Siege of Jerusalem

After Hattin destroyed the field army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in July 1187, its fortresses and ports fell to Saladin through the summer with little resistance: Acre, Ascalon, and most of the coast were in Ayyubid hands by September. Jerusalem itself filled with refugees and was defended by almost no knights. Balian of Ibelin, one of the few senior barons not killed or captured at Hattin, had been allowed by Saladin to enter the city to evacuate his family; once inside he was pressed by the inhabitants to take charge of the defense, and Saladin released him from his oath to stay only one day.

The siege began on 20 September 1187. After initial assaults against the western walls made no progress, Saladin shifted his camp to the north and his engineers brought down a section of wall near the point where the army of the First Crusade had broken in eighty-eight years earlier. With a storming of the city imminent, Balian came to terms. He is reported to have warned that, if denied terms, the defenders would destroy the Muslim holy places and kill their own families before dying in a final sortie.

The capitulation, concluded on 2 October, set ransoms of ten dinars for a man, five for a woman, and one for a child; Balian and the city's treasuries bought out thousands of the poor, and Saladin and his brother al-Adil freed many more, though a substantial number who could not pay went into slavery. There was no massacre, a restraint contemporaries on both sides contrasted with the bloodshed of 1099. The Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa were restored to Muslim worship, while native Christians were permitted to remain. The loss of the city set off the call for the Third Crusade in the West.