Kingdom of Jerusalem
Saladin’s post-Hattin conquest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Four days after Hattin, Saladin was already outside Acre's walls — and Acre surrendered.
July 1187: the field army is gone
After destroying the kingdom's field army at Hattin on 4 July 1187, Saladin rapidly divided his forces to occupy its inadequately defended cities and fortresses.
He reached Acre four days after the battle, and Acre surrendered. Separate detachments took Nazareth, Haifa, Caesarea, Nablus and other places.
The dispersed garrisons had no realistic relief force; most of the kingdom's mobile army had been killed or captured.
South to Ascalon
Al-Adil advanced from Egypt and captured Mirabel (Majdal Yaba) and Jaffa. Mirabel was not immediately demolished.
Saladin began besieging Ascalon on 23 August; it surrendered on 5 September.
His men then occupied Gaza, Bayt Jibrin and Latrun without resistance.
What was still standing in September
By September Saladin controlled the major ports from Ascalon north to Jubayl, except Tyre. That reopened the land connection between Egypt and Palestine and allowed an Egyptian fleet to operate between Alexandria and Acre.
Tyre, Jerusalem, Kerak, Montréal, Safed, Belvoir and a few other strongholds still resisted. Tyre did not fall in this campaign; Conrad of Montferrat organised the resistance that kept it out of Saladin's hands.
Jerusalem was besieged next, from 20 September, and surrendered on 2 October.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →
What the sources leave uncertain
- The entry describes a campaign lasting from July into September, not a single event on one day.
- The exact surrender dates of some smaller fortresses are poorly recorded, and conversions from Islamic dates can vary by a day.
- A frequently repeated total of about 50 or 52 captured places is source-dependent. Bahāʾ al-Dīn’s much longer list includes conquests through 1191, so it cannot safely substantiate '50 castles by mid-September.'
Checked against
- Internet Medieval Sourcebook: Salah al-Din and the Crusaders
- Bahāʾ al-Dīn Ibn Shaddād, The Life of Saladin
- De Expugatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum
- Stanley Lane-Poole, Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
- Denys Pringle, Secular Buildings in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem
- Review of The Leper King and His Heirs