battle of Hattin and then took Jerusalem, which Christian forces had held since 1099. The loss of the city shocked Latin Europe and prompted the Third Crusade. It also made Saladin one of the most celebrated figures in Islamic history.

Saladin rose through the service of the Zangid rulers of Syria, whose forces had been fighting the Crusader states for decades. After serving in Egypt, he took power there in the late 1160s and ended the Fatimid caliphate in 1171. Over the following years he gradually brought Damascus, Aleppo, and much of Syria and northern Iraq under his authority, often by diplomacy and force against fellow Muslim rulers. This unification surrounded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was weakened by factional rivalries at court and by the question of royal succession. Truces between the two sides were repeatedly broken, notably by raids from Reynald of Châtillon, a lord who attacked caravans and threatened Muslim pilgrim routes.

In the summer of 1187, Saladin invaded the kingdom and besieged Tiberias. King Guy of Lusignan led the Crusader field army out to relieve it, marching across a dry, hot landscape with little water. On 4 July, near the twin hills known as the Horns of Hattin, Saladin's forces surrounded the exhausted army and defeated it. Many knights were killed or captured, and the relic believed to be a piece of the True Cross was lost. Guy was taken prisoner, and Reynald was executed on Saladin's orders. With the kingdom's main army gone, its towns and castles fell quickly.

Saladin's forces reached Jerusalem in late September and besieged it. The defenders, led by Balian of Ibelin, had few trained soldiers, and the city surrendered in early October. In contrast to the massacre that accompanied the Crusader capture in 1099, the surrender was negotiated and largely peaceful. Residents could buy their freedom with a ransom, though many poorer inhabitants could not afford it and were enslaved or remained captive. Accounts differ on the precise terms and how they were applied. Saladin restored Muslim worship at the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, which the Crusaders had converted for Christian use.

The news prompted Pope Gregory VIII to call for a new crusade, and kings Richard I of England and Philip II of France, along with Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, took the cross. Frederick drowned en route, and the campaign that followed retook Acre and other coastal cities but not Jerusalem. In 1192, Richard and Saladin agreed to a truce that left Jerusalem in Muslim hands while allowing Christian pilgrims access. Saladin died in 1193. Jerusalem would change hands again in the following decades, but his reputation for both military skill and restraint endured in Muslim and European memory alike.