The Dawson Ledger
Event

Battle of Hattin (1187 CE)

Destruction of the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem; followed by Saladin retaking Jerusalem.

Islamic

Event Details

  • Date: 3-4 July 1187
  • Type: battle
  • Civilizations: islamic, western-atlantic

Description

Destruction of the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem; followed by Saladin retaking Jerusalem.

Quantitative facts and their sourcing

  • Dates 3-4 July 1187; outcome: Ayyubid victory.
  • Wikipedia-compiled (stub): Crusader army 18,000-20,000; Ayyubid army 20,000-40,000; Crusader losses "most of the army"; Ayyubid losses light.
  • PRIMARY-SOURCE (read 2026-10-12): Baha al-Din (Conder/Wilson transl. 1897) pp. 110-115: Saladin marched on 17 Rabi II 583 (Conder: June 26, 1187); took Tiberias on Wednesday the 21st; the armies met on the hill west of Tiberias on Thursday the 22nd and fought on Friday the 23rd (Conder gives July 2, 1187 for the Friday); Raymond of Tripoli fled early; Franks who climbed Hattin hill were surrounded with fires and surrendered; captives included the King, his brother and Renaud de Chatillon; an informant saw one soldier leading "more than thirty prisoners, tied together with a tent cord". No army totals given in the passage read.

Confidence

low-medium (strengths vary widely). Numbers marked "Wikipedia-compiled (stub)" come from a secondary aggregator and must be upgraded to page-level scholarly citations before any Official use.

Citations

  • conder-baha-al-din-1897-ia [PRIMARY-READ] Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad, C. R. Conder (ed.) (1897). Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad, The Life of Saladin, transl. C. W. Wilson and C. R. Conder (Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1897); archive.org scan, read. Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society (scan: Internet Archive). https://archive.org/details/lifesaladin00condgoog. Read 2026-10-12; location: pp. 110-115 ("Account of the battle of Hattin").
  • tyerman2006-gods-war [formal] Christopher Tyerman (2006). God's War: A New History of the Crusades. Harvard University Press / Belknap. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL619226W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).
  • wp-battle-of-hattin [STUB (secondary aggregator)] Wikipedia contributors (2026). Battle of Hattin (Wikipedia; secondary aggregator, stub-grade). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hattin. Verified 2026-10-11 (resolves).

Review status

SOFT draft. Not Official. Needs editor review of CAD tags (estimated) and page-level citation upgrade.

About this entry

A draft entry preserved from civilization.study. Evidence grade: low. 2 of 3 listed sources are fully documented; the rest are names only. Method and sources

Conflict card

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battle · 3-4 July 1187

Battle of Hattin (1187 CE)

Destruction of the field army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem; followed by Saladin retaking Jerusalem.

Evidence: Primary text read Draft estimate

What the record says

  • Note Dates 3-4 July 1187; outcome: Ayyubid victory.
  • Unverified (Wikipedia-compiled) Wikipedia-compiled (stub): Crusader army 18,000-20,000; Ayyubid army 20,000-40,000; Crusader losses "most of the army"; Ayyubid losses light.
  • Primary text PRIMARY-SOURCE (read 2026-10-12): Baha al-Din (Conder/Wilson transl. 1897) pp. 110-115: Saladin marched on 17 Rabi II 583 (Conder: June 26, 1187); took Tiberias on Wednesday the 21st; the armies met on the hill west of Tiberias on Thursday the 22nd and fought on Friday the 23rd (Conder gives July 2, 1187 for the Friday); Raymond of Tripoli fled early; Franks who climbed Hattin hill were surrounded with fires and surrendered; captives included the King, his brother and Renaud de Chatillon; an informant saw one soldier leading "more than thirty prisoners, tied together with a tent cord". No army totals given in the passage read.

Confidence. low-medium (strengths vary widely).

Where it sits

Sources and evidence

No page-level citation is claimed for any source. Figures marked unverified come from a Wikipedia aggregator and are not for Official use.

Link to this conflict

Art: Patterns of Civilization chronicle art, made with AI: illustrations, not historical evidence. Entries are drafts preserved from civilization.study. Method and sources.