Battle of Hattin
Saladin destroys the Kingdom of Jerusalem's field army at Hattin
View full image ↗ How was this image made?
The creative brief sent to the image model. These are instructions, not a record of what actually happened.
Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗They marched away from plentiful springs on 3 July; by the next day the men could see the Sea of Galilee and could not reach its water.
4 July 1187, at the Horns of Hattin
Saladin's Ayyubid army defeated the field army led by Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, near the Horns of Hattin west of the Sea of Galilee on 4 July 1187.
The Frankish army had left the springs at Saffuriya the previous day to relieve besieged Tiberias. Harassment, a waterless campsite and the heat left it thirsty and disordered before the main fighting began.
Saladin's troops burned dry brush so that smoke and heat compounded the thirst.
The army comes apart
The Frankish infantry and cavalry became separated. Raymond III of Tripoli's vanguard broke through the encirclement and escaped; Guy, the leading nobles and most of the remaining army were killed or captured.
The march was not simply a king taking obvious bait. Abandoning Tiberias risked losing a major fortress and marching risked water deprivation, and recent scholarship explicitly reassesses the older story that Guy was merely foolish or cowardly.
What Saladin took
His forces captured the relic of the True Cross that had served as the kingdom's battle standard.
Guy was spared as a royal prisoner. Raynald of Châtillon — whose caravan raids and truce violations had made him a particular target — was killed with Saladin's participation or on his order, though accounts differ over who delivered the fatal blow.
A contemporary Christian account says virtually every man fit for war had been called out of the kingdom's cities and castles before the army was destroyed.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
What the sources leave uncertain
- The date and outcome are secure, but medieval army totals are estimates. Contemporary Latin and Muslim sources often use rhetorical numbers, so 'about 20,000' should not be presented as an exact headcount.
- Sources disagree about Guy's reasoning and competence. Recent scholarship explicitly reassesses the older story that he was merely foolish or cowardly.
- Accounts differ over Raynald's last moments: Saladin certainly initiated or ordered the killing, but whether he personally beheaded Raynald is not secure.