The situation in 1187
For several decades the crusader states along the eastern Mediterranean had survived partly because their Muslim neighbors were divided. That changed as Saladin built a larger realm that joined Egypt with much of Syria. He came to command resources the Latin states could not match, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a small and exposed realm with limited manpower, faced a hard choice between defensive caution and risky action.
Politics at the royal court made things worse. Guy of Lusignan had become king through his marriage to Sibylla, the heir, and several powerful nobles disliked him. Raymond III of Tripoli, a leading baron, had been in conflict with him. Reynald of Chatillon, lord of lands east of the Jordan, had broken a truce by attacking Muslim caravans, which Saladin treated as grounds for war. By the spring of 1187 a truce had collapsed, and Saladin gathered a large army.
The march to Hattin
Saladin besieged Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, where Raymond’s wife was inside the citadel. The crusader leaders met at a camp near Saffuriya, where a good water supply was available. According to the chroniclers, they argued over whether to march to relieve Tiberias. Some, including Raymond, reportedly advised waiting, since moving across dry country in summer exposed the army to attack; others pressed for action. King Guy ordered the advance.
On July 3, the army set out in great heat with Muslim light cavalry harassing it. Archers wounded horses and slowed the column. By evening the crusaders stopped near two hills known as the Horns of Hattin, short of water. During the night, the Muslim army surrounded the camp. Accounts add that the dry grass was set on fire the next morning, blowing smoke toward the men, and the effect on thirsty soldiers must have been severe.
July 4
On the morning of July 4, 1187, the crusader infantry broke and retreated toward the hills, and the knights were unable to protect them. Cavalry charges failed to break through, and some leaders escaped, among them Raymond of Tripoli. Most of the army was killed or captured. The relic of the True Cross, carried with the army, was seized, which many Christians saw as a spiritual blow as well as a military one.
Prisoners of high rank were brought to Saladin’s tent. Guy was spared, while Reynald of Chatillon was executed, by tradition after a harsh exchange. Saladin had also sworn to punish the members of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller, military orders that he regarded as especially dangerous. Surviving brothers of those orders were reportedly executed, while many other captives were sold into slavery or ransomed. Specific numbers in chronicles are not dependable, but the army was clearly destroyed, and the realm had few trained fighters left to garrison its towns.
The loss of Jerusalem
Once the field army was gone, castles and towns fell in quick succession. Acre, Jaffa, Sidon and Beirut were among the places taken within weeks or months. Tyre, helped by the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat, held out and became a base for the Christian recovery.
Saladin then turned to Jerusalem. The city was crowded with refugees and had few real soldiers. Balian of Ibelin, who had escaped from Hattin, was in command. After a short siege, he negotiated terms, and the city surrendered on October 2, 1187. According to accounts, residents were allowed to buy their freedom by paying set ransoms, with different sums for men, women and children, though many poor people could not pay and were enslaved. This was a major contrast to the bloodshed when Christians had taken the city in 1099, and Muslim and Christian writers noted it. The reputation of Sultan Saladin for restraint, which later fed his legend, rests partly on these terms. Even so, ransom practices in the city were harsh, and historians do not describe the event as gentle.
Most of the city’s Christian churches were restored to Muslim use or converted, and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque were cleansed of Christian additions. Eastern Christian communities were generally allowed to remain.
The response in Europe
The news was received with horror. The pope at the time called for a new crusade, and kings in the West took the cross. The result was the Third Crusade, in which Frederick Barbarossa died on the road, and Richard the Lionheart and Philip II of France arrived to take part. It recovered some coastal cities, notably Acre, but not Jerusalem. A treaty of 1192 left the city in Muslim hands while allowing Christian pilgrims access. The kingdom survived as a coastal state centered on Acre for another century.
Why it matters, and the caution to keep
Hattin shows how a state with a small field army could be undone by a single disastrous decision. Still, it is wise to avoid a one-cause story. Historians point to Saladin’s growing power, rivalry among Latin nobles, the shortage of troops and the poor choice of ground, and they debate how much weight each deserves. The tale of the arguing barons is itself drawn from sources written after the defeat, partly in search of someone to blame.
The battle also became a symbol. For later Muslim writers it stood for the recovery of Jerusalem, and for Western writers it became an enduring warning about pride and discord. The reality was less tidy, but the result was lasting: Jerusalem stayed under Muslim rule for most of the following centuries, apart from a brief period between 1229 and 1244.